Afghanistan — Three tons of munitions seized with participation of local population

Dur­ing two suc­ces­sive night oper­a­tions from 4–6 August 2010, troops from the Bat­tle­group “Bison” seized three tons of muni­tions, amount­ing to one ton of explo­sives, in the south of the Uzbeen val­ley. This is the largest seizure this year.

Weapons cache found in Uzbeen val­ley. Source: NATO Click to enlarge

Although French troops are cur­rent­ly alert­ed by Afghans to recov­er muni­tions or weapons from arms caches or to defuse IEDs on the roads, this seizure is par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy due to the quan­ti­ty of muni­tions recov­ered. Near­ly three tons of muni­tions and explo­sive mate­ri­als, 107 mm ”Chicome” rock­ets and dif­fer­ent types of shells (60mm, 82mm, anti-tank 82 and 75 mm) were brought back by French sol­diers from the Tora For­ward Oper­at­ing Base. These muni­tions, in per­fect con­di­tion, some in orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing, were buried in a dif­fi­cult to access area. 

This impor­tant oper­a­tion is the result of reg­u­lar coop­er­a­tion between the French mil­i­tary, the Afghan secu­ri­ty forces and espe­cial­ly of a close rela­tion­ship with the pop­u­la­tion. The detach­ment, con­sist­ing of an infantry pla­toon, a com­bat engi­neer group, an EOD (explo­sive ord­nance dis­pos­al) team and a med­ical team had set up a secu­ri­ty oper­a­tion pri­or to achiev­ing this remark­able seizure. 

Muni­tions were trans­port­ed to the base of Tora where they will be destroyed in the com­ing days. 

This dis­cov­ery fol­lows the one on April 16, 2010 in the Val­ley Jag­dalay. It shows a close rela­tion­ship with the pop­u­la­tion that once again has borne fruit and also reflects the dai­ly work of French sol­diers who have been in this dis­trict for two years. 

Source:
Allied Com­mand Oper­a­tions
NATO 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter