10th Anniversary of CAF participation in ISAF
A decade ago on this day, 28 February 2003, the 1st Croatian Contingent was deployed to Afghanistan, initiating Croatia’s participation in the ISAF Operation.The Contingent included 50 members of the Armed Forces, mostly military policemen. Since then 19 Contingents have been deployed (presently the 291-member 20th Contingent is in Afghanistan), with a total of 3872 members of the Croatian Armed Forces.
By participating in the ISAF the Republic of Croatia has provided active support to the international efforts towards enhanced security, stability and re-construction of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The quantity and the structure of Croatia’s presence have evolved over the decade as a function of the growth of the ISAF itself and as a result of Croatia’s full NATO membership. Croatia has assumed ever more complex tasks, particularly in the domain of force protection and training and mentoring.
Croatian units have over the past decade provided a series of training, mentoring and other capabilities highly important for organised training of the Afghan security force, such as mentoring of crews and Air Force technicians with the ANA helicopters, mentoring of ANA members on development of Military Police capabilities; providing assistance with development of education facilities infrastructure and with mentoring of the instructors, of civilian police and of the engineering and infantry personnel. In addition, Croatian officers have also exercised the staff officer duties, securing of the personnel and facilities, investigations of incidents, logistic support and a number of other activities associated with building of safe stability of Afghanistan to habilitate them for taking the full responsibility for security in the entire territory.
The international operation in Afghanistan was undertaken in compliance with the conclusions of the Bonn Conference from December 2001, aimed at preventing Afghanstan from becoming the terrorist stronghold another time and at providing safety and better life for the people of Afghanistan. In line with the UN Security Council mandate, the ISAF Operation as a segment of the overall efforts of the international community has since its very start been focused on establishing the conditions enabling the Afghan government to exercise its authority throughout the teritory of Afghanistan. In 2003 NATO took over the formal command of the Operation in 2003, which was the year when Croatia joined it too.
The 10th anniversary was marked at a ceremony today in Kabul, attended by the Commander of the Regional Command Capital, Brigadier General of the Turkish Army Ali Riza Kugu, who emphasised the great contribution of the Croatian Armed Forces to the ISAF Operation and commended the open spirit of the Croatian soldiers towards the local Afghani population.
The attending members of the 20th HRVCON and the invited distinguished officials from the French, Portuguese, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Italian and the U.S. Contingents were addressed by the Contingent Commander, Col. Željko Dadić and the Military Police Task Force Commander, Cpt. Željko Barbir. The ceremony was also the oocasion to present the distinguished members of the 20th Contingent with commendations and awards for their honourable service, commitment and exemplary representing of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Croatia in ISAF.
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