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Afghanistan Partner Unit (APU) issued the Ghostex Kilo-1 Pattern

Ghostex Kilo-1 pattern selected for the APU

(January 10, 2012, Vancouver, B.C.) HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp. had previously announced the Afghanistan Border Police (ABP), an elite division of the Afghanistan National Police (ANP) had authorized the Ghostex Kilo-1 pattern as their new uniform camouflage.

The Afghanistan Government decided that the pattern would not be issued to the ABP but issued instead to the more critical Afghanistan Top Special Forces Unit known simply as the (APU - Afghanistan Partner Unit)

Very little information has come out about the capacity of the APU until recently when Admiral McRaven announced that this unit works with the Tier 1 units of JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command).

JSOC controls Special Mission Units (SMUs), four of these have been identified by the media, although not always officially acknowledged by the US government or US military:

• 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), or Delta Force, of the United States Army

• Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), formerly SEAL Team 6, of the United States Navy

• 24th Special Tactics Squadron (24th STS) of the United States Air Force

• Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command

APU in Ghostex Kilo-1 camouflage

STATEMENT OF VADM WILLIAM H. MCRAVEN, USN, TO BE ADMIRAL AND COMMANDER, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND

...

Chairman LEVIN. Admiral, what is the role of Afghan special forces in the counterterrorism operations that have been carried out? And how would you assess the capability of the Afghan forces?

Admiral MCRAVEN. Yes, sir. There is a number of different Afghan SOF forces, if you will. There are the Afghan commandos, which are trained by U.S. Army Special Forces personnel, and they are clearly some of the elite Afghan forces. They are magnificent soldiers.

The requirement from the U.S. Government for the camouflage was a pattern with coloration close to OCP (Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern) yet the pattern must be distinctively different to OCP, this is due to the fact that the U.S. Army uses OCP in Afghanistan and does joint patrols with the APU. HyperStealth was able to send three different patterns from the Ghostex line the same day the request came in.

A Purchase Order has been issued and the first 12,000 yards of fabric has been already been printed. Large U.S. Textile factories are making the material and printing the Ghostex Kilo-1 pattern within the United States. They then send the printed material to Afghanistan for assembly by Afghanistan citizens working for Afghanistan companies.   

With the new Ghostex patterns already locked into the system, it only requires a few hours or less to re-color and print onto Milspec (Military Specification) fabric. Currently the Ghostex system prints about 400-500 yards per month. Ghostex is a joint venture between ADS Inc. and HyperStealth developed for U.S. Elite Special Forces requirements for rapid response camouflage.

The Kilo-1 pattern is not based on OCP but finds its origins in a 2nd Generation digital pattern Hyperstealth developed in 2004, that pattern has been objectively tested by the USMA and showed up publicly for the first time in a photo on a weapon in 2010 within this U.S. Army article on camouflage. In 2007 we used this same pattern as a base which was then further enhanced with a new algorithm which modified the squares and rectangles in such a way that they flare into a very detailed disruptive pattern, this new variation became the (3rd Generation) 5 color India-O8 pattern. For the Kilo-1 (4th generation) variation, we then compressed the India-O8 pattern added one extra color and added one more fractal algorithm to increase the disruption across the human shape with both a Macro and Micro elements to fool both the Ambient and Focal region of the eye and we ended up with one of the most aesthetic patterns to come from Hyperstealth.

In 2009 Afghanistan had previously chosen the Hyperstealth Spec4ce Afghan Forest pattern for their Afghanistan National Army (ANA) uniform.

In 2010 the Afghanistan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) transitioned to the HyperStealth Spec4ce Afghan Sierra Pattern.