ANSF works to improve operations
CJTF-1: PAKTYA PROVINCE, Afghanistan – With guidance from coalition forces advisers, Afghan National Security Forces in Regional Command-East used July to discuss challenges within their organizations and ways to improve.
The Afghan efforts began with a logistics conference at the 203rd Thunder Corps headquarters near Gardēz July 17-20. Representatives from various regions came to the base to be instructed on Afghan National Army doctrine and express concerns.
The training consisted of instruction about the duties of logistics positions down to the brigade-level, as well as ANA doctrine about maintenance, physical security, ammunition and other issues, said Kimmel.
“I think it went very well,” said Kimmel. “It was successfully executed, we captured issues and now we’ve identified some solutions for the issues. Now it’s a matter of trying to execute those recommended solutions.”
Searching for solutions was a major theme of the Afghan Uniform Police’s conference July 26 at the 505th Zone headquarters in Paktya Province.
“The key issue is identifying the solutions to the issues that you have,” said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Gordon Davis, the assistant deputy commander of development, 1st Cavalry Division.
Those issues covered a wide range of topics: increasing the number of police allocated to certain bases, acquiring ammunition, recovery operations and vehicle maintenance.
“Still, we have a lot of problems with the technical stuff,” said AUP Maj. Youssef with the 505th Logistics office.
Despite the challenges discussed at the conference, U.S. Army Capt. Chris Turner of Johnson City, Tenn., the AUP G4 adviser with the 92nd Military Police Battalion, Task Force Phoenix, considered the conference a success since it brought to together AUP representatives from Wardak, Logar, Paktya, Ghazni and Khowst.
“I’m very proud of the representation we had at today’s conference,” said Turner. “It was a big step forward.”
Turner also said that another conference will be hosted at the 505th Zone headquarters after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
“You’ve (ANSF leaders) already identified some solutions in your discussion today, and I would say there is a number of components to the solutions,” said Davis. “First off, working together we can come up with the right ideas and we can figure out who can solve them...if you look in a mirror, you can see the person who can solve them.”