The APU is a Afghan special forces unit with member drawn mainly from the Afghan commandos. They are equipped in the hyperstealth uniform and to a lesser extent have been seen in multicam. Along with better weapons and equipment than the regular Afghan forces. Building the capacity of Afghan special operations forces (SOF) is a key goal of the United States and its coalition partners. In February and March of 2013, RAND analysts conducted extensive battlefield circulations in Afghanistan and visited multiple training sites for Afghan SOF. The mentors at these sites hailed from a variety of International Security Assistance Force contributing nations, including the United States, Lithuania, Romania, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom. This report summarizes key partnering practices across these international partners and presents findings from SOF partnership case studies in Iraq and Colombia. The goal is to identify best practices for SOF partnership that can benefit the development of the Afghan special operations capability. These best practices also have broader applicability for special operations partnerships beyond Afghanistan. The U.S.–Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, officially titled Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America, is an agreement between Afghanistan and the United States of America that provides the long-term framework for the relationship between Afghanistan and the United States of America after the drawdown of U.S. forces in the Afghanistan war. The Strategic Partnership Agreement went into effect on July 4, 2012, as stated by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said on July 8, 2012, at the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan: "Like a number of countries represented here, the United States and Afghanistan signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement that went into effect four days ago." The Afghan National Army Commando Corps (formerly ANA Commando Brigade; ANA Commando Battalion) is a commando force of Afghan National Army. The Commando Corps was formed from existing Infantry battalions. The program was established in early 2007 with the intent of taking one conventional infantry kandak (battalion) from each of the regional ANA corps, giving them special training and equipment, and reorganizing based on the United States Army Rangers. Each battalion is assigned to one of the six regional corps. The commandos comprise 7% of the Afghan National Security Forces but conduct 70% to 80% of the fighting. In August 2017, General John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of the Resolute Support Mission, said: "The [commandos] have never lost a battle...The Taliban have never won against the commandos...They never will." The training is conducted at the Morehead Commando Training Center, a former Taliban training compound located six miles south of Kabul, Afghanistan. The training center is named after United States Army 5th Special Forces Group soldier Master Sergeant Kevin Morehead, who was killed in Iraq in September 2003. The training of supply, logistics and operations has been conducted by mentors from Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, United States Special Operations Forces, French Special Forces, and ANA Commando cadre. The 12-week program has three concurrent training sections for the entire course. The primary and bulk of the training is geared for the infantry toli (company) with a focus on individual skills and small unit tactics. To support the line companies, the Headquarters and Headquarters Toli receives special training in specific skills such as mortars, medical care, and communications. The third section focuses on the kandak staff, their core areas of responsibility and function as the Command and Control (C2). Upon graduation, each Commando Kandak returns to its designated Corps area along with an embedded U.S. Army Special Forces A-Team and begins using an 18-week training cycle that breaks down to six weeks each of train-up, missions and recovery. Of the five active duty United States Special Forces Groups, 3rd Group and 7th Group have been rotating responsibility as the main effort for continued training and advising in the Afghanistan theater.