01 September 2013 to 10 May 2014, a multi-national unit consisting of 28 American and Slovenian Special Forces Soldiers, were assigned to the Special Operations Task Unit (SOTU) in Laghman, Eastern Afghanistan, serving as tactical advisors (High Risk Arrest, Armed Reconnaissance, Cordon and Search) to a 115 man Provincial Response Company (PRC), advancing security objectives in the province Slovenian Operations Detachment-Alpha (ODA) / U.S. ODA, as members of Special Operations Task Group-East (SOTG-E), contributed to Special Operations Command Europe’s strategic objective of establishing interoperability between U.S. and European Special Forces throughout the deployment, Slovenian ODA engaged in dozens of successful, advised, enabled, and partnered operations.
Aside from the successful operations, Slovenia ODA had a critical role in training, planning, and assisting the development of the PRC. Some of their contributions, to list a few, were: Conducting “Train-the-Trainer” courses, instructing Task Unit’s Weapons Tactics, Close Quarter Battle, Tactical Call out procedures, Advanced Marksmanship, small unit tactics, Sensitive Site Exploitation, land navigation, forward observer training, the Tactical Combat Casualty Care Course, explosive breaching, and Counter-IED measures.
17 award recipients were recognized for a successful deployment in support of International Security Assistance Force – ISAF.
