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Polish mission in Afghanistan officially ends on Friday

President Andrzej Duda and Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak participated on Friday in the celebration of the Operational Command of the Armed Forces Day and the official end of the mission of the Polish Military Contingent in Afghanistan. During the event, the President handed a military banner to the Operational Command of the Armed Forces under the name of Bronisław Kwiatkowski.

The last Polish Military Contingent serving in Afghanistan came home

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President Duda emphasised that the Command has existed for 17 years and led the Polish army, both at home and abroad, “through all the most complicated and difficult tasks and events that took place over the years.”

“Polish Army at that time was not only the army that was relatively newly admitted to the North Atlantic Alliance, but also had tasks in various places around the world,” he noted.

He emphasised that these were often very difficult tasks, “associated with the enormous responsibility for the lives of not only our soldiers and military employees performing their service within the Contingent, but also with the lives and health of the inhabitants of the countries where they [Polish soldiers] were serving.”

“Unfortunately, there were also some who did not return from the mission. They fell in a foreign land to the despair of all of us,” he pointed out.

“We showed solidarity,” Mariusz Błaszczak, the Minister of National Defense, said, referring to the fact that the participation of Poles in the mission in Afghanistan was an act of solidarity with the US, which fell victim to a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.

He stressed that Polish soldiers were proudly representing their homeland in Afghanistan, adding that the mission was among the biggest challenges that the Polish Army has been facing so far.

“We are here to support our allies in need, because we count on reciprocity should our homeland need such support,” he stressed.

The mission in Afghanistan was one of the longest and most difficult foreign operations of the Polish Army. Poland has been present in the country for almost 20 years with over 33,000 Polish soldiers and employees of the Defense Ministry participating in the mission.

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