Afghanistan — Strengthened presence in Mirabad Valley

Aus­tralian men­tors and their Afghan part­ners have a new patrol base to live and oper­ate from in Uruz­gan province’s dan­ger­ous Mirabad Val­ley.

The patrol base was con­struct­ed from the ground up over a three week peri­od by engi­neers from the 1st Men­tor­ing Task Force (MTF‑1) and the Afghan Nation­al Army.

Com­mand­ing Offi­cer of MTF‑1, Lieu­tenant Colonel Mark Jen­nings, said the insur­gency is threat­ened by the impact of the patrol base, unsuc­cess­ful­ly attack­ing it a num­ber of times over the course of its construction.

“Obvi­ous­ly the insur­gents did not want this base to pro­ceed and tried their hard­est to slow down its con­struc­tion,” Lieu­tenant Colonel Jen­nings said.

“The Mirabad Val­ley is a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant region with a his­to­ry of vio­lence in recent years.”

“Com­bined with two near­by out­posts, the base will have a sig­nif­i­cant and endur­ing impact on secu­ri­ty in the Mirabad Val­ley and will empow­er the Afghan Secu­ri­ty Forces to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ties long into the future.”

Project Man­ag­er, Major Carl Miller, said the local com­mu­ni­ty was con­sult­ed through­out the con­struc­tion process along with key gov­ern­ment stake­hold­ers in Tarin Kot.

“From its incep­tion back in April the plan was to build a ‘patrol house’ that could accom­mo­date the Afghan Nation­al Army and Coali­tion force pres­ence in the Mirabad Val­ley,” Major Miller said.

“And that’s what we’ve done — it’s like a big, sig­nif­i­cant­ly for­ti­fied house.”

The base can accom­mo­date over 50 peo­ple and is strength­ened by a ringed perime­ter fence, two guard tow­ers and an over-watch posi­tion. It includes air con­di­tion­ing and kitchen facilities.

The base is now occu­pied by the Aus­tralian and Afghan sol­diers who are respon­si­ble for secur­ing the Mirabad Valley 

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

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