Afghan Soldiers Ready to Fight Drug Trade
USA Today
06/03/2006
FORT BLISS, Texas (AP) — Sixteen Afghan
soldiers have graduated from a new training program at Fort
Bliss, armed with knowledge on how to fly Russian-made helicopters
in anti-drug missions over their war-torn country. The men will
now make their final preparations to head back to Afghanistan,
where they are expected to immediately get to work trying to
halt the booming narcotics trade.
At their graduation ceremony Friday, Ashraf Haidari,
a spokesman for the Afghan embassy in Washington, called the
soldiers "Afghanistan's heroes" and thanked them for
their service.
He said they also will help U.S.-led coalition
troops fight terrorism in their homeland, the world's top opium
producer.
"Thirty years of war left the country in
ruins and fueled the drug trade," Haidari said. "Your
graduation is a testament to the long-term commitment of the
United States to Afghanistan."
The soldiers are the first of three classes of
pilots, flight engineers and crew chiefs scheduled to come to
Fort Bliss for similar training. In Afghanistan, they will work
with the Afghan National Interdiction Unit, which works closely
with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Shirzia, an Afghan Army Air Corps soldier who
asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons,
said he was proud to take on the dangerous work.
"Because we went through a lot of hard times
we want our children to grow up in a safe world," Shirzia
said through a translator. "We want our kids to respect
humanity."
Shirzia and his comrades, who were all Air Corps
soldiers before being selected for the training program, learned
to use night-vision equipment, a technology new to Afghanistan's
fledgling military.
Despite concerns for their safety, the soldiers
said they have a duty to fight their country's drug lords.
"It's a responsibility of the people of any
country," said 35-year-old Naseer, who along with the other
soldiers speaks very little English.
Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Carlos Torres, who
supervised the training, said the Russian-built MI-17 helicopters
the soldiers will fly in Afghanistan won't be armed. He would
not discuss specifics of the operations, saying only that it
was an anti-drug mission.
DEA Agent William Brown, who leads the agency's
aviation division, said the flight crews will be invaluable
to both Afghanistan and the United States.
"This is a critical mission," Brown
told the soldiers. "Your participation is extremely important,
if not vital to the success of this program."
