New units to assume Special Forces mission

[unhappycamper]

Marines from Weapons Company, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct an Enhanced Marksmanship Program shoot with the Kenyan 15th Rifle Battalion at Naval Station Manda Bay, Kenya, March 5. The 26th MEU conducted bilateral training with the Kenyan military during Exercise Edged Mallet 2007.


New units to assume Special Forces mission
By Kimberly Johnson - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Feb 29, 2008 13:39:12 EST

The Corps’ new conceptual, pre-emptive strike force will take on general-purpose advisory roles that are now tasked to Army Special Forces units, freeing up the elite fighters for other missions, according to a Marine official.

The plan to create Security Cooperation Marine Air-Ground Task Forces, which Commandant Gen. James Conway signed off on the week of Jan. 28, is part of the service’s strategy for handling the “long war” beyond Iraq and Afghanistan and getting Marines back aboard ships.

The new SCMAGTF units will be considered “eyes forward” for the U.S. military, and will assist partner nations with military training and civil-military operations, according to a briefing document explaining the plan. They will be made up of ground, logistics and aviation combat elements, and will resemble a Marine Expeditionary Unit, but will work on land instead of the sea.

While the SCMAGTFs will take on general-purpose military advisory roles similar to those assumed by Special Forces, they will not be assuming special operations training missions, said Col. Robert Abbott, head of the plans section within the Plans, Policies and Operations division at Marine Corps headquarters.

Some aspects of the SCMAGTF training missions will be similar to those of special operations forces, such as the Army’s Green Berets and the Marine Special Operations Advisor Group. They will help advise foreign militaries, Abbott said in an e-mail, “but the advisory missions that are conducted by (special operations forces) generally tend to be more complex and reflecting capabilities that exceed the capacity of general-purpose forces to perform,” he said.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/marine_scmagtf_022908/



uhc comment: Delightful. We now have a new 'pre-emptive strike force'.