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| Afghanistan |
| Marine SOC trains Afghan Special Police |
| 2010-06-27 |
| Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command is helping prepare elite Afghan police units to support conventional Marine forces operating in Helmand province. The effort to train Afghan National Civil Order Police units is modeled after programs that have successfully lowered attrition rates among the Afghan National Armys commando units. Those units have been trained by and partnered with U.S. Special Forces in an effort to professionalize them. Meanwhile, ANCOP units have suffered attrition rates as high as 140 percent per year. The plan for how the special operations units will assist the ANCOP kandaks is evolving, said Army Brig. Gen. Scott Miller, commander of Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan, which has oversight over most U.S. special operations forces here that do not belong to the secretive Joint Special Operations Command. As things stand, special operations units will train eight ANCOP kandaks, four of which they will partner with, he said. The remaining four will partner with conventional forces. The mission does not involve standing up the kandaks from scratch -- they already exist. Two kandaks trained by special operators are already partnered with Marine conventional forces in Helmand, said a spokesman for NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, the U.S.-led headquarters responsible for overseeing the training of all Afghan national security forces. The spokesman declined to be identified. The remaining six units "will be deployed on a schedule yet to be determined to Kandahar province to support Hamkari," said Army Col. Don Bolduc, commander of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, which is subordinate to Millers command and which received the ANCOP mission in early April. |
| Posted by:Frozen Al |
| #4 Not a big deal. Comes from being around the tribe all the time. Me, the only 'Army' I know is the Veterinary Corps. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-06-27 16:51 |
| #3 Duhhhh indeed they are MARSOC. Brain gas again. My apologies. Thanks Pappy. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-06-27 16:46 |
| #2 Actual name is MARSOC (formed in 2006, fully operational a couple of years ago, IIRC) and they fall under USSOC. So you're right - they're "Tier-2". |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-06-27 16:44 |
| #1 The plan for how the special operations units will assist the ANCOP kandaks is evolving, said Army Brig. Gen. Scott Miller..... "Evolving" is a convenient codeword for....at the moment we don't have a phueching clue as to how might ever achieve success. JSOC and subordinate elements are referred to as a "Tier-1" SOF. The standard Special Forces Groups, US Navy Seals, US AFSOC, British SAS, and others comprise "Tier-2" as I recall. I believe US Marine SOF or MARSOF falls in with the Tier-2 elements. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-06-27 14:06 |