Ranger Battalion in Arvidsjaur, the soldiers are now involved in so-called service training where one of the main objectives is to prepare for the international winter exercise Cold Response in North Norway.
“It’ll be interesting to be able to see that everything works in the group and platoon. Furthermore, it’s inspiring to be part of an exercise involving other units,” says Ranger Johan Pettersson.

Despite the increased number of attacks and homemade bombs, Afghan security forces have made progress. Amongst other things, the Afghan police and the army have made progress in their cooperation, and the security forces have grown stronger in terms of initiating better security in the Swedish-Finnish area of responsibility in northern Afghanistan.

Hungarians, Swedes, and Czechs in air-to-air combat and bombing runs over the island of Gotland. That was one of the scenarios when Gripen pilots and fighter controllers from several Gripen nations trained together in flight simulators.

For the first time ever, Swedish unit pilots have successfully refuelled the JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft in mid-air. Air refuelling has been possible ever since the C/D version of the Gripen fighter was introduced in 2007 and it is now time for the Swedish pilots to receive training. The new capability allows pilots to fly up to eight hours at a time and, thus, cover considerably longer distances.

Corvettes HMS Stockholm and HMS Malmö together with support vessel HMS Trossö are now back in Karlskrona.

Efforts to provide more type RG32 light armoured patrol vehicles to troops in Afghanistan are in full swing right now. A complicated but vital task. Additional night vision equipment and machine guns are also being despatched there.

Before dawn on Tuesday, Swedish corvette HMS Malmö thwarted a pirate attack against a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden.  The Swedish Navy vessel fired flares and warning shots towards the suspected seven pirates who then gave up the attack.  They are being held pending a decision on whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed with the investigation.

The Swedish Armed Forces faced a large number of challenges in 2008. One of the most important was to continue restructuring and to maintain increasing international ambitions despite financial cutbacks.

Right now, the wings are being bolted to the gigantic fuselage of the first of three Boeing C-17s on order to the 12-nation Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) project. The aircraft will be stationed at Pápa air base in Hungary.

A 54-year-old army general with roots in the far south of Sweden is to be the new Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces. Lieutenant General Sverker Göranson succeeds Håkan Syrén. “I have accepted this post with a tremendous sense of humility in the face of the complex and highly responsible task of taking command and leading the Swedish Armed Forces into the future,” says Sverker Göranson.