December 12, Afghanistan National Army (ANA) Ground Force Commander Lt Gen Murad Ali on visit in Ghor province extended gratitude to Police Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (POMLT) Commander Lt Col Ričardas Pocius and the entire POMLT mission for the massive input made and dedicated work done to change the vision and readiness level of Ghor national police as well as to integrate it into Afghan security forces.
In a conversation with POMLT Commander, General mentioned that even in Kabul it was known that police forces in Chaghcharan have grown evidently more professional, assumed clear interoperability with Afghan army and other security forces of Afghanistan and won the trust of local population within a notably short period of one year, and the result was a merit of POMLT mission of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
One of the daily POMLT tasks: on December 7 of 2011 personnel of the 3rd shift of POMLT in collaboration with Quick Response Company of the Afghan National Police (ANP) organised and completed joint police operations and a night patrol in Chaghcharan and its suburbs.
Joint patrolling and operations with ANP is a part of support to ANP through operations and training delivered by POMLT aimed at teaching national police forces to plan, organise and conduct security operations independently. The operation was two-fold: operational planning part was followed by deployment and patrolling. During the first part POMLT instructors monitored and refined work of the police staff on organisation of police operations. According to the supervising instructors, former POMLT rotations trained ANP staff excellently and the planning process proceeded like clockwork with just minor improvements needed.
The second stage of the operation - real-life deployment of patrols in the town and its suburbs and patrolling, took place in two phases. Phase one involved ANP QR Company and POMLT-3 foot patrolling in the central street of Chaghcharan, vehicles, people and separate areas were checked on a preventive basis or according to a reported information. Instructors focused on safety and correctness of check-up procedures which was excellent. Phase two involved mounted patrol in the streets of the capital and suburbs with traffic and operation of check-posts installed on the main entrances into Chaghcharan, being observed. During that phase instructors considered the importance of ensured security and communication during an operation completed in the dark part of the day and night.
The overall result was accepted joyfully both by ANP and POMLT personnel, therefore more night and day patrols will be organised in the future with expanded operation area and more personnel.
POMLT-3 assumed the duty in November 2011. The team manned by the Military Police of the Lithuanian Armed Forces and US servicemembers is commanded by Lt Col R. Pocius. Over 230 local policemen have already graduated from the basic police patrol course organised by POMLT; the unit also provides first medical aid, officer training, protection of vital objects and other courses, and airfield guard and special operations planning courses are foreseen to take place in the nearest future. The third shift of POMLT is focused on training and coordination of interoperability, operational planning, and command and control capacities between separate elements of Afghan security forces in Ghor province, increasing the total number of operations held in collaboration with ANP, and training ANP policemen and ANP instructors.
Article and pictures by Personnel Officer in POMLT-3 1st Lt Martynas Vilimas.
