KABUL
(Reuters) - (This version of the July 23 story corrects reference to A-29 Super
Tucano in para 7. The aircraft are built in the United States under an
agreement
between their Brazilian manufacturer, Embraer and Sierra Nevada
Corp.)
As the U.S.
administration prepares its new strategy for Afghanistan, the Kabul government
and its Western allies are working hard to develop an air force that gives
government forces the advantage in their war against Taliban militants.
The level of
equipment, training and assets falls far short of matching the air assets the
Americans still maintain in Afghanistan, but billions of dollars are earmarked
for the force which is being built up almost from scratch.
"That
is what will provide the asymmetric advantage to break the stalemate on the
ground," Brigadier-General Phillip Stewart, commander of TAAC-Air, the
Resolute Support mission advising the air force, told Reuters.
A four-year,
$7 billion expansion plan is aimed at training more flight and maintenance
crews and increasing the number of aircraft in the Afghan Air Force (AAF).
"In
2014, remember, we (NATO and the U.S. military in Afghanistan) had the best air
force in the world and the coalition pulled out and we realized we hadn't grown
the Afghan Air Force," Stewart said.
U.S.
officers say the aim is to build a counter-insurgency force able to support
troops fighting in remote and forbidding terrain with air strikes, supplies and
intelligence.
The air
force is already conducting some air strikes using Brazilian-designed A-29
Super Tucano light attack aircraft and specially adapted MD-530 scout
helicopters and it is building capacity in other areas.
Last month,
an Afghan air crew parachuted around 400 kg of supplies to an isolated border
police outpost, the first time the AAF had conducted an aerial supply drop.
"We can
do casualty evacuations, we can take cargo, we can take ammunition, we can
transport vehicles to different places where they can't go by road," said
Major Khail Shinwari, an Afghan C-130 Hercules pilot.
The AAF has
about 120 aircraft in service, ranging from small propeller Cessna 208s to old
Soviet-era helicopters, as well as the A-29s, MD-530s and its four veteran
C-130 Hercules transporters.
In coming
years, the old Russian Mi-17s helicopters, which are increasingly difficult to
maintain, will be replaced by American UH-60 Black Hawks.
Coalition
Support
The AAF says
it is flying up to 140 sorties a day, carrying supplies and providing close air
support to troops fighting the Afghan Taliban and Islamic State.
But whether
it can be built up quickly enough to turn the tide against the stubborn Taliban
insurgency is unclear. All the air power of the NATO-led coalition was not
enough to defeat the militants and the AAF is nowhere near being able operate
alone.
U.S. drones,
F-16s and Apache attack helicopters are still heavily engaged in areas like
Helmand, where U.S. aircraft conducted at least 52 air strikes in the space of
five days last week in support of Afghan forces.
For the
moment, the Afghan A-29s are still using unguided bombs rather than the guided
weapons used by the Americans, and the MD-530 helicopters, which came into
service in 2015, fire machine guns and rockets attached to their landing gear.
"It's
close air support but not as anyone who grew up in the U.S. Air Force would
understand it," Stewart said. "It's not precision, it's .50 cal(ibre
machine guns) and rockets but they get close to their work and they're very
good."
U.S.
trainers say Afghan pilots and crews are being trained to a standard comparable
with their American counterparts.
But the
length of time it takes to train crews - up to four years for pilots and as
much as seven years for specialized mechanics - means it will be years before
the air force can operate fully independently.
For the
moment, the emphasis is on building a force suitable for Afghanistan, which
means using less complicated equipment such as the C-208s or MD-350 helicopters
"at the expense of maybe getting some bigger, sexier platform,"
Stewart said.
The aim is
to increase the effectiveness of the security forces, which advisers hope to
get to a point where the Taliban are forced to negotiate a political
settlement.
As the AAF
has grown, however, it has faced increasing pressure from army units to step up
operations. Advisers say one of the main risks it faces is overstretch.
"They
just don't have the airplanes and sometimes the ground forces will become
frustrated because they want more," Stewart said.
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