Several hundred U.S.military personnel are in the Philippines advising the country's forces on counter-insurgency tactics under the bilateral Visiting Forces Agreement or VFA.
VOA: standard.2009.11.12
Germany news agency DPA reported that the defence minister was visiting the Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan on Thursday and had spent the night with German forces in one of the most dangerous areas in which they were operating.
He told MPs during Home Office questions on 27 June 2011 that many forces were taking "innovative" approaches to making contact with their communities and that the number of people visiting police stations could be "very low".