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First Afghan Air Force Intel students graduate

  • Published
  • By Capt. Rob Leese
  • 438th AEW PAO
KABUL, Afghanistan --  On July 21, 2010, 7 students from all corners of the Afghan Air Force graduated from the first Basic Intelligence Course run by the Combined Air Power Transition Force mentors at the Afghan Air Force base in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Each of the graduates completed 210 hours of classroom instruction covering over 50 topics, ranging from critical thinking and analysis, mission planning, classified information protection and security, to the creation and delivery of a professional military intelligence brief in support of Afghanistan Air Force flying operations. All of them passed a midterm test and an end-of-course test with a 70% or above average.

This training taught Afghan Air Force members how to successfully provide intelligence to air operations in the dynamic environment of a counter insurgency campaign and gives them the tools to be valuable partners of the ISAF and NATO intelligence community. It also strengthens the AAF by giving them the guidelines for protecting and utilizing classified information and gives them the ability to be flexible in thought and action in order to execute their intelligence mission successfully.

All seven of the students graduated even though they have had to overcome multiple challenges during their 4-month course. The class was taught in both English and Dari. Class members had to learn new concepts and ways of thinking while confronting a complex language barrier. They also faced many difficulties in their private lives. Many of the students would take their uniforms off in order to safely traverse the roads on the way to class. Not only did they overcome massive academic challenges, they overcame significant personal challenges from losing loved ones to suicide bombers here in Kabul, to overcoming severe health, and welfare concerns back home.

TSgt Lee Marsters, CAPTF Intelligence mentor explains, "This class has overcome many challenges to reach this stage in their progression. The students in conjunction with our outstanding Afghan interpreters made a great team; without every student's attention this class would not have been possible. Our success in graduating all of them has only come about due to their dedication to their country and their military."

They will face more challenges in the future. They have been trained to think outside the box which is both an advantage and a burden as a member of the Air Operations Intelligence community. At their new units they will be responsible for utilizing what they have been taught; however, they will be limited by resources, they will be challenged by being separated from their families and they will be challenged by the growing/shifting missions of the Afghan Air Force ranging from air assault, humanitarian airlift, and combat mission support missions.

The program started in January with a rough syllabus that was a combination of subjects from the Afghan National Army Intel course and the U.S. Air Force Intel enlisted course. Three CAPTF non-commissioned officers used their experience and expertise to turn that rough idea into the AAF Basic Intelligence Course. Working with their translators, they built almost 4 months of material from scratch, translated from English to Dari on slides and in the classroom.

Maj. Eric Larson, CAPTF Intelligence mentor to the Kabul Wing senior intelligence officer, explained further, "This was difficult material and the Afghans got it, from document security to the intelligence-operations cycle to COIN strategy and pulse Doppler radar theory. It is a tribute to the hard work of the CAPTF Intel NCO mentors, the deep topical and language understanding of the translators, and the learning capabilities of the Afghan students. They all reached this graduation milestone...a team effort from beginning to end. Of course, now the hard work of applying the classroom to the field begins."

The entire class will be moving to new jobs following graduation. Some will return to their home units in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Other will be assigned to Jalalabad and Kandahar, while some will stay here at Kabul and become a part of Kabul Wing Training School. They will be the first intelligence professionals of their kind in the Afghan Air Force and they will be responsible to lead their Air Force into a successful future.