Afghan Troop Withdrawal To Be Completed Next Week
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
South Korean forces stationed in Afghanistan will return home next week, ending their five-year-long humanitarian operations in the war-torn Central Asian nation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Friday.
The 200-strong non-combatant troops will return Dec. 14 on charted airplanes, JCS officials said.
A group of five senior military officers from the JCS, the Ministry of National Defense and the Army left for Afghanistan earlier in the day to help the troop pullout, they said.
The group, led by Rear Admiral Choi Su-young, will coordinate the withdrawal process with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Combined Joint Task Force-82, a U.S.-led subordinate formation of the ISAF, they added.
South Korean forces consisting of engineers and medics have conducted humanitarian and rehabilitation work in Afghanistan since 2002 as a coalition member.
About 44,000 coalition forces from 44 nations are conducting military operations in Afghanistan under the command of the ISAF, according to the JCS.
South Korea first dispatched the Dongui Medical Unit to Afghanistan in September 2002 to support the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom aimed at toppling the Taliban regime that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. The Dasan Engineering Unit was sent to the country in 2003.
The operation was initiated in late 2001 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Islamic extremists refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, who the United States accuses of masterminding the attacks on U.S. soil. Washington also aimed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base for operations.
Both locals and coalition troops have praised the successful operations by the Korean contingent. The Dongui unit has provided medical services to more than 240,000 soldiers and local residents since 2002, while the Dasan unit has participated in the reconstruction of roads, buildings and other infrastructure.
But the troop deployment became an issue of debate after a soldier of the Dasan unit lost his life in February in a suicide bomb attack. The soldier, Staff Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, was the first soldier killed in action from a hostile attack outside of Korea since the Vietnam War.
In July, a group of 22 South Koreans on a missionary tour was kidnapped in Afghanistan by Taliban militants. The Islamic extremists called for the withdrawal of Korean forces as a condition for the release of the hostages.
South Korea plans to contribute to the security of Afghanistan by joining the NATO-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) after the troop pullout.
PRT is an administrative unit administering international aid to Afghanistan and Iraq, consisting of civilians and military specialists who perform small construction projects or provide security for others involved in aid and reconstruction work.
PRTs were originally built and operated by the U.S. military as means of facilitating reconstruction efforts in provinces outside Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Following NATO involvement in Afghanistan, the command of the PRTs was transferred to the ISAF.