Israel's Elite SWAT team wins International Urban Shield 2011 Competition

For the second consecutive year since Israel's Police elite SWAT team, the "YaMaM," has participated in the prestigious Urban Shield counter-terror competition in the USA, the YaMam has once again won first place.

Similar to last year's impressive win, Israel's accomplishment remains strangely, highly under-reported. The only mention of this impressive achievement is on the Facebook page for Israel's police.

32 SWAT teams from the USA, the FBI and from other countries, participated in the non-stop 48 hour competition. The competition included counter-terror, dealing with serious crimes, hostage retrieval, and a variety of tactical and urban combat situations.

Last year's winners from Israel's YaMaM - CTU.

The Israeli winners for 2011.

More pictures of the YaMaM in action, at last year's post.

I find it curious that there is no English-language mention of this win anywhere on the internet (or even on the Urban Shield website) as of this posting. Help get the word out!

Update; Israel Hayom has just published about this as well...

For the second consecutive year, a team from Israel's Counterterrorism unit has taken first place in an international competition testing homeland security and readiness to respond to acts of terror.

The team swept the prestigious "Urban Shield" competition, held last week in California in the framework of a national emergency drill organized by the U.S. Homeland Security Office.

During the internationally acclaimed competition, combat teams were tested in a variety of anti-terrorist, extreme crime, hostage rescue, and tactical combat scenarios. An FBI team and a team of royal Jordanian guards were also among the participants.

The national emergency drill was created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, with the aim of testing the preparedness of emergency services and anti-terrorist units should another terrorist attack occur.

Although this marked the competition's sixth consecutive year, Israel only began participating two years ago. It has now taken first place in both attempts.

Israel's Counterterrorism Unit is an elite unit in the Border Police, comparable to such global crime-fighting groups as U.S. SWAT teams, the French GIGN, and the German GSG-9, which was established after 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were murdered at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich.

The Counterterrorism Unit is tasked with handling a number of security and civilian-related situations, and its members are trained in various types of drills and simulations -- some secret -- mainly focusing on terrorist attacks and hostage crisis situations.

The Counterterrorism Unit is one of Israel's most in-demand security units. Its members take on complex and dangerous missions, sometimes working in tandem with the Internal Security Agency. They arrest crime bosses and take on missions in some of the nation's most high-risk areas. The unit employs advanced hi-tech equipment and unique methods of operation, some of which were developed especially for the unit.

In September, the same Israeli team won first place in a handgun shooting competition for special IDF and police units. Other participants in that competition were the National Police Undercover Unit, the Border Police Undercover Unit, and several elite IDF units.

Police Commissioner Yochanan Danino congratulated the Counterterrorism Unit on winning the international competition.

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