Norway helps Icelandic forces to Kabul.

[kinghk]

Icelandic forces will take over the responsibility for Kabul airport, now being run by the germans. Although Iceland have no own military forces, they will be supplied with uniforms, gas masks, weapons and a two week military training course by Norway. They will probably replace the norwegian flag on the uniforms with the icelandic though. The handover of airport responsibility were supposed to happend in february, but is delayed to june. 15 icelandic persons from the "airportdepartment" will serve for a half year at the time.

Source:
http://www.fofo.no/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=1667
In norwegian.

[oldsoak]

Last time I saw a photo of an Icelander in uniform, it was in British DPM and the subject was in the Balkans.

[Ichhabe]

Last time I saw a photo of an Icelander in uniform, it was in British DPM and the subject was in the Balkans.

One Icelandic doctor served in KFOR in Norwegian uniform with his own national flag. I think it was in 1999.

There were a few in Bosnia aswell.

[oldsoak]

This was female and good looking :D Lovely smile - at least in the photo.

[martinexsquaddie]

they do have an ahem "elite countet terror force"
found this out during granby as there was a piece in iceland preparation as apprantly there was one icelander in the legion :lol:

[DANJANOU]

and a two week military training course

Two weeks! Something tells me they're going to be in for a bit of a shock when they get there. We give professional soldiers months of build up and prep training prior to a deployment like this.

[Ian H]

If Iceland has no military, who are they sending? Policemen?

[DANJANOU]

That's what I was wondering?

The original post says they're taking over ops at the airport, so I'm thinking civy techs such as ATCs or such.

If that's the case then I can see a brief 2-weeks "this is when to duck, this is when to run to the shelter, don't touch that shiny thing on the ground course" to keep them alive while doing their primary task.

Otherwise if these guys are in some sort of operational role there with 2 weeks training, well no offense but I really don't want to be in their shoes, especially as it looks like the Taliban is gearing up some sort of bombing offensive aimed at ISAF.

[kinghk]

If Iceland has no military, who are they sending? Policemen?

They are from the civilian airportadministration, as I wrote earlier.

[Marsuitor]

But nevertheless, two weeks is way too short for such a mission. I'm thinking it can't be anything else than the command and control and perhaps logistics, especially seeing the number of people involved (15 :| ). Someone else will, or must, probably handle the actual patrolling and security...

[Smintjes]

Icelandic forces will take over the responsibility for Kabul airport, now being run by the germans.

... and the Belgians.