WITBANK, South Africa — Defense chiefs and special forces commanders from nine member states of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) have resolved to intensify the training of regional special forces counterterrorism units to improve their rapid response capabilities.
Although it has largely been spared from the terrorist activities affecting other parts of the continent, south African countries developed set up the SADC special forces unit, which is made up of air, land and naval airforce, army and naval commandos drawn from the nine member states to deal with the Africa's deadliest encroaching security threat.
A force initially was set up in the late 1990s to respond to military and civil unrest, in members states but it has since 2013 the focus has shifted to become more coherent and shifted focus to countering the multinational terror threats, which so far have affected only one member state, Tanzania.
Last week, Special forces commanders recently met in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare to work out ways of sharpening regional counterterrorism training programme to give the force a rapid response capability to deal with the threats raging in nearby countries. East, Central and West Africa.
The conference was held under the theme "Combat Survival, Navigation and Counter-Terrorism." It comes a few months after intelligence reports suggesting Nigerian Islamist Boko Haram and the Somali-based Al Shebbab militant groups are trying to establish recruitment and sleeper cells in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Addressing the conference, Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Trust Mugoba said the annual special forces meetings should plan ahead to ensure that the region needs has a rapid response force capable of spearheading the deployment of regular troops from the SADC stand-by brigade to deal with terror threats, armed rebellions, military coups and civil unrest.
The SADC stand-by brigade is a critical regional component of the long-delayed African Union (AU) stand-by force which, if activated at the end of the year as planned, will be charged with intervening militarily to restore stability in member states.
Major-Gen Mugoba said there is need for regular special forces training drills to ensure force cohesion and smooth joint mission planning. in response to international terrorism and other security threats which have engulfed the rest of Africa:
"Terrorism is a threat everywhere [in Africa] and the SADC special forces need to be prepared to manage such situations rapidly through enhancing operational capabilities. In the context of setting up a regional rapid response force, we have realized that there is need to hold regular joint training programs. That is why this conference has a specific training program for the [regional] special forces element," he said.
The extensive operational mandate of the special forces includes reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering, offensive action, the protection of vital and strategic interests, counterterrorism, search-and-rescue services, and military capacity development. The special forces are geared to respond to a crisis within eight8 hours, to a crisis, thereby providing a critical stopgap measure to mitigate crises before the deployment of the SADC-AU stand-by brigade. The brigade which is operationally handicapped because in that it can only be activated 54 days (nearly 2 months) after the unfolding of a crisis.
This year's special forces drills will be held on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe with at least 500 members from regional land, air and naval forces participating in a month-long counter-terrorism training program starting from Aug. 24 to Sept. 25. The drill, which is code-named "Exercise Mahombekombe," will be used to hone the combat survival, navigation and counterterrorism skills of the special forces.
It will also focus on maritime anti-piracy operations and how to deal with the hostage-taking and kidnapping, tactics which are regularly used by terrorist groups.
Angolan special forces commander Brig. Gen. Joao Baptista Paulo said there is an urgent need to establish for the establishment of a regional special forces English language training school to ensure effective communications during joint operations with troops from three3 out of the 15 SADC member countries that which do not use English as an official language.
These are Portuguese-speaking Mozambique and Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where French is the official language.
"Communication is a major challenge within the SADC special forces. We recommend the creation of an English language training school for members to make it easy to communicate while on joint operations. It is known there are three official languages spoken in the region and these are French, Portuguese and English," Brig. Gen Paulo said.
Further, he said English language proficiency will cut out the need for interpreters, which often presents practical problems during military operations. The regional special force operates under a rotational command which is currently chaired by Zimbabwe National Army Col. Ephias Mahachi.
Brig. Gen. Rudzani Maphwanya, commander of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) special forces unit, also spoke was among the key speakers at the conference.
The nine SADC members providing troops to the special forces unit are South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, the DRC and Tanzania. Malawi, Madagascar, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mauritius and the Seychelles, part of the SADC, are not yet members because their defense forces do not have any special forces components.
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