Washington, DC - The Department of State and the Government of Senegal today inaugurated a new regional counterterrorism training facility in Thiès, Senegal.

U.S. and Senegalese officials formally dedicated the new Regional Tactical Training Center, which was funded, constructed, and equipped through the Department of State’s Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program. The new center is ATA’s first regional training facility in West Africa.

Once fully operational, the training center, part of a pre-existing Senegalese training facility, will expand ATA’s capacity to train Senegalese and other West African partner nation law enforcement officers at this regional counterterrorism training hub. ATA will provide training in hard skills such as crisis response, explosive incident countermeasures, post-blast investigations, and rural border patrol operations.

The ATA program has been delivering counterterrorism training in Senegal since 1985. The new training center further cements our relationship and underscores the continued close partnership that the United States has with Senegal in advancing the counterterrorism capacities of law enforcement agencies in the region.

For more information on the Department of State’s Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program, please visit: https://www.state.gov/m/ds/protection/terrorism/c8583.htm.