South Korea was set to launch an Army contingent Tuesday tasked with protecting civilian aid workers that the country plans to send to Afghanistan later this year to help rebuild the war-torn nation.
The 320-member unit will be dispatched to the northern Afghan province of Parwan in July along with South Korea's provincial reconstruction team, or PRT, which will be comprised of about 100 reconstruction workers and 40 police officers.
The dispatch won parliamentary approval in February. Their mission expires at the end of 2012.
The unit was named "Ashena," which means friend or colleague in a local language widely used in Parwan. In the run-up to deployment, members of the contingent will undergo training to prepare for various contingencies, the Army said in a statement.
The PRT plans to help strengthen the Parwan provincial government's administrative capabilities and offer medical services as well as vocational and police training as part of efforts to get the war-ravaged nation to stand on its own.
South Korea had stationed troops in Afghanistan for five years before withdrawing them in late 2007. The pullout, though previously planned, came after the Tailban demanded their withdrawal during a hostage crisis in which insurgents killed two South Koreans.
South Korea has been seeking to expand its role in international affairs.
Seoul also sent about 240 troops earlier this year to Haiti to help rebuild the nation as part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission after a devastating earthquake there, and plans to significantly increase its official development assistance to other nations.//Yonhap
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