Special Forces Capture Three High Value Targets

URUZGAN, Afghanistan (June 3, 2011)- Afghan National Police and their Australian Special Forces partners have further degraded the insurgent networks operating in central Uruzgan by capturing three key leaders in separate missions.

Members of the Provincial Response Company Uruzgan (PRC-U) and the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) detained the objectives in Deh Rafshan and Baluchi during targeting operations in May. 

Commanding Officer of the SOTG said the removal of the three men will increasingly affect the network during the fighting season. 

“These men were prominent bomb experts, logisticians and insurgent facilitators.” 

“Their absence from the battle space will reduce the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) and inhibit the rate of weapons supply to the insurgency,” CO SOTG said. 

The three men will be transferred to the Detention Facility in Parwan to face prosecution. Their names can not be released until they are successfully prosecuted under Afghan law. 

“It is always a significant achievement when men who have conducted and coordinated attacks on local and Coalition forces are no longer able to inflict harm on the population.”

“Australian Special Forces have killed or captured twenty key insurgents since December 2010,” CO SOTG said.