Middle East Regional Council

Middle East Regional Council

The 2009 OSAC Middle East Regional Country Council Conference, held June 7-9 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel & Spa in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain, was a great success!  A huge thanks must go out to the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia councils, who hosted the conference, as well as to all of the sponsors, speakers, Regional Security Officers (RSOs) and all others who came out for the event. It was the most well-attended Middle East conference yet, with over 150 participants coming from all over the world.   

The theme of this year's conference was "Staying Secure in a Global Crisis." Topics briefed included current al-Qa'ida threats, security implications of the economic downturn, personal security and crisis management, country briefs on Gaza and Iraq, illicit trade, piracy and sector-specific briefs on hotel and aviation security.  We also had a Knowledge Cafe exercise in which the attendees got a chance to sit at tables and ask detailed questions of the RSOs, who came from Jeddah, Dhahran, Riyadh, Manama, Tel Aviv, Tripoli, Baghdad, and Kuwait City.

On this website you will find all of the presentations that were agreed to be shared by the speakers.  If you have any questions about the presentations or the speakers, please feel free to contact OSAC's Middle East team.  Brent Heminger covers Iraq and the GCC countries; Elena Carrington covers North Africa and the Levant.

We are still discussing where the location for next year's conference. But in the meantime, if you have any input on topics, themes, locations or any other suggestions for Team Middle East, please don't hesitate to contact OSAC Senior Coordinator for the Middle East Mary Hackman.

Thanks very much!