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http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=bb2964ed-a5c3-4ccc-98d0-df1ebc2fea9dFriendly fire kills Canadian soldier
Donald McArthur, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, September 04, 2006
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A Canadian soldier was killed and dozens wounded, five seriously, in a friendly fire incident Monday morning near the front lines of a battle where four Canadian soldiers were killed and several wounded the day before.
Stretcher after stretcher ferried the wounded into the beleaguered hospital at Kandahar Air Field as Brigadier General David Fraser and a military chaplain rushed to the grim scene to offer their support. Some soldiers limped gingerly into the hospital under their own power as Operation Medusa, the coalition offensive against stubborn Taliban insurgents clustered in villages west of here, began its third day.
"An aircraft flying in support of ISAF operations accidentally engaged a Canadian position in Panjwaii at approximately 5:30 this morning, killing one soldier and wounding a number of others," said Brig.-Gen. Fraser, the Canadian commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in southern Afghanistan.
"An investigation has been ordered into this event and while this event is tragic, operation Medusa and the Canadians continue to operate in the Panjwaii district in support of Afghan government efforts to rid the area of Taliban."
Five of the wounded soldiers were injured seriously and will be transported from Kandahar to other hospitals. The other soldiers are expected to return to duty shortly. The name of the deceased soldier has not been released. Canadian military officials have asked that the media not report the precise number of casualties for security reasons related to the ongoing offensive.
Warrant Officer Richard Francis Nolan and Warrant Officer Frank Robert Mellish, based in Petawawa with the first battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, were killed Sunday as insurgents disabled multiple Canadian vehicles with rocket propelled grenades. Two other Canadian soldiers were also killed in fierce fighting Sunday but their names have not been released at their the request of their families.
The Canadian soldiers wounded Monday were not bombed but came under fire from an airplane, believed to be an American Warthog, which is armed with rockets and high-powered machine guns. Four Canadian soldiers were killed in a friendly fire incident in April 2002 when they were bombed by an American F-16 fighter jet while they were conducting training operations.
"The soldiers out there understand the risk and they manage the risk everyday...They understand sometime things happen, " said Brig.-Gen. Fraser. "The investigation, they know, will get to the bottom of this but their training, their dedication, the passion for what they're doing over here for a worthwhile cause will see them through these difficult times."
Brig.-Gen. Fraser said the wounded soldiers he visited Monday in hospital, as well as the families of fallen soldiers he met in a memorial service in Edmonton last week, remain committed to the mission here to destroy a stubborn Taliban insurgency and improve the lives of ordinary Afghans.
"I spoke to a lot of families out there who I wrote letters to and they all came up to me and said 'we believe in your mission, we believe in you, our son or daughter was committed to this' and I don't see any change in those families," he said.
"The soldiers themselves are dedicated and passionate and professional about this mission and their determination has not waned one iota since we started this and we're going to see it right to the end."
Monday's casualties occurred near the same Taliban stronghold where four Canadian soldiers were killed and ten injured in pitched fighting on August 3. Dozens of Canadian soldiers have been wounded in the volatile area over the past four months and at least 11 have now been killed there. The area has symbolic significance to the Taliban. It is militarily defensible with tunnels, maze-like fences and mud-walled compounds and is used by insurgents as a staging ground for deadly ambushes and terror attacks in Kandahar City.
Thirty-two Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since Canada joined the war on terror here in 2002 and 24 of those have fallen since operations moved to the volatile south in February. Glyn Berry, a diplomat, was killed in a suicide strike in Kandahar in January.
More than 200 militants have been killed, 80 suspected insurgents have been captured and about 180 have fled the fighting since it began Saturday, according to NATO. Brig.-Gen. Fraser stressed Canadian soldiers were not only winning the fight on the battlefield but also the fight for the hearts and minds of impoverished Afghans tired of the destruction and intimidation of Taliban insurgents. He said Afghans were supporting coalition forces and that aid workers were already on the ground planning reconstruction projects in areas secured by coalition forces over the weekend.
"It's all happening out there but everywhere we go there's going to be a fight to get in there but, while we're in there, the people are glad to see us, the people are coming in behind us and supporting their Afghan security forces and we're making a difference," he said.
"The Canadian forces and the rest of the armed forces of the world and the international community wouldn't be here if it wasn't dangerous. It is a dangerous place. The Taliban only offer one thing -- destruction. What the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the international community offers is construction. Whatever we build, if the Taliban want to destroy it, we will rebuild it, but we also offer the Taliban choices and that's a lot more than they offer their people."
Another bad news day.