The Navy for several years has carried out a variety of irregular warfare (IW) and counterterrorism (CT) activities, and has taken some steps in recent years to strengthen its ability to conduct such activities. Among the most readily visible of the Navy's current IW operations are those being carried out by Navy sailors serving ashore in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the Navy's contributions to IW operations around the world are made by Navy individual augmentees (IAs)--individual Navy sailors assigned to various DOD operations.