Cell, AFP join forces for Talisman Sabre
ENSURING captured enemy material is appropriately exploited is one of the most essential parts of a mission, which is where the Special Operations Forces Exploitation and Analysis Cell comes into the picture.
The cell, which deployed to Townsville for Talisman Sabre, is responsible for digital, document and biometric exploitation.
The long-established capability has come back into focus recently, cell leader Sgt T said, with an injection of resources to allow rapid analysis of captured items.
“Without exploitation, our forces don’t do missions,” Sgt T said.
“Having an organic capability which lets us rapidly analyse material is essential.
“If we have to rely on other agencies, the information we gain could be out of date and useless to us. But we have strong links with both our partner forces in the SOF community, as well as police forces.
“Talisman Sabre was the first time we’ve fully integrated personnel from the AFP into the EAC, with forensics officers integrated into our labs and tactical officers integrated into the teams.”
The point of the integration, according to AFP investigations manager counterterrorism operations Detective Elias Petropoulos, was to remove Defence from an already convoluted evidence chain.
It also allowed the members from AFP forensics and tactical teams to practise working offshore – in the fictional island nation of Legais – to prosecute offences on Australian territories under new enhancements to terrorist offences.
“Maintaining the chain of custody offshore is already hard enough without including Defence,” Detective Petropoulos said.
“We have evolved with legislative changes under the Foreign Evidence Act and this was the next natural progression.
“If we work organically with the teams, we can remove Defence from that chain, as well as the responsibility of them appearing in a courtroom during the prosecution phase.
“We’ve worked with Defence before, so we’ve been able to integrate with the teams easily enough, buddying up expertise across the whole team.”