Solidarity Response II

The first Spanish members of the Allied operation for Pakistan “Solidarity Response II” arrived in the country on 29 October 2005 as part of the 5th NATO Response Force (NRF-5). They were deployed in the Dhani Valley in the vicinity of Arja, near the epicentre of the earthquake that had hit on 8 October. There was also a Spanish presence in the towns of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Bagh.

NRF-5’s Land Component Command was under the command of General José Antonio Bautís Otero and led by the High Readiness Land Headquarters (with base in Bétera, Valencia) until January 2006. In keeping with the agreement signed between NATO and the Pakistani government, it remained in the area ninety days.

The Land Component Command was composed of around a thousand soldiers from Spanish, Polish, Italian and British units as well as three Lithuanian water purification teams, a hospital manned by Czech and Dutch personnel and Spanish, French and Slovenian civil-military cooperation teams.

162 Spanish soldiers, mainly from the Airborne Light Infantry Brigade and the Paratroopers Brigade, made up one of the engineer companies integrated into the Multinational Engineer Battalion, which was led by Spanish Major Rafael Martín Linares. Those troops were backed by the National Support Element commanded by Colonel García de las Hijas, head of the 11th Engineering Specialties Regiment of Salamanca.

The mission of the contingent was to support the Pakistani army in their assistance to the population affected by the earthquake. Their responsibilities included rehabilitating damaged infrastructures, starting in the high areas where cold winter conditions might exacerbate the destruction.

The engineer units removed debris from schools in Bagh and from the hospital in Arja and repaired the roads in the area leading to the Arja camp. In addition, Pakistani and NATO teams of engineers worked together to build shelters for the local population and camps for displaced people and to supply drinking water to the city of Bagh.

The Multinational Engineer Battalion carried out the following tasks:

•    Cleaning-up roads following landslides and avalanches. Improving and strengthening eighteen retaining walls in areas of very difficult access and with steep slopes.
•    Erecting eight semi-permanent 50 sqm structures to house schools and an 80 sqm structure to serve as a health centre.
•    Constructing sixty 18 sqm shelters and twenty-four 36 sqm double shelters to be used as community clinics and schools.
•    Removing 41 metric tonnes of debris.
•    Distributing 270,000 litres of clean water to civilians.
•    Building a water tank and a piping system to guarantee supply to the population and to the Arja health centre.

Once the humanitarian mission was over, a Redeployment Support Unit was sent to Pakistan in order to facilitate the return of the Spanish contingent. Its members were soldiers from the 11th Engineering Specialties Regiment, which is based in Salamanca, and the 13th Railways Regiment, based in Zaragoza. They were charged with dismantling the Spanish camp at Arja and organizing the repatriation of heavy materiel, which was initially transported by rail from Islamabad to Karachi and then by sea from that coastal town back to Spain.

The troops deployed returned in several stages over the months of January and February. A simple ceremony at the military base in Bétera marked the end of the High Readiness Land Headquarters acting as Land Component Command Headquarters of the NATO Response Force. The contingent had been operational from 15 November 2005 until 16 February 2006, when the final scheduled flight from Pakistan arrived at the Torrejón Air Base.