Cultural Support Team | CST

A U.S. Army Cultural Support Team (CST) soldier fires a M4A1 carbine at a firing range in Afghanistan, August 2011.

Cultural Support Teams are made up of female soldiers who act as enablers for Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) by interacting with female and adolescent members of the indigenous Afghani population.

Such interaction would be often culturally unacceptable if performed by the men in the deployed ARSOF unit.

CSTs are thus able to engage with a section of the populace usually unreachable by an exclusively male unit.

Not only do CSTs enable the hearts and minds aspect of counter-insurgencty operations they can also enhance the intelligence picture by gathering information from the women and children they interact with.