For this Newly Formed Army Unit, the Stakes in Afghanistan Will be High
For this Newly Formed Army Unit, the Stakes in Afghanistan Will be High by Dan Lamothe – Washington Post
… As part of the Army’s newly created 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade, Mathes and about 800 other military advisers are expected to deploy this spring alongside a few hundred soldiers from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, who will provide security. The unit will be activated Thursday in a ceremony at Fort Benning, Ga.
The stakes are high. The SFAB could face more danger than any conventional U.S. unit in the war in several years because it is expected to advise and accompany Afghan kandaks, infantry units of a few hundred conventional soldiers, on a regular basis. U.S. troops advised such units during Obama’s surge, but only episodically in recent years.
The soldiers will fan out across the country in small teams, taking pressure off U.S. units that trained Afghan troops for years on an ad hoc basis, to varying degrees of success.
The deployment also will serve as a test case for the SFAB concept, which the Army hopes to expand to include six adviser brigades that could deploy around the world…
