The United States Marine Corps' Anti-Terrorism Battalion was a specialized infantry battalion that would deploy on a short notice in response to terrorist attacks during the Global War on Terror. Anti-Terrorism Battalion is now a disbanded unit of the United States Marine Corps.
Mission
In response to the 9-11 attacks the mission of the Anti-Terrorism Battalion was to rapidly deploy specially trained advanced infantry, intelligence personnel, support elements, and sustainable forces to detect, deter, defend, and conduct initial incident response to combat the threat of terrorism worldwide.
Rotational Duty
After the 11 September 2001, the Marine Corps began rotating standard infantry battalions such as 3rd Battalion 8th Marines through 6-month on-call assignments as the designated "Anti Terrorism Battalion" to meet short term/no-notice mission requirements. Examples included augmenting security at the American Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, with a rifle company for site security. These rotations required company and smaller size detachments, but removed the entire force of the 1,000-man infantry battalion from the main war fighting effort. This posed a problem for the Marine Corps as Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom began to require additional full strength infantry battalions to rotate in and out of theater at a higher rate.
A Combined Anti-Armor Team platoon deployed in support of the II MHG as a motorized heavy machine gun platoon based out of Camp Fallujah in Al-Anbar province from October 2005 – March 2006. While there the platoon conducted convoy escort, route clearance, QRF, and other short term/no notice missions.
Combined Anti-Armor Team platoons deployed in support of OIF to FOB Spartan located adjacent and within Camp Ashraf, Ashraf city, Diyala Province Iraq October 2005 – May 2006 and worked with various U.S. Army units.
The Personal Security Detachment for Regimental Combat Teams2 and 6 Commanders. Each team deployed for a year over 2007–2008.
Four rotations to the American Embassy in Baghdad A Co, D Co, two separate platoons from B Co rotated on seven-month deployments from 2005 to 2007.
Numerous Marines also augmented other requirements for National Police Training Teams, Military Transition Teams, and MEF augmentation requests to other infantry units. Most Marines in the battalion completed two to three consecutive combat deployments in a single three-year tour of duty with the battalion as part of their initial 4-year enlistment contract.
USMC AT BN Deactivation
On 13 July 2007, the active duty AT BN stood down in name and was reflagged as the 2nd Battalion 9th Marines as part of the increase in the size of the Marine Corps.
USMCR AT BN Activation
In 2007 the Marine Corps Reserve reactivated the AT BN to meet similar mission requirements for the 4th Marine Division that the active duty battalion had met.
Yemen
Fox Company AT BN 4th MARDIV augmented the US Embassy security and Anti-Terrorism operations in Sana'a Yemen 2011–2012.
USMCR AT BN Deactivation
On 21 September 2013, the USMCR AT BN was officially deactivated.
