Afghanistan/Australia — Paper presented by the Minister for Defence on casualties, procedural issues etc.

As part of the over­ar­ch­ing tran­si­tion strat­e­gy in Afghanistan, Aus­tralia is com­mit­ted to men­tor­ing and train­ing the 4th Brigade of the Afghan Nation­al Army (ANA) in Uruz­gan Province to enable them to take on respon­si­bil­i­ty for secu­ri­ty arrange­ments in the province between 2012 and 2014. 

Australia’s assess­ment of the 4th Brigade’s capac­i­ty is that it is effec­tive with assis­tance and increas­ing­ly capable. 

A fur­ther infantry Kan­dak has now arrived in Uruz­gan to bring the 4th Brigade to full strength. 

While this 6th infantry Kan­dak lacks expe­ri­ence, it is trained and equipped for ini­tial tasks, has strong lead­er­ship and is a strong grad­u­ate of the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Field­ing Cen­tre in Kabul. 

The 6th Kan­dak is cur­rent­ly men­tored by US forces. 

The next rota­tion of Aus­tralian forces – Aus­tralian Task Force 9 – will be deployed into Uruz­gan province in June, and will take on the addi­tion­al task of men­tor­ing the new­ly formed 6th Infantry Kan­dak of the 4th Brigade. 

As we hand over patrol bases and estab­lish new ones, and see ANA Kan­daks con­duct more unac­com­pa­nied activ­i­ties, Aus­tralian forces can be released for addi­tion­al train­ing and men­tor­ing tasks, includ­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for addi­tion­al ANA forces in Uruzgan. 

As the Kan­daks become more capa­ble and self reliant, Aus­tralian forces can move into an enabling and over­watch role. 

Sup­port for our troops

Our troops and per­son­nel in Afghanistan are per­form­ing extreme­ly well in dan­ger­ous cir­cum­stances on a dai­ly basis. 

Aus­tralians are proud of the fact that our troops have a well-deserved rep­u­ta­tion for their effec­tive­ness and their conduct. 

Afghan Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and ISAF Com­man­der Gen­er­al Petraeus praise the work and rep­u­ta­tion of Aus­tralian deployed per­son­nel, includ­ing in their engage­ment with local Afghan communities. 

The sup­port and pro­tec­tion of Aus­tralian per­son­nel in Afghanistan is, right­ly, our high­est priority. 

A new Counter Rock­et Artillery and Mor­tar (C‑RAM) Sense and Warn sys­tem pro­vides ear­ly detec­tion of attacks from ene­my rock­ets, artillery and mor­tars and replaces the pre­vi­ous capa­bil­i­ty pro­vid­ed by the Sin­ga­pore­an Armed Forces. 

The ear­ly warn­ing pro­vid­ed by the C‑RAM sys­tem great­ly enhances the sur­viv­abil­i­ty of Aus­tralian and oth­er ISAF forces from these attacks, pro­vid­ing increased warn­ing of an immi­nent attack to enable them to take appro­pri­ate shelter. 

The pro­vi­sion of the new capa­bil­i­ty is part of the pack­age of ini­tia­tives worth $1.6 bil­lion the Gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted to fol­low­ing the Force Pro­tec­tion Review effect­ed by my pre­de­ces­sor Min­is­ter Faulkn­er and under­lines the com­mit­ment to pro­vide our troops with the best avail­able equipment. 

Of the 48 rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Review, 42 are now com­plete or on track. They include enhanced counter IED mea­sures, bet­ter armour and heav­ier cal­i­bre weapons for our Bush­mas­ters, the place­ment of medics with each pla­toon oper­at­ing in Afghanistan and the intro­duc­tion of 1000 sets of lighter com­bat armour. 

The new C‑RAM capa­bil­i­ty fol­lows the deliv­ery of the first batch of the new, lighter Tiered Body Armour Sys­tem now rolling off the pro­duc­tion line in Bendi­go. The ADF plans to have the next Men­tor­ing Task Force equipped with this armour when it deploys to Afghanistan lat­er this year. 

The new Mul­ti­cam com­bat uni­form will also be avail­able to all troops oper­at­ing out­side the wire in the first half of this year. 

Since Octo­ber there has been a sig­nif­i­cant rota­tion of per­son­nel in Uruz­gan province. 

As I have pre­vi­ous­ly announced, the 4th Bat­tal­ion of the US 70th Armored Reg­i­ment has now replaced the US Stryk­er Bat­tal­ion – which had been oper­at­ing in Uruz­gan since the new Com­bined Team-Uruz­gan arrange­ments began in August 2010. 

I have seen an asser­tion that this rota­tion of Unit­ed States troops means that there is a 300 troop on the ground dif­fer­ence. This is not cor­rect. The net US on the ground troop dif­fer­ence is less than 100 troops. 

There are two fur­ther points to be made. First, the US Stryk­er Bat­tal­ion oper­at­ed not just in Uruz­gan but also in Kan­da­har. Sec­ond, its replace­ment will focus on Uruzgan. 

Most impor­tant­ly, the Unit­ed States will con­tin­ue to pro­vide all the sup­port we require to enable Aus­tralian oper­a­tions rang­ing from fixed-wing air sup­port through to heli­copters and artillery fire. 

The Unit­ed States troop rota­tion was done in very close con­sul­ta­tion with Aus­tralian Defence Force per­son­nel, both in Can­ber­ra and on the ground in Afghanistan. 

I have also spo­ken to the Com­man­der of Com­bined Team Uruz­gan, Colonel Jim Creighton, about the troop rota­tion. I have sat­is­fied myself that the troop rota­tion will con­tin­ue to pro­vide the same coop­er­a­tion, the same enablers, and the same cov­er that Aus­tralia has at the moment in Uruzgan. 

With the arrival of the 4th Brigade’s 6th Infantry Kan­dak there are now in total 250 more Afghan and ISAF troops in Uruz­gan since the rota­tion of the Stryk­er battalion. 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

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