CAF welcomes home RAAF Tarin Kot personnel

CAF AIRMSHL Geoff Brown thanks RAAF personnel who were deployed to Tarin Kot. (Defence)

Chief of Air Force AIRMSHL Geoff Brown and Minister for Defence Senator David Johnston have formally welcomed home more than 100 RAAF personnel who had been deployed to Multi National Base – Tarin Kot (MNB-TK) in Afghanistan.

The formal ceremony at RAAF Base Amberley on February 14 follows the closure of MNB-TK in December, and the withdrawal of ADF personnel from Uruzgan province.

“Australia’s outstanding work, along with that of our international partners, has led to demonstrable improvements in security, development and governance capacity in Uruzgan,” Senator Johnston said. “Our focus will now be on providing support and assistance to Afghanistan at the national level.”

“MNB-TK Command and Security Force personnel provided a critical air base capability while simultaneously preparing the base for the handover to Afghanistan authorities. Air Force personnel have served with professionalism and honour and they have earned the respect of coalition and service partners,” AIRMSHL Brown said.

“Since July 2010, Air Force has deployed 320 airbase operations personnel to MNB-TK. They have ensured that the base ran smoothly, providing security, logistics and engineering support to enable safe aircraft operations.”