Elite Afghan police uncover Taliban weapons and drugs

Elite Afghan police­men from Helmand’s Provin­cial Response Com­pa­ny (PRC), trained by British troops, have uncov­ered a huge stash of weapons and drugs in two sep­a­rate oper­a­tions in a 48-hour peri­od.

Elite Afghan patrol­men from Helmand’s Provin­cial Response Com­pa­ny with some of the weapon­ry cap­tured dur­ing the oper­a­tions [Pic­ture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2012] Source: Min­istry of Defence, UK Click to enlarge

The first oper­a­tion was car­ried out with­out any sup­port from the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force. It involved the search of a com­pound in San­gin which uncov­ered 13 rifles, four rock­et-pro­pelled grenade launch­ers (RPGs), an 82mm mor­tar and a large quan­ti­ty of ammu­ni­tion includ­ing RPG, mor­tar and artillery rounds, anti-per­son­nel mines and small arms ammunition. 

The sec­ond oper­a­tion, just 48 hours lat­er in the Pupalzay region of Lashkar Gah dis­trict, uncov­ered over 90kg of opi­um. This oper­a­tion was sup­port­ed by the PRC Embed­ded Men­tor­ing Team and sol­diers from the Queen’s Roy­al Hus­sars, who pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty in the area to allow the oper­a­tion to proceed. 

The PRC is cur­rent­ly men­tored by mem­bers of the RAF Reg­i­ment who are part of the Police Men­tor­ing and Advi­so­ry Group (PMAG). The PRC Embed­ded Men­tor­ing Team have put the PRC through their basic and advanced train­ing and have deployed on the ground with them in a men­tor­ing role over the past five months. 

Flight Lieu­tenant Tom Fos­kett is Offi­cer Com­mand­ing the PRC men­tor­ing team. He said: 

“This has been an extreme­ly suc­cess­ful 48 hours in which the PRC proved that their months of train­ing have worked. They are ful­ly capa­ble of deploy­ing unmen­tored at short notice and have clear­ly demon­strat­ed their capa­bil­i­ty to car­ry out high-pro­file oper­a­tions across the province. 

“The sec­ond oper­a­tion was a com­ple­men­tary oper­a­tion with the Queen’s Roy­al Hus­sars [QRH] which enabled the PRC to pen­e­trate an insur­gent strong­hold and strike at the heart of their sup­ply chain. 

“Although the QRH deployed along­side the PRC for the oper­a­tion they were only there to pro­vide addi­tion­al sup­port if real­ly need­ed. In fact, the PRC insert­ed into the area and extract­ed with only their men­tor­ing team in direct support.” 

Cap­tain Tyrell Volk­er is the Intel­li­gence Offi­cer for the PMAG and works close­ly with the Afghan Police in devel­op­ing their intel­li­gence capa­bil­i­ty. He said: 

“This oper­a­tion demon­strates the step-change in insti­tu­tion­al devel­op­ment with­in the Afghan Police. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in devel­op­ing a sus­tain­able intel­li­gence forum in which the police, army and oth­er agen­cies can fuse their efforts, result­ing in suc­cess­ful intel­li­gence-based oper­a­tions, such as this one.” 

The PMAG, led by 1st Bat­tal­ion The Princess of Wales’s Roy­al Reg­i­ment (1 PWRR), is respon­si­ble for men­tor­ing the Afghan Nation­al Police at provin­cial and dis­trict lev­el and aid­ing insti­tu­tion­al devel­op­ment. The PMAG also has a num­ber of Police Advi­so­ry Teams and spe­cial­ist men­tors who work with the Afghan Uni­form Police in a vari­ety of areas such as counter-IED, admin­is­tra­tion, sup­plies and intelligence. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter