Here at Kit Up! we have been covering the Polish Special Forces units quite a bit and I'm happy to do it. I've written in the past about Poland's 1st Special Forces Regiment and David Reeder just had a cool article the other day about Polish SF training with the Indian military. One of my sources recently came through with some information that has been vetted for OPSEC by those familiar with these operations, and as you can see, Polish SF is embracing the FID mission in Afghanistan.
Firstly, the 1st Special Forces Regiment has now changed its name and is now called Jednostka Wojskowa Komandosów, meaning Commando Military Unit. The reason for the name change is something that has been in the works for years and was necessary as the name Regiment carried certain doctrinal obligations within the Polish military. With the new designation as a commando unit, the operators now have much greater flexibility in the types of missions they can conduct.
There are currently two task forces from Polish Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan: TF-49, staffed by GROM counter-terrorist operators and TF-50, which is the commando unit, both of whom receive their taskings from ISAF SOCOM. These guys are not just marking time as a allied military fulfilling their country's political obligations by supporting the GWOT, but rather are playing with the big boys and working for the same headquarters as American SOF units.
TF-50's mission is to train Afghani Provincial Response Companies which are to evolve into Counter-Terrorist units themselves. In addition to the standard Foreign Internal Defense program, TF-50 commandos also lead their Afghan counterparts on combat operations the same way US Special Forces soldiers do. This combined TF-50/ANP PRC strike force has been conducting Direct Action raids against Taliban/Al-Qaeda militants as well as successfully blowing up a number of enemy caches full of weapons and explosives.
As a former Special Forces soldier myself, I know how difficult it is to train illiterate Afghani troops with next to zero education how to soldier properly. It looks like Poland's new Commando unit is out there taking care of business despite the challenges. If anyone else wants to share some (non-OPSEC) information and pictures with me, please feel free. I'm more than happy to write up Allied units or the conventional military!
Kit Up! contributor Jack Murphy is a former Ranger, Special Forces Soldier and is the author of the new military thriller PROMIS: Rhodesia.
