Securing Kabul for a secure UK: Captain Gurung’s story
Having served in 17 countries and on his 11th Operational Tour, Royal Gurkha Rifles Captain, Premkaji Gurung is back in Afghanistan for the fourth time as the Officer Commanding the Base Defence Operations Centre in Kabul.
My favourite aspect of this operation is seeing the multinational military and civilian individuals under my command coming together and carrying out potentially life saving drills.
Responsible for overall protection of nearly 2,000 people, Captain Gurung regularly puts his soldiers through their paces in rehearsals and exercises designed to test their ability to counter a myriad of threats against their base. While attacks on coalition troops in Kabul are rare, troops are prepared to react should it happen.
Operations demonstrate the reach of the Army on the international stage. They’re a good opportunity to spread the good work of the Brigade of Gurkhas.
Operation Toral is the UK’s contribution to NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan. This is a non-combat mission to train, advise and assist the Afghans in securing their nation. The mission was launched in 2015 after the conclusion of NATO combat operations and the Afghans taking full responsibility of their security.
‘We use Foxhound vehicles to get around Kabul. As a light infantry unit we’re used to using out feet for transport, so before we could deploy on this mission we had to do a lot of training with vehicles.
I’m responsible for any incident which might occur in the New Kabul Compound, facilitating the command function here and providing suggestions and feedback to headquarters.
Each nation has their own specific way of doing things, one challenge I had to overcome was bringing the multinational forces together to one way of working. What’s great about working with other nations’ armed forces is that our work ethics are all the same, we work hard and as part of a team, this makes the job all the easier. I’ve learnt a lot from the other nations.
Through my role here in Kabul I’m setting the conditions of safety for our advisors to be able to deploy to advise the Afghan Government, it’s a crucial role to ensure the Afghans combat terrorism at the source.’
To find out more about NATO’s mission in Afghanistan Click Here.
