OSCE trains Tajik and Afghan border officers on patrolling and leadership

DUSHANBE, 16 October 2014 –Tajik border troops and Afghan border police officers completed a joint five-week training course on patrolling and leadership organized by the OSCE Office in Tajikistan.

Twenty-two graduates, ranking from position of warrant officer to major, learned how to plan and conduct observation missions with the use of topographical maps, management of satellite imagery and other tools, and the use of patrol planning and management techniques. They also worked on reporting and analysis skills, mountaineering and first aid in the field.

“This high-quality training course, provided by the OSCE Office, will help Tajik border guards and Afghan border police improve their skills, enhance capacities in the detection and interdiction of illegal cross-border movements,” said  Flemming Splidsboel Hansen, Head of the OSCE Office’s Politico-Military Department in Tajikistan. “'The OSCE expects that the joint course facilitates closer cooperation across the Tajik-Afghan border.”

The representatives of the Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan and the Main Directorate of Border Troops of the State Committee on National Security of Tajikistan attended the ceremony upon completion of the course.