Germany has started withdrawing its soldiers and material from Afghanistan. The move poses an amazing logistical challenge and also will be expensive.
Despite the Bundeswehr’s experience in overseas assignments, getting its equipment out of Afghanistan will prove to be an unprecedented logistical challenge. Per information provided by the German military, it’ll should remove around 1,200 armored vehicles and four,800 shipping containers jam-packed with weapons, ammunition, computers and other materials back to Germany by the tip of 2014.
Small military camps comparable to the only in northeastern Faizabad, have already been dismantled previously few months. Now German soldiers in Kunduz have also started packing up. The Bundeswehr plans to go away its northern Afghan camp before the beginning of the tough winter months.
Mazar-i-Sharif
Some Bundeswehr vehicles at the moment are on their way home. A 5,000-kilometer journey lies ahead. It starts out on a dusty mountain road to Mazar-i-Sharif, the Bundeswehr’s main base in Afghanistan. Exact routes and schedules for the convoys may not be made public for security reasons. Also for security reasons, the convoys should be guarded at the ground and by air.
Mazar-i-Sharif stands out as the hub of the Bundeswehr’s move. Getting the equipment in another country will prove tricky, in view that Afghanistan has no direct access to the ocean. Sensitive material, reminiscent of armored howitzers, shall be flown on to Leipzig, Germany. The Bundeswehr expects to pay 150 million euros for the air transport alone.
The remainder of the cloth would be sent back to Germany via three routes: along the north by train through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and thru the Baltic states; along the south by land and air to Karachi, Pakistan, and from there by ship; and along the most route starting in Mazar-i-Sharif to the Turkish port Trabzon by air after which by ship throughout the Bosporus, Gibraltar, the English Channel and to the German city of Emden.
What must return and what can stay
There can also be material it really is meant to remain in Afghanistan – either for economic or for military/political reasons. Planning the further use of the equipment is proving to be tedious. Each object is categorized on lists after which this is decided whether the item will go or stay.
“Things that are too expensive to move could be sold in Kunduz province,” Colonel York Freiherr von Rechenberg, Bundeswehr commander in Afghanistan, told DW. He said the fabric not just included weapons and vehicles, but in addition “materials that may be useful to civilians comparable to generators and furniture.”
The German barracks would be transferred to the Afghan army and police. In line with Colonel von Rechenberg, the barracks would be re-designed to satisfy the wishes of the brand new tenants; a wall may be built to divide the premises in two.
Both army and police will receive separate power, water and heating supplies. The electricity will now not come from generators, but from the country’s grid – a less reliable but less expensive option. The price for re-designing the barracks are set to exceed 1000000 euros.
The equipment on the modern base hospital, which was built two years ago at a value of six million euros, can be partially dismantled. “Most of the fabric there’ll be sent back. Otherwise, if we were to provide them to locals, there must be a two-year warranty at the material. We can’t afford that,” the commander explained. The machines will return to Germany, where they’ll watch for use in further deployments. The air-conditioned rooms, however, might be given to the police to apply for training purposes.
Colonel von Rechenberg believes Afghan security forces and administration are headed within the right direction if you want to fulfill their jobs without the assistance of the Bundeswehr. General Khalil Andarabi, commander of the national police in Kunduz, in turn, said that despite careful planning and preparations for the withdrawal, there’s still an absence of teaching, high-quality weapons and air support. “That will make it difficult for us to work in Kunduz. The withdrawal is simply too early. Our German friends may have waited to go away the rustic until after the presidential elections next year, ” Andarabi said.
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