The team maintains the capability to deploy within hours to advise and assist the U.S. Chief of Mission coordinating U.S. government crisis response activities and to augment embassy operations.

[5] FEST is the counterpart of the Domestic Emergency Support Team (DEST) which serves a similar role for crises within the United States.

The team relied heavily on FEST's secure mobile communications capability, since the Port of Aden is more than 200 miles from the American Embassy in Sanaa.

Exercise Invincible Sentry 2021 (IS 21) is an annual U.S. Central Command training event, hosted this year by the government of Qatar.

[7] "Contingency" FESTs were deployed to ensure safety at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece (Summer 2004) and Turin, Italy (Winter 2006), and in Lagos, Nigeria during a hostage-taking crisis.