KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A new NATO security unit aimed at making the busy Kandahar Airfield a safer place has a bit of a slight Canadian flavour.
Seven of the unit's 66 members are Canadian, including master sailor Peter Hughes, who was in charge of the squad's first shift on Friday.
Hughes, who works on HMCS Ottawa out of Esquimalt, B.C., said the security unit will "drastically improve the chances for our troops on the ground to get air support."
Aircraft are often called in to back up soldiers involved in ground operations in the vast, desert country and the unit will provide much-needed order at a sometimes chaotic air base where traffic is expected to double in 2009.
Kandahar Airfield, which opened in 2005, has seen an increase in traffic in recent months -- a situation that will only intensify when thousands of other American soldiers arrive at the base.
Already in March, air traffic controllers oversaw more than 20,000 military operations; the average monthly rate is 16,000.
"As the air base gets busier and busier there are more and more aircraft and more and more vehicles and there's increasing risk of a vehicle and an aircraft ending up in the same place at the same time," said NATO Cmdr. Andy Fryer, who attended Friday's inauguration ceremony.
With vehicles and aircraft crossing the air strip helter skelter at times, the American 451st Air Expeditionary Group decided to look at the situation in mid-March.
The project was put in place in less than six weeks thanks to the co-operation of the international forces.
"It was done quickly," said Master Sgt. Joseph Ilsley of the U.S. Air Force.
Ilsley noted the contribution of Wilf Rellinger, a Canadian major with NATO and the man in charge of security at the airfield.
"Major Rellinger... was one of the key players in getting this off the ground and addressing a lot of the safety concerns," said Ilsley.
"If we didn't have him getting all the political buy-in from the operators on the flight line we never would have never been able to push forward."
Canadian Master Cpl. Roland Wightman is the co-ordinator and administrator of the new unit. Wightman, who is normally based in Halifax, said he was very pleased that the aircraft at the base would be protected.
"I think it's great because now we have proper security," he said. "The air assets to me on this camp are the most important thing because that's what protects the guys on the field."
The new unit should make his job a lot easier, he added, noting that the 12- and 13-hour workdays he was putting in will likely get a little shorter.
"I was trying to run and provide security for the airfield with between 15 and 17 guys on three shifts," Wightman said. "Today we went from that to 66 people on two shifts, so the manning has gone up I think 300 or 400 per cent just today."
The unit is made up of members of the American, French, British, Canadian, Belgian and Dutch military. But it is open to any other NATO members who want to get involved.
"We've still got room, so if they're interested, we'd be more than happy to accommodate them," Fryer said.
