Grunts continue guarding embassies in high-risk locations
Nov. 9, 2014 - 10:39AM |
By Joshua Stewart
Staff writer
Hundreds of infantry Marines continue quietly deploying to some of the world’s diciest cities to bolster security at U.S. Embassies that are vulnerable to violent protests or attacks.
It’s one of the most secretive deployments in the Corps — the dangerous mission that could put grunts face-to-face with violent anti-American organizations. The ongoing deployments were highlighted in October when about 100 members of India Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, returned to Twentynine Palms, California, after spending five months in Yemen providing embassy security. In 2013, about 100 Marines and sailors with Bravo Company, 1/1 — a rifle company out of Camp Pendleton, California — deployed to reinforce the same embassy.
Yemen is one of at least three countries where infantry Marines are boosting embassy security since the deadly 2012 attack on a consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Grunts have also beefed up embassy security in Libya and Iraq.
Marine and State Department officials have remained tight-lipped about the infantry Marines’ mission at embassies. Marine Corps public affairs officers deferred questions to the State Department. State Department officials, however, deferred back to the Marine Corps.
Neither would explain how Marines train for the missions, what type of work they do at embassies, or how the infantry companies live while deployed. And in an unusual move, a Defense Department news release that focused on India Company’s homecoming and included little information on the deployment was deleted from a DoD website after Marine Corps Times submitted a query about their mission.
Before deploying to Yemen in 2013, however, the Marines with 1/1 trained in the use of non-lethal weapons, expeditionary site security, interior guard work, force protection, crowd control, rules of engagement and escalation of force, Capt. A. Hudson Reynolds, a Marine Corps spokesman, said last year.
Dangerous destinations
The locations that have been identified to have infantry Marines are some of the most volatile in the world.
East Coast infantry Marines are regularly assigned to Task Force Tripoli, which provides security at the U.S. Embassy in Libya. In 2013, a reinforced platoon from Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Africa was sent to the U.S. embassy to replace Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team Marines called in from Spain, during the aftermath of the attack in Benghazi. The unit stood post at the embassy in much the way Marines do at bases in Afghanistan, according to its commander at the time, who called the Marines there “an external security force.”
That mission is now handled by Spain-based Marines with SPMAGTF-Crisis Response Africa, which is currently manned by members of 2/2, based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. In July, Marines evacuated the embassy in Tripoli after a violent militia appeared in the city. Most personnel have not returned.
About 150 Marines with the Corps’ newest crisis response force for U.S. Central Command have also been tapped to provide embassy security. Officials with CENTCOM said the Marines are assigned to Iraq to provide additional security for U.S. personnel and facilities, the LA Times reported. One of the Marines with the force, Lance Cpl. Sean P. Neal, a mortarman, died in a noncombat related incident there Oct. 23.
The U.S. Embassy in Yemen regularly sees protests, including demonstrations that sometimes turn disruptive and dangerous. In late September, an al-Qaida splinter group fired a rocket attack at the U.S. Embassy there, and State Department officials warn that Americans traveling or living there might be targeted.
At times, the U.S. Embassy in Yemen is closed unannounced because of violence.
“Terrorists organizations, including al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), continue to be active throughout Yemen,” a warning issued by the State Department in September reads. “The U.S. Government remains highly concerned about possible attacks on U.S. citizens ... and U.S. facilities.”
The infantry Marines, like those with 3/4, are bolstering embassy security as the Corps trains 1,000 new MSGs in the wake of the 2012 attack in Libya. As of September, about 250 new embassy guards have been trained. Until they get to the full strength mandated by Congress, which is expected by 2016, officials have said they’ll continue backfilling security with grunts.
Infantry companies are filling a different role from those that MSGs and FAST play at embassies. MSGs are primarily trained to protect embassies, consulates and other diplomatic posts in order to keep classified information stored there secure. They have their own training program and deployment plans. MSGs serve at three different posts for 12 month apiece.
FAST platoons are forward deployed to one of three locations: Rota, Spain; Manama, Bahrain; or Yokosuka, Japan. They provide a quick response to threats or disasters at naval and U.S. government facilities worldwide, including security in the event of an attack and assistance in evacuations. A team of about 50 Marines from the unit based in Rota deployed to Benghazi after the attack there.
http://archive.militarytimes.com/article/20141109/NEWS/311090017/Grunts-continue-guarding-embassies-high-risk-locations
