Counterinsurgency Training Center in Afghanistan to Change Focus

The Counterinsurgency Training Center in Afghanistan has a new focus - shifting training directed at coalition troops to Afghan security forces. 

"Established May 2007, the Counterinsurgency Training Center Afghanistan focused on training coalition forces in Afghanistan.  The CTC-A held a monthly Counterinsurgency Leaders Course to train coalition forces in COIN. The CTC-A would also send out Mobile Training Teams to train a two- to four-day COIN Priority of Instructions to groups out in the regions, when requested. Effectively the CTC-A was training 75 percent coalition forces and 25 percent Afghan National Security Force.

Curriculum was developed and adapted using an observe, learn and adapt method. The CTC-A observed International Security Assistance Force guidance, ANSF numbers, and in-theatre training requirements. The CTC-A learned what the Afghan National Army Training Center was doing and conducted after action reviews with former trainees to see what parts of the CTC-A’s training were useful. With this knowledge the CTC-A then adapted what they were training to who and where they were training them. The CTC-A functioned this way until September of 2010, when the commander of ISAF instructed the CTC-A to start focusing more on ANSF as opposed to training coalition forces".

Read more of the article in "New Focus for Counterinsurgency Training Center Afghanistan", NTM-A, January 8, 2011.