Back in Spanish hands

 

The second rotation of BRILAT arrives at the Lavacolla military airfield

The Spanish captain takes over command of the Protection Force

The Protection Force deployed in Mali will be led by the Spanish troops of the 9th Light Infantry Regiment "Soria"

The security of the Koulikoro base (Mali) is back under Spanish responsibility since mid-May. It was then that the command of the Protection Force passed from the Belgians to the Spaniards, who take turns to run the base.

The company will now be made up of personnel from the 9th Light Infantry Regiment “Soria”, which contributes two fusiliers sections, together with two sections from the Belgian army and a support section composed of members of different units of the Brigade “Canarias”.

Their main duty is to provide security to the instructors and to the base, where people of many different nationalities live together. They will perform tasks typical of a protection force unit which for the last six months have been carried out by their colleagues at the 7th Light Infantry Brigade (BRILAT) “Galicia”. Nevertheless, their job will on occasion require them to go to other cantonments to escort the instructors during their training of the Malian soldiers.

Retraining

Such was the case for BRILAT shortly before their return to Spain. Their destination was the town of Ségou, where they made it possible for the instructors of the EU Training Mission in Mali to retrain the 4th Inter-Arms Task Force “Balanzan” – which had finished its training in March 2014 – in order to increase its operational capabilities before a new deployment.

The retraining of that unit lasted for a month and a half and involved three infantry companies, an engineers’ unit, a cavalry squadron, an artillery battery and the command section. It ended with a live fire exercise in which all arms were involved.

The activities were practical in nature and focused on area control missions. They included checkpoint exercises, urban warfare and shooting individual weapons, heavy machine guns and mortars. Their objective was to meet the training needs identified by the Malian soldiers during the operations they have been involved in. Furthermore, recently recruited personnel have also been prepared for action.

The teams of instructors are multinational but in this rotation the Spaniards played a special role because they contributed instructors on Special Operations, Infantry and Artillery. In addition, the members of the Protection Force charged with securing the training areas and the living quarters were also Spanish.

Back home

Those troops returned to Spain shortly after the end of that mission, together with the rest of the members of BRILAT. Since 12 May the whole rotation force is back in Spain after six months in Mali.