Mentoring Task Force operational incident

An Afghan man was shot and killed in the Cho­ra Val­ley region of Uruz­gan on Mon­day 14 Feb­ru­ary when he posed an immi­nent threat to a part­nered Afghan Nation­al Army and Aus­tralian Men­tor­ing Task Force – Two patrol.
The part­nered patrol was con­duct­ing local secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions near a vil­lage when it observed the man behav­ing sus­pi­cious­ly.

The Chief of Joint Oper­a­tions, Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Mark Evans, said an inter­nal review con­duct­ed imme­di­ate­ly after the inci­dent found the man was direct­ed to halt three times using a com­bi­na­tion of the local Pash­tu and Dari lan­guages as well as vis­i­ble hand sig­nals and gestures.

“The review found the man failed to heed a repeat­ed direc­tion to halt and instead revealed a device that appeared to be like those used by insur­gents to det­o­nate Radio-Con­trolled Impro­vised Explo­sive Devices,” Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Evans said.

“On iden­ti­fy­ing the immi­nent threat to his Afghan and Aus­tralian patrol mates, an Aus­tralian sol­dier engaged the man with small arms fire, killing him.” 

Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Evans said the inter­nal review into the shoot­ing found that the sol­dier act­ed in accor­dance with his Rules of Engage­ment and the Laws of Armed Con­flict. “The device was sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed to be a portable radio trans­mit­ter often used by insur­gents to det­o­nate Radio-Con­trolled Impro­vised Explo­sive Devices.” 

“The review also con­firmed strong links between the indi­vid­ual and an insur­gent cell oper­at­ing in the area,” Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Evans said.

“The threat of Impro­vised Explo­sive Devices in Afghanistan is ever present and our sol­diers and their Afghan part­ners go out on patrol every day aware of the dan­gers such weapons pose.”

Aus­tralian troops in Afghanistan employ rules of engage­ment that allow for the grad­u­at­ed use of force, up to and includ­ing lethal force, should it be required.

Media con­tact: Defence Media Oper­a­tions (02) 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

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.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →