Watch: Commanders from 17 countries gather in Ireland for course on combating terrorism

Military and police commanders from 17 countries gathered for a course led by the Irish Defence Forces in how to respond to terrorist attacks.

The syllabus, funded by NATO, was developed by Irish army officers and conducted at the Curragh camp.

A video released by NATO gives an insight into what the course entailed and the senior personnel who took part.

Commanders from 17 nations along with representatives of the #EU and the @UN gathered in #Ireland to boost their readiness to fight terrorist attacks. pic.twitter.com/Lc68vfLtFd

— NATO (@NATO) July 4, 2018

Lt Col Ray Lane, IDF Ordnance School, said: “When you look at the response to a terrorist attack, it requires many different assets to deal with that – it requires obviously a police response, it requires a military response, a fire response, civilian response. So how do you bring those cultures together?

One of the challenges is to break that barrier down under the one mission, which is to save lives.

Commander Chris Sheehan of Australian Federal Police said that one of the most difficult challenges was the “unpredictability” of the terrorist threat and the way people can become radicalised and the “pace between radicalisation and action”.

The commanders were put through real-life scenarios at the Curragh.

Capt Paul Shorte of the IDF said that having a physical location for the scenarios was ideal because they could see it on the ground, how the attack is playing out and what defences needed to be put in place.

Lt Col Lane said they needed to build on this work over the coming years: “This threat is not going away and it's going to develop.”

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