The first Asia Pacific regional counterterrorism exercise involving 872 military personnel from 18 countries has officially started at the International Peace and Security Center (IPSC) in Sentul, West Java.

The participating countries comprising all 10 of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries and their eight partner countries '€” the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, South Korea, India and Russia '€” will discuss and share their best on counterterrorism practices during the event, which runs through Friday.

Of all the participating countries, Indonesia has the largest number of participants with a total of 405 personnel, followed by the US with a total of 32 personnel from the United States Special Operations Command (US SOCOM). Meanwhile, Japan and Russia have come to the event as observers.

Indonesian Military Chief Gen. Moeldoko and US Ambassador to ASEAN David Carden opened the event on Monday, while Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro will close the event on Friday.

Moeldoko said in his opening remarks that terrorist groups had migrated from a traditional to a modern pattern called the phantom cell network. He said that the groups intentionally scattered themselves to make it difficult to identify them, but they basically shared a similar ideology.

'€œHenceforth, we need comprehensive and interactive cooperation to guarantee the security, peace and prosperity of the people,'€ he said. He added that the long-term goal of the exercise was to have a common regional procedure in tackling transnational terrorism.

'€œThis very first meeting, however, is not to achieve that yet. But this will open a way for discussion on how to tackle terrorism among participating countries,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, Carden expressed hope that the event would be a very good way to share best practices and information among participating countries in order to cooperate better and address the problems in the region, including terrorism.

'€œWe are all on the same team. It doesn'€™t matter what uniform we are wearing, it doesn'€™t matter whether we are even wearing a uniform, we are faced with food security, water security and counterterrorism issues'€ he said.

The exercise, which is the first joint multinational counter-terrorism exercise in the world, is part of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) Plus, in which Indonesia and the US have been appointed co-chairs for the counter-terrorism working group, while Australia and Singapore will be the next co-chairs.

The event will consist of three major programs, a table top exercise where participants will work on several case studies; a practical exercise where participants will share their best practices on antiterror operations; and a full mission profile where antiterror units of the Indonesian Army (TNI AD), the Navy (TNI AL), and the Air Force (TNI AU) will demonstrate a full antiterror operation at the closing ceremony.

TNI will show its ability in a simulation of an antiterror operation involving 100 military personnel from the antiterror units from 10 of the participating countries and 60 military personnel from Army'€™s antiterror unit (Sat-81), Navy'€™s antiterror unit (Denjaka) and Air Force'€™s antiterror unit (Denbravo). During the demonstration, the military will use its own primary defense equipment, including helicopters (Bell, Puma and MI-17), sea riders, and a robot detector. (koi)

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