More Polish Troops to Afghanistan

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Afghan President Hamid Karzai attend a joint news conference in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, April 8, 2009.

After the talks with Karzai, Kaczynski said Poland boost military presence up to 20% in Afghanistan before the upcoming Afghan elections. Poland currently has 1590 troops mostly stationed in the Afghan province of Ghazni.

Kaczynski also visited Ghazni and talk to his soldiers based there.




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G.I.s reporting to Polish CO

In the next few weeks, a company of U.S. soldiers is scheduled to set up camp in southeastern Afghanistan and report directly to a Polish lieutenant colonel.

A similar swap is in the cards for a Polish company and an American battalion. This signals an increased willingness in the U.S. military to selectively mix and match regular infantry units with allies in a combat zone.

As recently as a couple of months ago, the Polish military had no more than a couple of hundred troops operating in Afghanistan, mostly engineers and de-mining specialists. Now there are about 1,200 in Afghanistan, nearly half of them special forces personnel.

The move was in response to "a request from NATO to increase the number of troops in the eastern theater" of Afghanistan. "Poland decided to set the example for the
other European NATO nations, which are not very eager to supply personnel.

NATO's call for reinforcements came late last year, so Poland's response was relatively quick, given the country also has about 1,000 troops in Iraq.