Tuesday April 26, 2016
Kabul (BNA) The Afghan MoD authorities said that at present drones and supertonic airplanes are being used against Taliban insurgents which produced effective results.
These airplanes can be used in every parts of Afghanistan and the supertonic I29 airplanes are equipped with artillery and machineguns and they can launch rockets as well. MoD spokesman BG Dawlat Waziri said drones are currently used in Kunduz, Badakhshan, Helmand and other parts of the Afghanistan effectively. The Afghan Air Forces authorities believe that availability of drones can be frankly effective in equipping and improving of air forces talking on the use of drones to media, commander of AAFLG Abdul Wahab Wardak said we received new I-29 airplanes and in the last one year, we focused on training of our personal. India contributed MI-24 airplanes. We also received MI-17 and beside artillery, we installed rockets on them that inflicted heavy casualties to insurgents.
Touching 29-I airplanes, LG Wardak said these airplanes are equipped with modern computerized system and led by LASER. At present eight Afghan pilots are being trained in the US and we used these airplanes in “Operation Shafaq” in Badakhshan effectively. In recent years, the civilian causalities have been a hot discussion among people by the warming factories during operations and battles especially during Nato strikes. Answering a question on safety of civilians during air operations LG Wardak said the AAF personal have received special legal and technical training on civilians safety and they avoid use of heavy weapons on targets close to civilians. Prior to this the MoD General Staff had also instructed ANA to avoid damages to civilians during battles, because civilian casualties by foreign forces had caused gap between people and government. But new these operations are led by ANSF and the foreign forces have no active presence in the battlefields, whether still civilian casualties can be a concerning issue? Farmer Afghan General and military expert Jamal Ferahmand said unfortunately in the last 16 years, civilians’ casualties by warring factories have been one of the basic issues which are still ongoing. In recent UN report once again concern has been expressed on increasing civilian casualties in Afghanistan. If the AAF personal is not trained on drones, civilians may be damaged again. Emphasizing on equipping of AAF, the law makers said Afghanistan lacks Radar system and air space. Even the slightest military assistance is very effective for us. So our allies should train our military staff properly on use of drones to avoid civilians casualties.
Suraya Raiszada
