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Marine, Moroccan, German military intelligence professionals conduct workshop for African Lion 13

US Marine Corps News

By Sgt. Tatum Vayavananda | Marine Corps Forces Africa | May 02, 2013

AGADIR, Morocco -- U.S. Marine, Moroccan and German intelligence officers strengthened proficiency and interoperability with an Intelligence Capacity Building Workshop during Exercise African Lion 13, April 11-14.

“We are doing this workshop to work with the interoperability and intelligence portion and prepare for the Command Post Exercise that we will support” said Maj. Aaron L. Klein, an intelligence officer assigned to Task Force- African Lion 13.

“It’s a basic intelligence workshop, but it will show them a bit of how we do business,” said the Dallas native.

The ICBW was a four-day workshop that included a discussion on intelligence preparation of the environment (IPOE), systematic approaches to terrain, weather, and cultural considerations of strategic importance. Other topics covered standard terminology and procedures used in intelligence briefs, military grid-reference systems, and a review of maps created for use during the Command Post Exercise (CPX).

“It’s a great opportunity for them to work together and see how everyone does business. There’s excitement to see how Germans and the National Geospatial Association conduct operations and vice-versa,” added Klein, who is also the intelligence officer for 14th Marine Regiment, out of Fort Worth, Texas.

For the first time, German servicemembers from the Federal Republic of Germany's Armed Forces will participate in a geospatial intelligence exercise along with U.S. military professionals from the NGA.

“This enables us to be ‘multi-national’ and I think that is huge because this exercise is going to grow,” said Klein. “The more nations that play in it, the better it will become. We are honored that they are here and I think they are fitting great with the exercise.”

Unlike the U.S., that enables entry-level military intelligence specialist the opportunity to engage in the career field, partner-nation servicemembers do not train in the analysis of intelligence until the brigade officer levels. Lower-level commands have officers training in other specialties with the additional duty of passing gathered intelligence to their higher command. ICBW training helps these officers with a broad and varied range in operational intelligence affairs.

“In this case, they don’t have the formalized intelligence Military Occupational Specialty like the U.S., and I think they are operational-type officers that end up taking collateral roles,” said Klein. “Hopefully all these intelligence professionals are going to learn and get something out of this course that they can bring back to their intelligence communities.”

Exercise African Lion is an annual training exercise promoting military partnership between U.S. and Moroccan forces and is the largest exercise of its kind on the continent.

“We’re honored to be here and I think we’re doing great things,” Klein added. “Morocco has been one of our allies for such a long time and we like to take any chance to build on these partnerships and get to work with them.”

Exercise African Lion is a U.S. Africa Command-scheduled, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Africa- led, joint multi-lateral exercise. The joint task force consisting of U.S. Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen were able to conduct modified joint training for Exercise African Lion 13, demonstrating their ability to adapt to unpredicted circumstances, restore mission essential tasks, build interoperability and create friendships during the remaining days of the evolution. The logistics component will continue to exercise vigilant, safe and rapid retrograde of almost 1,200 personnel and 250 short-tons of vehicles and equipment while working with Moroccan partners and contractors to sustain the force and redeploy them back to their home stations in a timely and efficient manner.