In 2013 the Hungarian Armed Forces spent a total of HUF 13 billion on operations abroad with HUF 8 billion having been spent in Afghanistan. Hundreds of Hungarian soldiers have returned from Afghanistan and those remaining are engaged in training and mentoring the Afghan National Army (ANA).

The greater part of staff members of the Baghlan Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) – which served in Puli Khumri) – and of the company that guarded the Kabul airport (Air Mentor Team and Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team) have returned to Hungary but the Operational Advisory Team (OAT) carries on. The OAT is mainly engaged in training Afghan soldiers, and the so-called special operations teams have got new duties.

As far as the OAT is concerned, fresh Hungarian troops arrived at the Camp Mike Spann Forward Operating Base (CMS FOB) on November 20 near Mazar Sharif. Right after arrival the newcomers took charge of the military matériel and took on tasks related to training the Afghan troops and assisting them in their operations.

The Hungarian contingent is defended by a so-called Force Protection staff.

In the middle of December the OAT helped organize a visit by the commander of a planned northern command to the Afghan special response police and the border guard.

On December 12, 2013, the Hungarian contingent was visited by Tamás Vargha, parliamentary state secretary at the Hungarian Defense Ministry, Réka Szemerkényi, a senior political advisor of the Prime Minister’ Cabinet, and Major-General Sándor Fucsku, Hungarian Defense Force (HDF) Joint Force Commander. A convoy of the contingent took the delegation from Camp Marmal to the forward operating base (FOB).

As reported earlier, as from 2009 the Hungarian contingent has assisted in the training of Afghan troops in cooperation with a unit of the Ohio National Guard in Puli Khumri.

A special operations contingent of the HDF – some 40 persons – is serving in Vardak, Kapisa and Lugar provinces. Their task is to keep rebel forces under control, and train and support the ANA.

Since 2009 the various special operations unit work within the framework of the US-led Task Force 10. Between November 2012 and January 2013 the Hungarian special operations unit was reorganized and strengthened. A ten-member Hungarian air-training unit also works in that region.

Nearly 240 HDF staff work in KFOR in Kosovo and over 150 in Sarajevo in EUFOR. Eighty-four armed Hungarian peacekeepers serve in Cyprus and there are some HDF staffers in Lebanon, Western Sahara, Congo, Tajikistan, Georgia and Albania. A six-member HDF team has recently returned from Mali, where they took part in training and assisted in military hygiene tasks.

In the middle of December the Hungarian government prolonged the mandate of the HDF special operations contingent and of the Hungarian team that trains and mentors Afghan pilots of Mi-17 transport helicopters until 31 December 2014. The government gave its fiat to sending up to ten military training staff to Uganda, Somalia and Kenya under the aegis of EUTM Somalia with a mandate that will run out on March 31, 2015.

Source: Magyar Nemzet

Translated by Budapest Telegraph