Afghan Army Could Operate Solo by Spring

[unhappycamper]

Afghan Army Could Operate Solo by Spring
Military.com | By Christian Lowe | October 17, 2007

The commander in charge of training Afghan national army forces and police near Kandahar said Tuesday that country's armed forces should be ready to conduct large-scale operations without significant coalition assistance or planning by late spring of 2008.

Col. Thomas McGrath said recent Corps-sized training exercises he'd conducted with Afghan army headquarters groups were so successful, he felt it would soon be time to cut larger combat units lose to operate independently in the Taliban hotbeds of southern Afghanistan.

"We assisted the Afghans in the development and execution of independent combat operations" during the October exercise, said McGrath, commander of Afghan Regional Security Integration Command-South, based in Kandahar. "By sometime after the spring we're expecting independent, brigade-sized operations by the Afghan national army."

"The ANA are very aggressive, they're fearless, they're not afraid to engage the enemy in combat and they're not afraid to put their lives at risk," he told military bloggers during an Oct. 16 telephone interview.

The Afghan training program stands in contrast to similar efforts in Iraq, where only a handful of Iraqi army units are able to operate against the insurgency and al Qaeda fighters independently.

And it's not just the Army that's gearing up to take the fight to Taliban holdouts; McGrath is getting the Afghan national police in up to speed as well.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,152917,00.html



uhc comment: IIRC, we had some guy named "Pet" something or another training Iraqis.