Mobile Security Deployment: The 911 of Diplomatic Security

Diplomatic Security’s Office of Mobile Security Deployment (MSD) provides teams of specially trained DS special agents who respond to security emergencies, provide threat-specific security training to posts, and supplement DS protective details, usually those under high threat or in high-threat locations. MSD is recognized as a national-level asset that serves as the premier civilian law enforcement and security element deployed to counter threats against U.S. interests overseas.

Using state-of-the-art tactical equipment and protective gear, MSD is sent all over the world to assist U.S. missions that are at increased risk and to protect official American personnel. An MSD tactical team often travels with Secretary of State Colin Powell’s protective detail. Teams have also supplemented protection details for such high-risk dignitaries of DS in the United States as Yasser Arafat, former Israeli prime ministers, and other representatives from Iran, Cuba, and Egypt.

In the first 8 months of 2004, MSD was operating in Iraq, Haiti, Aghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and other high- or critical-threat environments. The teams also bolstered the Secretary of State’s protective detail in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. MSD teams augmented the security at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti during protests earlier this year against former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and also provided protection to Haiti’s interim President. MSD teams protected White House special envoy Zalmay Khalilizad during talks with Iraqi opposition leaders in February 2004. MSD also accompanied Mr. Khalilizad to northern Iraq for meetings with Kurdish leaders months before the war. MSD is also playing a huge role in the protection of the U.S. embassies and officials in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Over the past 2 years, MSD teams have been dispatched to dozens of dangerous locations, with frequent return visits to the Middle East and an ongoing presence in Iraq.

Mobile Security agents travel to U.S. missions worldwide to provide specialized training on a variety of topics such as personal security, rape awareness, carjacking, surveillance detection, counterterrorism techniques, hostage survival, firearms, and defensive driving. Last year Mobile Security teams conducted over 80 specialized training classes at 20 posts.

While they call themselves the 911 of DS, Diplomatic Security and the State Department are proud to call them some of our most dedicated agents.