Madar (Nouakchott) - The Czech army's new foreign operations mandate, approved by parliament and signed by the president on Wednesday, 4 November, raises the maximum number of Czech troops that can be deployed in Mauritania from 30 to 50 from 2027, to continue training the Mauritanian armed forces, Radio Prague International reported on Thursday, 5 November.
Lieutenant Colonel Ladislav Pfeifer, who heads the Czech special forces support centre in Olomouc responsible for the training, described it as "an advisory and training mission, not a combat one". "We have been in Mauritania since the beginning of last year and, from the outset, our commitment was to train the third company of the Mauritanian special forces," he said.
He said the current mandate, which ran until the end of 2026, has been extended to the end of 2027, and that Czech trainers have so far trained two of the company's three platoons, around 60 soldiers, who "have been deployed to the border and are now carrying out their missions there".
Training starts with the fundamentals and common procedures before moving to more specialised modules, including vehicle operations and shooting, with a focus on training instructors and on involving Mauritanian commanders in assessing needs and planning and leading exercises. "For us, the real result is what will remain after we leave," the officer said.
The programme is adapted to the desert environment, very long distances and local customs, and communication goes through interpreters. Cooperation with the Mauritanians "has gone even better than we had hoped", he said, citing "genuine respect and great trust between the two sides".
The cooperation runs on two tracks: a bilateral track for training and advice, and a NATO track under the Defence Capacity Building (DCB) initiative, which supplies equipment and training materiel to the company being trained. Training takes place at a Mauritanian base, where the Czech instructors do not live.
Pfeifer said Mauritania is the only West African country where Czech troops are currently present and an important partner in the Czech engagement in Africa, preferring to speak of "prevention" rather than stabilising the Sahel, as the effort "probably cannot on its own guarantee results across the whole region".
The announcement comes two weeks after Defence Minister Ba Ousmane met the Czech ambassador to Mauritania in Nouakchott to discuss developing bilateral defence cooperation.
