German Army Brigadier General Lutz Niemann, the Chief of Staff of Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE) in Szczecin, Poland visited NATO's Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) on Wednesday, 4 June.

Brigadier General Niemann was welcomed to the Centre by U.S. Air Force Brigadier General John W. Doucette, JWC's Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander. The visit programme included an office call with German Army Major General Erhard Buehler, Commander JWC, and a series of briefings about the ongoing International Security Assistance Force Training Event 14/01 (ISAF TE14/01), which will continue at the JWC until mid-June.

Apart from the MNC NE personnel, the exercise will prepare personnel from NATO's Joint Force Command Naples (JFC NP) along with Individual Augmentees from ISAF Troop Contributing Nations, before they set off for the last ISAF mission in Afghanistan.

ISAF was created in 2001 at the Bonn Conference with NATO at its helm since 2003. As Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) take on security responsibilities for the entire country, the ISAF mission transitions to a non-combat mission after 2014 through the new Resolute Support mission to train, advise and assist the ANSF.

During the visit, Brigadier General Niemann also met with Royal Marines Major General (Ret.) Roger Lane, former ISAF Deputy Commander for Operations and exercise Senior Mentor. Brigadier General Niemann then observed the exercise Functional Area Training (FAT), which focused on improving functional competence of the Training Audience in their related areas of practice and theatre assignments.