Posted on 03/28/2004 4:44:20 PM PST by lump in the melting pot
PRAGUE- The first group of Czech reconnaissance troops, who left the military air base in Prerov, north Moravia, for Afghanistan on Thursday under conditions of top secrecy, are already there, Defence Ministry spokesman Ladislav Sticha told Nova television. "I can confirm that Czech soldiers assigned for the Enduring Freedom operation have already arrived at the place of the operation and are fulfilling tasks there," Sticha said on Nova.
The soldiers, the first combat forces deployed by the Czech military since World War Two, are to assist the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom in searching the Afghan mountains for members of the former ruling Taliban movement and the terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda.
General Staff head Pavel Stefka told the radio programme Radiozurnal today that the secrecy of the soldiers' departure corresponds to normal procedures that all states use in deployment of special forces soldiers. Not much should be said about their use, he added, since the more talk there is about them, the higher the risk to the soldiers themselves.
"The other side as well has its intelligence, and this would put our special-forces troops at a disadvantage," Stefka said.
According to today's Pravo, an An-124 transport aircraft took off from the Prerov base at roughly 2:20 p.m., though the soldiers had been on board for over an hour at that time. Though their exact number is unknown, since the military has refused to make any details public, Pravo has estimated that they were probably half of the 108 troops in the unit.
The runway of the Prerov air base is nonetheless visible from the main road leading to the nearby towns of Prostejov and Tovacov, and the gigantic Russian-made transporter could not take off unnoticed, Pravo writes. Local residents, the paper adds, were for some time standing at the crossroads on the outskirts of Prerov observing the activity on the base.
Though the An-124 has a flight range of up to 16,000 kilometres, it will not fly directly to Afghanistan but will take a more complicated route with several stops, Stefka confirmed. Nonetheless, he said, this is a regular military flight observing all international regulations for takeoff and touchdown, and other troops left even before Thursday's flight.
According to information Pravo published earlier in the week, the troops, from the 601st special forces unit, have already selected the site for their base, on a plateau in the foothills of a high mountain range, with exceptional visibility.
On Monday, Premier Vladimir Spidla and Defence Minister Miroslav Kostelka arrived to the unit's base in Prostejov, south Moravia, to bid them farewell.
A group of up to 120 members from the special force could leave Prostejov for Afghanistan to join the international anti- terrorism operation Enduring Freedom, but their number will probably be only 108 as the soldiers are leaving a certain reserve.
Autor: CTK.
So like why are we reading it here???
I suppose you could say that they're Czeching out the situation in Afghanistan....
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