Photo By Cpl. Jad Sleiman | A Marine and a Burundian soldier practice land navigation in mid-March. Three small...... read more read more
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NAVAL AIR STATION SIGONELLA, Sicily – Three small teams of U.S. Marines traveled to Burundi over the course of February and March to help prepare local soldiers to deploy to Somalia.
Burundi supplies the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia with more than 4,000 soldiers, the second largest contribution to the force. They and their African partners are charged with stabilizing Mogadishu and bolstering the Somali interim government in the face of an al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab insurgency.
Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12, the Marines’ parent command, has been sending small security and logistics cooperation teams into Africa over the course of their six month deployment in support of Marine Forces Africa. Their goal is to engage with African militaries facing regional terror threats.
The first team arrived Feb. 1st and went over staff planning and leadership techniques. Burundi’s army largely relies on its officer corps to accomplish most objectives, explained mission team leader Capt. Matthew Jenkins, while the Marines spread responsibilities between officers and enlisted leadership.
“Hopefully we laid the seeds for them expanding an NCO [noncommissioned officer] corps,” he said. “Officers can’t do everything all the time.”
The first team found one of the biggest stumbling blocks the Burundi National Defense Force faces lies in maintaining the complex logistics and supply systems that support deployed troops.
That’s where the vehicle maintenance assessment team comes in. The arrived in country March 10 in order to survey the BNDF’s vehicles and supply capabilities and use their findings to help design future training regimens.
“We were there to get the big picture,” said Staff Sgt. Chris Rosenberger, the mission noncommissioned officer in charge. The next rotation of SPMAGTF 12 can actually execute the training, he said.
Another three-man team also arrived March 10 and partnered with State Department-sponsored contractors already helping prepare BNDF soldiers for Somalia. Acting as an “extra set of eyes and ears,” they added recent insights on counter IED and counter insurgency tactics learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Maj. Jason Brigadier, the final team leader.
SPMAGTF-12 has also sent teams into Uganda and Djibouti, whose militaries make up the first and third largest contributors to African Union Mission in Somalia respectively. The next rotation already has missions slated in support of those nations as well.
| Date Taken: | 04.05.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 04.05.2012 17:56 |
| Story ID: | 86332 |
| Location: | NAVAL AIR STATION SIGONELLA, IT |
| Web Views: | 339 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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