Security success in Uruzgan Province

Dur­ing the past two months the Afghan Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Forces (ANSF), par­tic­u­lar­ly the Afghan Nation­al Army (ANA), men­tored by Australia’s Men­tor­ing Task Force – Three, has uncov­ered sig­nif­i­cant insur­gent weapon caches in Uruz­gan Province.

This includes close to 13,000 rounds of small arms ammu­ni­tion, near­ly 70 anti-per­son­nel mines and almost half a tonne of chem­i­cals used to make explosives. 

The dis­cov­ery and removal of these caches demon­strates the enhanced capa­bil­i­ties of the ANA in Uruz­gan Province. 

The senior Aus­tralian Offi­cer in the province, Colonel Ben James, Deputy Com­man­der Com­bined Team Uruz­gan, said that many of these oper­a­tions were planned and exe­cut­ed by the ANSF and were direct­ly linked with intel­li­gence received from the local community. 

“We are see­ing an increase in secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions that are led by the ANSF, par­tic­u­lar­ly by the ANA 4th Brigade that Aus­tralian forces are men­tor­ing,” Colonel James said. 

“Afghan secu­ri­ty forces in Uruz­gan are now plan­ning, exe­cut­ing and review­ing their own oper­a­tions and you can see their con­fi­dence grow­ing day by day as they exe­cute those oper­a­tions as well,” Colonel James said. 

Remov­ing these weapons, ammu­ni­tion and explo­sives from the Uruz­gan will help make the area and sur­round­ing provinces safer for Afghan civil­ians, the ANSF, Aus­tralian and inter­na­tion­al forces. 

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

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