Afghanistan — Australian soldier wounded by an improvised explosive device

An Aus­tralian sol­dier from the Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Task Group (SOTG) received super­fi­cial wounds when a Bush­mas­ter Pro­tect­ed Mobil­i­ty Vehi­cle (PMV) struck an Impro­vised Explo­sive Device (IED) on 3rd of Octo­ber.

The inci­dent occurred while con­duct­ing part­nered oper­a­tions with the Afghan Provin­cial Response Com­pa­ny (PRC) in north­ern Kan­da­har province as part of the wider Oper­a­tion HAMKARI, an Afghan Gov­ern­ment-led ini­tia­tive to improve the secu­ri­ty in and around Kan­da­har City.

Deputy Com­man­der Joint Task Force 633, Com­modore Roger Boyce, said the wound­ed sol­dier received first aid imme­di­ate­ly after the strike before return­ing with his force ele­ment to a near­by for­ward oper­at­ing base. 

“A doc­tor at the base reassessed the sol­dier and rec­om­mend­ed fur­ther spe­cial­ist advice. As a result he was moved to the Role 3 Med­ical Facil­i­ty at Kan­da­har Air­field by heli­copter,” Com­modore Boyce said.

“Thank­ful­ly, this fur­ther assess­ment con­firmed no seri­ous wounds, and the sol­dier was released from the med­ical facility.”

The wound­ed sol­dier is under­tak­ing a short peri­od of recov­ery before rejoin­ing com­bat operations.

Due to the loca­tion of the IED strike, the dam­aged vehi­cle was deemed to be unre­cov­er­able and was destroyed.

Dur­ing this oper­a­tion, anoth­er IED was locat­ed by SOTG ele­ments and was destroyed in place.

The SOTG reg­u­lar­ly con­ducts oper­a­tions with the PRC, which is part of the Afghan Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Forces. The local knowl­edge and com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tions of the local Afghan secu­ri­ty forces, like the PRC, pro­vide invalu­able sup­port to coali­tion oper­a­tions, espe­cial­ly Aus­tralian Spe­cial Forces.

Media con­tact: Defence Media Liai­son: 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

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

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