Corps to add second RCT in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

A Marine with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), Batallion Landing Team 3/6 providing small-arms support while an advance team conducts a cordon and search raid at a suspected al-Quaida hideout in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, in January. About 9,000 additional Marines will be deployed to Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama's plan for 30,000 more troops, a Marine official says.


Corps to add second RCT in Afghanistan
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 3, 2009 17:31:13 EST

The Marine Corps will add a second regimental combat team to supplement U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and it apparently has at least three infantry battalions ready to deploy.

About 9,000 Marines will be deployed among the 30,000 troops that President Barack Obama on Tuesday said will be deployed to the war-torn country in the next six months, said a Marine official in the Pentagon, who spoke to Marine Corps Times anonymously due to the sensitivity of the pending announcement. Deployment orders for some Marine units could be announced as soon as Friday, but may not come until next week, two Marine officials said.

The Corps has declined to identify units that will deploy, but in a Tuesday night phone conference with bloggers and journalists, an Army general said the initial forces include “an additional Marine regimental combat team going to southern Afghanistan to be a part of the Marine expeditionary brigade in Afghanistan.”

“They will assist in securing the population in central Helmand” province, said Army Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, director of the joint Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell at the Pentagon.

That marked the first time that a general officer confirmed that a second RCT will join 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which is based in Helmand, the epicenter of the Corps’ fight against the Taliban and the home to Camp Leatherneck, the Corps’ major base in Afghanistan.


Rest of article at: http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/12/marine_afghanistan_120309w/