Jacobsdal Commando
light infantry regiment of the South African Army

Jacobsdal Commando was a light infantry regiment of the South African Army. It formed part of the South African Army Infantry Formation as well as the South African Territorial Reserve.
History
Origins
With the Orange Free State Republic
Operations during the Anglo Boer War
The Commando was present at the Battle of Graspan
With the UDF
By 1902 all Commando remnants were under British military control and disarmed.
By 1912, however previous Commando members could join shooting associations.
By 1940, such commandos were under control of the National Reserve of Volunteers.
These commandos were formally reactivated by 1948.
With the SADF
During this era, the commando was mainly used for area force protection, search and cordones as well as stock theft control assistance to the rural police.
The unit resorted under the command of Group 26.
With the SANDF
Disbandment
This unit, along with all other Commando units was disbanded after a decision by South African President Thabo Mbeki to disband all Commando Units. The Commando system was phased out between 2003 and 2008 "because of the role it played in the apartheid era", according to the Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 17, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q19563117. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1902, 1912, 1940 and 1948.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jacobsdal Commando” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.