Davos: As the WEF's Annual Meeting begins on Tuesday, Swiss Armed Forces have deployed 5,000 personnel to secure this remote town that has a population of about 10,000 and will host over 2,500 of the global elite through this week.
The Armed Forces' operation here includes protecting facilities and individuals, safeguarding air sovereignty, securing Swiss airspace, and with logistics, primarily through its Coordinated Medical Services (CMS), the Swiss Army said.
"Up to 5,000 armed forces personnel are serving in this civil affairs mission, from January 12-26, 2015," it said in an update on its WEF operations.
At the request of the authorities of the Graubunden region, where Davos is located over 5,000 miles above the sea level as the highest and one of the most remote towns of Europe, the Army has taken several security measures to ensure security during the WEF Summit.
One measure is to restrict the use of both airspace and airfields in the Davos area till January 25, 2015.
The Armed Forces will assist the civilian authorities of the Canton of Graubunden in their security measures to protect the annual WEF meeting, on which millions of dollars are estimated to be spent.
The Armed Forces have been deployed to protect infrastructure (transport, and electricity and water supplies), carry out air policing missions in Swiss airspace, and assist the civilian authorities in logistics, command support and coordinated medical services.
Armed forces personnel, who will be engaged based on the Ordinance on the Police Powers of the Armed Forces, are however not be involved in maintaining public order and that remains a police responsibility.
The Chief of the Armed Forces Joint Staff, Major General Jean-Marc Halter, has been appointed commanding officer for this armed forces civil support operation in protection of the 2015 WEF meeting.
During the WEF meeting, the Command Support is ensuring communication between the security services of the cantonal police force and the armed forces. This network includes the police radio systems and air surveillance radar.
The establishment of the networks in Davos began in December 2014 itself to allow the task forces to carry out extensive tests before the Forum opened its doors.
The networks are being monitored round the clock.
For logistics services, the police and military forces have been provided with facility protection material (including around 700 fence elements with a total length of some 42 kilometres, and eight kilometres of barbed wire), 580 monitoring devices, incident site lights, sand bags, medical service stations, and various office containers.
The local police has also been given armed forces devices such as fire extinguishers, radios, fence elements, flak jackets and vehicles.
