525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade Soldiers to Return from Afghanistan

Members of the 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade will return to Fort Bragg Sept. 23, following a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan.

Friends and family members will welcome home more than 60 Soldiers in a ceremony at 3 p.m., at Green Ramp as an advance party from the 319th (Task Force Cyclone) and 519th (Task Force Thunder) Military Intelligence Battalions returns.

Both units deployed in January and served in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Nearly 250 Lightening Brigade Soldiers remain deployed.

During the course of the deployment, Task Force Thunder Soldiers conducted multi-disciplined intelligence collection operations dispersed across Regional Command-South, operating from forward operating bases and combat outposts.

Task Force Thunder Soldiers provided vital human intelligence information, multi-function team operations throughout Kandahar and Zabul Provinces, force protection with counterintelligence agents and signals intelligence support.

Task Force Cyclone Soldiers were spread across 44,000 square miles and comprised 4 multifunctional teams, 13 counterintelligence teams, 14 low-level voice intercept teams, two prophet analysis cells, a counterintelligence operational management team and two Afghan national army advisory teams.

The battalion provided collection and intelligence support to Combined Joint Task Force 101, Regional Command-East. Task Force Cyclone personnel assisted and enabled the government of Afghanistan to transition to a self-reliant government through the transfer of security responsibilities, defeating terrorists and irreconcilable insurgents, reducing sectarian violence and neutralizing extremist groups.

Additionally, approximately 20 TF Cyclone human intelligence personnel conducted operations in Kabul, Heart and Kandahar pertaining to national level priority intelligence requirements.