NSG teams to visit Kenya to study Nairobi terror attack

NEW DELHI: National Security Guard (NSG) may soon be made to send its teams to foreign countries to study terror attacks such as the one in Nairobi's shopping mall last month, in order to understand changing tactics of extremists across the world.

A proposal to send a team to the Kenyan capital to interact with the crack commando team that neutralized the terrorists is already in the works and would be sent to the home ministry, sources privy to the development said. NSG, as of now, has no mandate to engage in such activity and thus will need permission from MHA and then diplomatic engagements through the ministry of external affairs (MEA) to make it happen.

Once the Nairobi trip goes through, such trips to other countries would also be worked out. The idea, sources said, was to learn new terror tactics and operational advancements from commandoes who engaged in the operations. "At the moment, interaction with foreign forces is generally through seminars or training sessions. These rarely have currency and are generally based on second-hand information. Only the commando who engaged in the operation will tell you exactly what happened, what were the challenges and how they were surmounted," said an NSG officer.

Sources said given that terrorists are devising new tactics every day, it is important for NSG to increase operational interaction with other crack teams across the world to share new trends. "The Nairobi attack was very much like 26/11 where we participated. We need to learn how different it was from our operation," said the officer. Apart from this, NSG sources said the force's focus was on constantly upgrading its armour and improving training for operational efficiency.

On the 29th raising day of the force, NSG DG Arvind Ranjan said that the force had started psychological profiling of its personnel to identify their real capabilities and use them accordingly. "We are taking help from defence institutes in this. Sometimes a man with natural affinity to shoot may be put in an administrative job and vice versa. Psychological profiling will identify the natural potential of personnel and help us train and utilize them accordingly. This will improve our operational efficiency," Ranjan said.

The NSG DG also dismissed the clamour for a separate aircraft for forces — demanded after NSG teams were delayed for 26/11 operation for lack of an aircraft — as not feasible and unnecessary. "The maintenance of aircrafts is too cumbersome and one has to keep an entire fleet for emergency operations. When we have all aircrafts in the country at our disposal whenever we need them, why buy our own," Ranjan said.

NSG also unveiled its new acquisitions such as Renault APC-Sherpa, an armoured mobile command vehicle with improvised ladders and platforms. The vehicle would be used in hijack situations and terror attacks.

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