After the air force of the Soviet-backed Afghan regime of the 1980s ceased to exist, it was some time - in fact a few years after the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001 - before a new Afghan Air Force (AAF) was built from scratch from 2004 onwards. The AAF's current aims are to perform air mobility tasks, rotary- and fixed-wing close air support (CAS) and independent airstrikes, medical evacuation (medevac) sorties, and aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. While the exact order of battle is not available, the AAF consists of three Air Wings (the 1st Air Wing in Kabul, 2nd Air Wing in Kandahar, and 3rd Air Wing in Shindand, Herat) and 11 detachments, five of which have aircraft assigned (Mazar-i Sharif (Balkh), Jalalabad (Nangarhar), Shorab (Helmand), Gardez (Paktia) and Herat). A separate Special Mission Wing, meanwhile, is dedicated primarily to supporting the special forces of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. While the AAF is authorised to comprise up to 8,019 personnel, as of April it was around 7,100 strong.
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