{"id":30222,"date":"2023-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=30222"},"modified":"2023-10-06T06:43:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T06:43:06","slug":"iowa-guard-kosovo-partners-train-in-hazmat-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=30222","title":{"rendered":"Iowa Guard, Kosovo Partners Train in HAZMAT Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Members of the Kosovo Security Force Hazardous Materials Company discover clues that lead to a planted, homemade explosive device in a training scenario in Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 21, 2023. The KSF worked with the 71st Civil Support Team, Iowa National Guard \u2014 their partners in the Department of Defense National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Rachel I. White)
\n (Photo Credit: Sgt. Rachel White; Sgt. Rachel White)<\/span>
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DES MOINES, Iowa – The 71st Civil Support Team and two dozen members of the Kosovo Security Force trained together in a hazardous materials exercise in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I could think of was how to find the hazard,\u201d said Sgt. Leutrim Shala, a member of the Kosovo Security Force Hazardous Materials Company.<\/p>\n

Kosovo and the Iowa National Guard have been partners under the Department of Defense National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program since 2011. Their partnership allows military, security and public safety agencies to work together in training scenarios.<\/p>\n

Shala led a group of three KSF members through Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines to find the HAZMAT scenarios planted by the 71st CST, the Defense Threat Agency, and Scott Wendt, the radiation safety officer at Iowa State University\u2019s Health and Safety Department.<\/p>\n

A homemade explosive device was hidden in a locker room, waiting to be assembled on a wooden table. All that was missing was the suspect.<\/p>\n

There were clues to give the KSF members an idea of the type of hazardous materials to be found.<\/p>\n

A second threat was a backpack with enough radiological exposure to be detected by the KSF without endangering anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of blowing it up, sometimes it\u2019s good enough to set a large source somewhere and allow people to be exposed to it,\u201d said 2nd. Lt. James Leaman, the operations officer for the 71st CST. \u201cRadiation sickness would be the symptom following the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exercise completed a week of training.<\/p>\n

The 71st CST works with fire departments, law enforcement, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and other HAZMAT professionals to identify, assess, advise and assist in potentially threatening situations involving chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear substances. Kosovo relies on its KSF HAZMAT team to evaluate conditions and dispose of any substances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main difference between the Kosovo Security Force HAZMAT Company and us,\u201d said Leaman, \u201cis that they don\u2019t have any HAZMAT support. Whereas in Iowa, we have HAZMAT teams all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kosovo aims to expand its fire departments and other organizations to augment the KSF HAZMAT Company.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing that we are getting from this, that can be missed by some people, is that we are learning from them as well,\u201d said Leaman. \u201cThey respond to more things in their [country] than we ever do in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more National Guard news<\/a><\/p>\n

National Guard Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

National Guard Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of the Kosovo Security Force Hazardous Materials Company discover clues that lead to a planted, homemade explosive device in a training scenario in Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 21, 2023. The KSF worked with the 71st Civil Support Team, Iowa National Guard \u2014 their partners in the Department of Defense National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30224,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30225,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30222\/revisions\/30225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}