Members of the BCFE or Paraguayan Joint Special Forces Battalion recently participated in a Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) event with members of the U.S. Army’s 20th Special Forces Group. The exercise was focused on exchanging training techniques and familiarization of each nation’s weapons systems.
The one-month long JCET took place at the facilities of the Paraguayan Joint Special Forces Battalion located in Asuncion during the June-July 2017 time frame. The BCFE is comprised of members of the Paraguayan Army, Navy and Air Force. They are trained in a variety of missions to include counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, and special operations.
The BCFE is quite busy as Paraguay has the second highest level of terrorism in South America. [1] Some extremist groups are engaged in kidnapping and extortion. Among the major insurgent and terrorist groups are the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP) and the Armed Peasant Association.
The 20th Special Forces Group is one of seven U.S. Army SF groups. There are five active duty groups and two National Guard Special Forces groups. Each of the groups are regionally oriented to different areas of the world. The 20th Special Forces Group has Central and South America as one of its assigned regions.
Read more in “U.S. and Paraguayan Special Forces Train Together”, Dialogo, June 27, 2017. Dialogo is a digital military magazine of Southern Command.
Footnotes:
[1] According to the 2016 Global Terrorism Index.
http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2017/02/Global-Terrorism-Index-2016.pdf