BEVERLY HILLS, August 01, (THEWILL) – Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, has approved the training of three batches of Special Forces of 450 carefully selected Regiment personnel from the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) by a military training organisation from Israel.
A statement from the NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Olatokunbo Adesanya, said the training, being handled by Four-Troop, was aimed at further developing the capacity of the personnel to fight under all types of terrains and weather conditions.
He said successful participants would be deployed to defend NAF air assets and bases as well as critical national infrastructure and assets like airports and oil installations, among others, at the end of the nine-week training programme which commenced in Kaduna at the weekend at the NAF Regiment Training Centre in Kaduna.
“The Special Forces would also be required to take the battle to the adversaries whenever necessary,” he said.
“While flagging off the training of the first batch of 150 personnel, the Air Officer Commanding Ground Training Command, Air Vice Marshal Samson Akpasa, stated that a robust counter-force to respond to any contingency was vital in Nigeria’s contemporary security environment, which was characterised by insurgency, militancy, oil theft, cattle-rustling, kidnapping and other vices.”
The Air Force spokesman, therefore, urged the trainees to be physically fit, mentally alert and psychologically sound to learn and assimilate instructions that would be passed to them in the course of their training programme.
He added that as conflicts become more complex and diverse, a force multiplier unit such as the Special Forces would enable the tactical commander gain an upper hand in battle as he thanked the foreign partners from Israel for accepting to conduct the training.
