The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (August 2007)

[GAP]

The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (August 2007)  

News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!

Articles found August 3, 2007
No special treatment for Vandoos, general says
New commander quickly puts to rest suggestions that francophone unit will be shielded from heavy fighting
ALEX DOBROTA  From Thursday's Globe and Mail August 2, 2007 at 5:00 AM EDT
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Quebec's famed Vandoos regiment will receive no special treatment to shield it from the risks taken by other Canadian troops in the volatile province of Kandahar, Canada's new commander in Afghanistan said yesterday.

Soldiers with the Royal 22nd Regiment will tackle the same daunting tasks as have troops from previous rotations, as the regiment gears up efforts to train the tattered Afghan security forces, Brigadier-General Guy Laroche said.

"The orders, we receive them from the Chief of Defence Staff, General [Rick] Hillier," Gen. Laroche told reporters yesterday, after he took command of Canada's 2,500-strong contingent during a short change-of-command ceremony at Kandahar base.

"It matters little what people say in Canada, on the political side or in the street. The work on our side goes on, much the same way it has in the past."
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US won't rule out force to free Korean hostages
By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Published on: 08/02/07
Article Link

WASHINGTON — The United States is not ruling out the use of military force to free 21 South Korean hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said Thursday.

"All pressures need to be applied to the Taliban to get them to release these hostages," said Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia. "We hope that pressure can be effective in a variety of ways, the goal is to get these people released unharmed, to get them released peacefully and safely."

"We will all make efforts together to try to encourage that," he told reporters at the State Department, referring to close cooperation between the governments of the United States, Afghanistan and South Korea to win the hostages' release.

He declined to elaborate on what pressure or efforts were now being used to convince the Taliban to let the South Koreans go but said they included the option of military force.

"There are things that we say, things that others say, things that are done and said within Afghan society as well as potential military pressures," Boucher said.
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Nelson backs troops after kids injured in Afghanistan
Posted Thu Aug 2, 2007 10:04pm AEST
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Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has defended the actions of Australian soldiers who injured two children in Afghanistan.

Two children under 10 were hurt when Australian troops opened fire on a car which failed to stop for a patrol in southern Afghanistan.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has also defended the actions of the soldiers, saying they acted appropriately, despite the injuries to the children.

Dr Nelson says the incident is unfortunate.

"The initial reports are that our soldiers have behaved perfectly appropriately, although we regret enormously [the] injury and indeed death to any civilian," he said.

Defence Force spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic says the soldiers believed the vehicle posed a "real and present danger".
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More political thinking needed in Afghanistan 
Current approaches counterproductive
BRIAN FLEMMING The Daily News
Article Link

One of the many problems Canadians (and Americans) have with the NATO mission in Afghanistan is that we almost never hear the voices of ordinary Afghans, or the specific demands of the insurgent Taliban fighters or the policy objectives of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

The media, and many politicians, would have us believe the 21st century's violent extremists - sometimes sloppily described as "terrorists" - are unlike any other extremists in history.

Not true. Most have a political agenda that's as well-defined as that of the former Irish Republican Army.

When politicians claim bin Laden and his franchisees "hate freedom," or that Islamist extremists just "want to kill us," reach for your revolver. As top American security guru, Bruce Schneier, correctly claims, "bin Laden's policy objectives have been surprisingly consistent."

According to former CIA analyst, Michael Scheuer, in his book Imperial Hubris, these are some of bin Laden's goals:

- End the "occupation" by America and NATO of both Iraq and Afghanistan;

- End Western support for "illegitimate" (i.e. moderate) governments, such as those in Pakistan or Egypt;

- Expel Western forces from Middle East countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq

- End America's support of Israel;

- Terminate Western support of countries with "anti-Muslim policies."

Similar goals

The Taliban have narrower, but similar, goals. But because the political ideology of most Islamists conflates religion with politics, it is sometimes difficult to separate one side of the theocratic coin from the other when bin Laden, or his Taliban clones, express their wish to create an "Islamic caliphate" in the Middle East - if not the whole world.

These broader insights were the dogs that didn't bark when Canada's departing top military commander in Afghanistan gave an in-depth interview to The Globe and Mail on the weekend.

Brig.- Gen. Tim Grant spoke proudly - as he should have - of Canada's achievements. The Taliban, for the moment, has lost its ability to take and hold territory; the building of the Afghan army continues apace.

Grant's biggest worry revolves around the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan police. And what Canada and NATO are trying to achieve "can't be done in two or three years," Grant said. Plus the notion of having a specific withdrawal date seemed "absurd" to the general.

Quite so.
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[GAP]

Articles found July 5, 2007

Van Doos irked by anti-war views
By MARTIN OUELLET
Article Link

SHAWALI KOT, Afghanistan (CP) - Pte. Francis Archambault says he couldn't believe what he was hearing during a conversation he had before he left Quebec for Afghanistan.

"Somebody who's educated, who has diplomas galore, told me there would be no war in the world if people like me didn't exist," Archambault, 23, said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"It really shocked me to hear that from someone who should know better."

Archambault and other Quebec-based soldiers in Afghanistan expressed frustration and exasperation with the widespread opposition in their home province to Canada's military mission in the country.

One poll suggested 70 per cent of Quebecers were opposed to the continued presence of Canadian soldiers in the war-torn land, while some members of the national assembly refused to stand up when several soldiers visited the legislature earlier this year.

Archambault said people who are against the mission are misguided when they accuse Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives of wanting to endorse U.S. foreign policy just to stay in the good books of the Bush administration. 
   
"That has nothing to do with it," he said. "Canada is not getting a lot out of its presence here. It costs lives and it costs money but we're trying to give a chance to people who need help.

"It's probably the biggest thing I'll do in my life."

Canada has about 2,500 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO force supporting the Afghan government. In the new rotation, most of them will be from CFB Valcartier, near Quebec City.

Canada is slated to leave Afghanistan in February 2009 and Harper has said extending the mission would require the consensus of Parliament.

Master Cpl. David Martel, one of the Van Doos charged with patrolling the Shawali Kot district in southeastern Afghanistan, said the attitude of some people is disheartening.

"You come here because you believe in what you do," Martel said.

"You want to provide security and help people improve their lot, while back home people aren't very receptive to that. They say you're just off to kill people."

Sgt. Steve Dufour said people are entitled to their opinion but believes the Canadian mission is not understood and is often misinterpreted.

"I spoke to one student who was against the mission," he said. "I told her 'In Canada, does anyone prevent you from going to school and getting an education?' Well, that's what it's like here (in Afghanistan)."

On Friday, some of the Van Doos went out on foot patrol with a contingent of Afghan police officers.

At one point, one of the policemen fired his weapon by mistake, leading the Canadians to believe they were being attacked. No other shots were fired and nobody was injured.
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Servicemembers Volunteer to Convoy Supplies to Needy Afghans
By Staff Sgt. Julie Weckerlein, USAF Special to American Forces Press Service
Article Link 

CAMP EGGERS, Afghanistan , Aug. 4, 2007 – Every other week, servicemembers from all branches of the military conduct convoys from this base to deliver clothing and supplies to needy Afghans in the surrounding areas. But they're not doing it because they have to. They're doing it because they want to help.

Members of the Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan unload a truck full of donations from the U.S. at a refugee camp outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo by Air Force Master Sgt. Jim Varhegyi 
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

“These are military and coalition members who volunteer,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Weber, Camp Eggers garrison chaplain. “They participate on their own time and at their own risk to do something good for the people of Afghanistan.”

The chaplains on Camp Eggers have organized the deliveries as part of a community relations program. Working with local religious leaders, as well as various government and relief agencies, the program organizers plan their missions to deliver aid to areas most in need of the assistance.

Under the program, servicemembers visit a new location every two weeks. Once a location is determined, the organizers and volunteers meet a few days before the trip to sort the items sent over from the United States.

“Donations come in mostly through word of mouth, from people stationed here telling others back in the States,” said Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Fred Hays, religious program specialist and chaplain’s assistant. “We get donations from schools and churches, too.”

Normally, the group averages about 20 large boxes filled with clothing, personal hygiene items, medical supplies, school supplies, food and blankets. Recently, the group donated about 2,000 pairs of shoes to a local village.

“Putting smiles on these young people’s faces, that’s the main thing,” said Hays. “If we can win the younger generation’s hearts in this war [against terrorism], we’ll be able to win this war because the younger ones will be taking over for us. Show them kindness and that kindness can be returned.”
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Suicide bombing kills 2 civilians in S Afghanistan
Posted August 4th, 2007 by TariqueMuslim World News By Xinhua
Article Link 

Kabul : A suicide bombing killed two civilians and injured four others in Kandahar province of southern Afghanistan on Saturday, the police said.

A suicide bomber targeted a foreign military convoy in western Kandahar city, the provincial capital, and caused the casualties, a local police commander Ramatullah told Xinhua.

One military vehicle was damaged, said Ramatullah, who did not mention the casualties of foreign soldiers.

Meanwhile, Russ Petcoff, a press officer of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told Xinhua that they were aware of an explosion in Kandahar city, and an ISAF team has responded to it.
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Afghanistan, Tajikistan To Build Hydro Power Plant
Article Link 

August 4, 2007 -- The press service of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon says Tajikistan and Afghanistan will jointly build a 1,000-megawatt hydro-power plant on the Pyandzh river.

The announcement came after talks between Rahmon and Afghan Energy Minister Ismail Khan, who arrived in Tajikistan on August 3.

The project is expected to be funded by the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the World Bank, and donor nations involved in Afghanistan's reconstruction
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[MarkOttawa]

British Make Initial Gains Against Taliban (long piece, well worth reading)
NY Times, August 5
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

...
Yet despite the presence of thousands of Taliban fighters, and some tough fighting still ahead, British military commanders here say they believe they have turned a significant corner. In recent months they have succeeded in pushing the Taliban back and keeping them out of a few strategic areas.

At the same time, they say, popular support for the insurgents is eroding.

“We see it now as a threat that can be countered,” Maj. Hamish Bell, second in command of the British battalion deployed in northern Helmand, said of the insurgency.

The progress in Helmand is perhaps the most important anywhere in the country [emphasis added], military commanders say, given that the province has the largest concentration of insurgents and produces 42 percent of Afghanistan’s opium crop, which has helped fuel the insurgency. If they can get Helmand right, they say, it could pave the way to broader progress against the Taliban.

But while Helmand shows what is possible in Afghanistan, commanders warn that a long, hard fight remains to win back territory from the Taliban, region by region, village by village. Nearly six years into the war, a third of Afghanistan’s provinces are in the grip of insurgents, a level far worse than it was from 2002 to 2005, the years immediately after the American-led invasion, when the Taliban were toppled and forced to retreat across the border into Pakistan.

Provinces like Helmand, remote from the capital and relatively calm, were only secured by a light American military presence, leaving them wide open when the Taliban chose to return.

In the other southern provinces, Kandahar and Oruzgan, the Taliban presence remains strong. Fighting the Taliban is like pressing mercury or squeezing a balloon, commanders say: as insurgents are suppressed in one area, they emerge in another.

And once pushed back in conventional fighting, the Taliban switch tactics to suicide attacks, roadside bombs and kidnappings. In one measure of the lingering dangers even here, in early July the 14-year-old son of Sangin’s police chief was kidnapped on a road outside town and killed.

But military commanders say the progress in Helmand is an indication that NATO forces have found their stride since last year, when the Taliban staged a spectacular resurgence, taking advantage of the transfer of southern provinces from American commanders to an expanding NATO force.

As NATO forces have become better established and more numerous in southern Afghanistan, American forces have been able to deploy more troops in the east. There, they are also reporting gains in some border areas. All of this has helped NATO forces take the offensive against the Taliban, rather than fighting from their back foot, as they were forced to do last year, and gain local confidence...

The British have now been able to focus on their original counterinsurgency plan, which was to create “inkblots,” or secure zones around the main towns, and gradually expand security outward. In this way they are starting reconstruction projects in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, the town of Gereshk on the main road, and now Sangin.

Strategically located, Sangin, a rich agricultural town on the banks of the Helmand River, commands access to the north, where most of the Taliban are concentrated, and to the hydroelectric dam at Kajaki, a major United States development project.

The Taliban threat remains even in these secure zones. But Lt. Col. Stuart Carver, who commands the Battle Group North, said, “There aren’t big groups of 50 Taliban roaming around town and taking over big parts of the town.”

The strong British and Afghan security presence in Sangin has for the first time encouraged local Afghans to come forward with information on Taliban movements...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

End to war is close - Kandahar governor
CanWest, August 5
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=cd7cbea4-0a39-4a98-a54a-b639f824176f&k=20177

The NATO-led coalition is winning the war in Afghanistan and the end of the conflict is "not very far" away, the governor of Kandahar province said yesterday, even as a suicide car bomb killed two civilians in the province's capital...

Asadullah Khalid, Kandahar's governor, said the province's security is improving "day by day."

"Last year in Kandahar at the same time we had three suicide attacks per day," said Khalid in an interview with CanWest News Service.

"We cannot say that tomorrow all terrorist activity will stop. ... But in general, the security situation is good in Kandahar and it is getting better day by day."

He even suggested the day is drawing near when Canadian troops can hand over security responsibilities to the Afghan army and police force.

"We need them until the end of this war," Khalid said of the Canadian military. "But the end of this war is not very far."..

Khalid conceded some areas of the province are still "hostage" to Taliban influence.

But he said the province, helped by Canadian military support and aid money, has been pushing forward with a number of reconstruction projects, like the rebuilding of a dam that supplies water to seven districts.

"If you saw where we were five years ago and where we are today, you will see a big difference," the governor said.

This month, the province announced 72 reconstruction projects, including the construction of schools, mosques and irrigation systems.

Khalid said reforms of the Afghan National Police, widely viewed as corrupt and susceptible to Taliban infiltration, are coming along.

"We started to rebuild the army four years ago, and the police are four years behind, but the police are getting better."

Canadian troops have been engaged in less toe-to-toe fighting with the Taliban than last summer, but suicide attacks and roadside bombs remain a persistent threat...

Afghan victory 'could take 38 years'
The Observer, August 5
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2141901,00.html

British troops could remain in Afghanistan for more than the 38 years it took them to pull out of Northern Ireland. That is the bleak assessment by Army commanders on the ground in Helmand province.

In an interview with The Observer at HQ in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, Brigadier John Lorimer, commander of UK forces in Helmand, said: 'If you look at the insurgency then it could take maybe 10 years. Counter-narcotics, it's 30 years. If you're looking at governance and so on, it looks a little longer. If you look at other counter-insurgency operations over the last 100 years then it has taken time.'

His scenario is the starkest assessment yet from a senior officer tasked with defeating the Taliban, tackling the heroin trade and rebuilding the war-ravaged country. Last week troops pulled out of Northern Ireland after 38 years, the longest operation in UK military history. Afghanistan, commanders fear, may take longer.

Lorimer said he could visualise UK forces staying in Helmand after the Taliban and a growing counter-insurgency was defeated. His comments came as British infantry, often fighting for hours in temperatures of up to 50C, pushed north against well-defended Taliban positions...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

http://www.bloggingtories.ca/btFrameset.php?URL=http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/009910.html&TITLE=An%20Afghan%20

An Afghan success story

The Christian Science Monitor describes how a long-persecuted Afghan minority, the Hazaras, have thrived since the overthrow of the Taliban:

    In post-Taliban Afghanistan, it is one of the few unequivocal, though often overlooked, successes. After centuries of discrimination, abuse, and even ethnic cleansing, the country's third-largest ethnic group has at last managed to find peace and even prosperity in the new Afghanistan.

    "The interim administration [in 2001] was the start of a golden period for Hazaras," says Abdul Ahad Farzam, a human-rights activist in Bamiyan. "Doors opened for Hazaras."

    At times, President Hamid Karzai has had as many as six Hazaras as cabinet ministers. The governors of Herat and Bamiyan provinces are Hazaras. And anecdotal information suggests that Hazaras are achieving in higher education: One unconfirmed report suggests that Kabul University accepted 600 students from one Hazara district alone, and a professor of law and political science at Herat University says half his students are Hazaras.

    From a Western perspective, the change is welcome. Hazaras "will never be reconciled with the Taliban," says Mohammed Rafiq Shahir, the professor at Herat University. "That is why the international community is building them up."

    Moreover, Hazaras are perhaps the most liberal of Afghanistan's Muslim sects. A local human-rights activist remembers trying to convince local Hazara clerics that the Western concept of human rights are in concert with Islam.

    "At the beginning they were suspicious, since it was new and it coincided with the US toppling the Taliban – it was seen as a campaign to bring in Western culture," says Musa Sultani, regional director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Yet by the end of the discussion, Mr. Sultani had persuaded the clerics so thoroughly that they issued a written decree supporting every point.

 

[GAP]

Articles found August 6, 2007

Canadian helping spur development in Afghanistan
Updated Sun. Aug. 5 2007 10:16 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

A veteran Canadian aid worker is braving the serious security threats of southern Afghanistan and trying to help villagers in the region better their lives.

"It's really critical to establish the economic infrastructure -- jobs, jobs, jobs," Drew Gilmour of Development Works Canada told CTV News. "Water is life, but providing opportunity jobs and training -- well, that makes life worth living."

Gilmour's private-sector work with Marjburobad -- one poor, dry community outside Kandahar City -- did start with water.

"They said, 'We have seen a thousand people come and go, but prove to us you are serious,' and we asked them, what, and they said water," he said.

Gilmour responded by first digging them a well.

Within a few weeks, over 200 village men had jobs. They built six more wells, and construction on an irrigation system is now well underway.

The goal is to plant fields with vegetable crops that can then be grown at market. The community's sense of hope is growing with the progress.
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U.S. Airmen Mentor Afghan Air Corps Counterparts
By Staff Sgt. Julie Weckerlein Special to American Forces Press Service
Article Link

CAMP EGGERS, Afghanistan, Aug. 5, 2007 – From firefighters to aircraft mechanics to squadron commanders, a group of U.S. Air Force airmen are mentoring and training their Afghan National Army Air Corps counterparts here in the Afghanistan's capital.

It's a job like no other, said Master Sgt. Michael Stoller, a vehicle maintenance craftsman from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, who's been deployed here for almost a year.

"This job is definitely more exciting than the work I do back home," he said. "I got here and had to start things from scratch to build up their maintenance shop from nothing. It's extremely rewarding to look around and see how far they've come since then."

In nearly a year's time, Stoller, along with other airmen, helped the Afghans build up a logistics and transportation area with a state-of-the-art vehicle maintenance facility. They also now have equipment to sustain their transportation fleet, which includes cars, trucks and emergency vehicles.

"When I showed up here, they pretty much had a box of wrenches, and that was it," he said. "Yet these guys really know their jobs. Most have been mechanics for more than 20, 30 years. They just needed the resources. I realized my mission was to try to get them equipped to do their jobs and to help them wherever needed."

Stoller said the relationship he's developed with the Afghan maintainers has left a lasting impression on him.

"Sure, there is a bit of a language issue," he said, "but we've overcome it. We work together, share tea together. Some of them were working in sandals, so I gave them some of my boots. I consider these guys my friends, so I want to see them succeed."

That type of camaraderie is common among the mentors and Afghans, and its value is not lost on either group.

"We work like one team," said Lt. Col. Abdul Shafi, commander of the Afghan National Army Air Corps senior aircraft maintenance engineer operations group. "[The mentors] help us with any problems. We are learning a lot. My idea is that we have a good future, and I feel that one day, we will have a very strong air corps."

Shafi's senior aircraft maintenance advisor, Capt. Ronald Stencel, said he also feels confident for the Afghan's air corps future.
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Germany's Steinmeier Backs Further Military Aid to Afghanistan
06.08.2007
Article Link

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has backed increased German assistance for training and equipping the Afghan security forces, in remarks published Monday.

"I am in favor of extending our assistance in training and equipping the Afghan army," Steinmeier told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper.

The remarks came amid a debate that has taken on renewed urgency in Germany since two German engineers were kidnapped in Afghanistan on July 18. One has been killed and the other is still being held by his abductors.

Steinmeier said Germany could begin considering withdrawing its 3,000 ground troops engaged in a reconstruction mission in the north of Afghanistan only once Afghan forces could guarantee security.

"If we give up now, then the Taliban will have reached their goal," the Social Democrat said.
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Australian soldiers hurt in Afghanistan
August 6, 2007 - 12:57PM
Article Link

Taliban extremists in Afghanistan have injured two Australian soldiers, one of whom has been evacuated to a medical facility in Europe, the Department of Defence says.

The department has released few details about the circumstances surrounding the incident, except that it occurred earlier this month while the soldiers were on patrol in Oruzgan Province.

The soldier with the most serious injuries was provided with first aid by fellow patrol members before being evacuated to a Coalition medical facility in Europe.

"He is in a stable condition and responding very well to treatment - we expect him to return to Australia in the near future," Defence spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said.

A second soldier, from the Special Operations Task Group, suffered superficial wounds, but he remains "fit for duty", Brigadier Nikolic said.
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13 suspected Taliban killed in Afghanistan
By ASSOCIATED PRESS KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Aug. 6, 2007 9:10
Article Link

Afghan and foreign troops thwarted a Taliban ambush at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan and killed 13 suspected militants, a local official said Monday.

Troops battled the militants for over two hours on Sunday in Zabul's Shahjoy district after they tried to attack the checkpoint on the main road linking Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, said Ali Kheil, the spokesman for Zabul's governor.

NATO and the US-led coalition did not immediately confirm the clash.

Kheil said authorities recovered 13 bodies, along with nine AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and two heavy machine guns.

No Afghan or foreign troops were hurt, he said.
End

 

[MarkOttawa]

Germany's Steinmeier wants Afghan mission extended
Reuters, August 6
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06074925.htm

...
Steinmeier's deputy Gernot Erler, another Social Democrat, went further. He did not rule out German troops getting involved in southern Afghanistan, which is far more dangerous than the northern areas where about 3,200 German troops are deployed.

"If training can only be done sensibly in the south then we must talk about that and consider it," said Erler [emphasis added].

News from Afghanistan has dominated the headlines in Germany since the Taliban seized two German engineers last month. Militants are still holding one and the other was found dead with gunshot wounds just over a week ago.

Erler said the government has so far failed to establish direct contact with the kidnappers.

Canadian troops enter hostile ground 
CP, August 6
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/v-printerfriendly/story/4017976p-4630727c.html

DISTRICT SHAH VALI KOWT, Afghanistan -- Canadian soldiers from the Royal 22nd Regiment moved deep into hostile territory over the weekend, patrolling a vast region of Afghanistan known to be sympathetic to the Taliban.

Canadian troops did not confront insurgents during this trek but they are convinced the territory is guided by a "phantom Taliban government."

Along roads, through fields and mountains, the soldiers cut a wide swath across a region north of Kandahar in light armoured vehicles. They continued their patrol on foot through punishing 50 degree C heat.

At best, the reception from local villagers was polite and lukewarm, as most men and children -- women are absent from public spaces in Afghan villages -- watched the soldiers march with a mix of fear, mistrust and sometimes hostility in their eyes.

The troops are often seen as invaders.

One youth, who hid a sickle behind his back was told by a soldier to drop his weapon. An elder intervened and persuaded the young man to get rid of the object before the situation deteriorated.

Elsewhere, residents in a hamlet acknowledged the troops with indifference. The locals spoke among themselves and drank tea, while an officer tried to persuade citizens to show the soldiers around the village.

"The Americans came here and they promised to build a school," said Chalam Abad, an elder claiming to be the town's mayor.

"They never did it."

Abad, speaking through an interpreter, said he had not seen NATO soldiers in the community for at least three years.

Villagers said they have never had a problem with the Taliban. Some said the Taliban have never set foot in the region.

The International Security Assistance Force, of which Canada is a member, thinks otherwise.

"There is a phantom Taliban government here," said one officer.

"That's why we have to be present here, checking over the terrain to counter infiltration by the Taliban."

For his part, Sgt. Steve Dufour says there is still a lot of work to be done in Afghanistan before winning over the local population.

"There are people who are frightened and we see that there is still lots of information to send to the villages to explain to people that we are here to help," he said.

Golf in Kabul gives hint of being home
'Mine-free' links a symbol of hope
Don Martin, Calgary Herald, August 6
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=06c8a1c5-c5b4-4e7b-ac8f-5e6fae278f01

The blast of a far-off bomb hit in the middle of my backswing. That might be grounds to run for cover or at least claim a mulligan on Canadian golf courses, but this being Kabul and having my iron shot go further than its pathetically short normal, I opted to play on.

Billed as "the best and only golf course in Afghanistan," the Kabul Golf Course has been declared free of landmines and boasts of freshly oiled greens made from pressed sand.

But if you're like me, stranded here by exit visa problems and bureaucratic foot-dragging for a sixth day, even golf played on rock-hard dirt fairways with thistle-like weeds for ground cover is a slice of pretend-you're-home heaven...

...I was thinking that only in Afghanistan could just having a golf course to play, even if the only one in the country resembles a goat track under construction, be the scorecard to a nation's political health.

Perhaps it's a hopeful sign that stability will become par for the course.

More here:

Fore!
The Torch, June 22
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/06/fore.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[RHFC_piper]

Canadian troops get earful from Afghan villagers
CTV. Tue. Aug. 7 2007 2:21 PM ET
Article Link

SHAWALI KOT, Afghanistan  -- Canadian soldiers found no weapons or Taliban during a recent foray into a region considered an insurgent stronghold, but they did get an earful from villagers who accused them of failing to keep their promises.

"Canadians have come here three times before and promised (to give us a well) but they've done nothing," said Haji Noor Mohammad, a leader in the desolate, poverty-stricken district of Shawali Kot.

The five-day sortie by members of the Quebec-based Royal 22nd Regiment ended Tuesday with the soldiers having heard little from the villagers about the Taliban but plenty of griping about the "broken promises" of Canadians and Americans.

More on link

 

[GAP]

Articles found August 8, 2007


Afghanistan mission a success: returning commander
By RENATO GANDIA, SUN MEDIA August 7, 2007
Article Link

Health, education and infrastructure construction moving along
Cameras flashed as Bradley huddled in a corner and chatted with his two daughters and son.

“We’ll have a big family hug,” his wife Carla Bradley tearfully told reporters.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Jeff Daley said he planned to put on some music and dance with his four-year-old daughter, Kaelin, as soon as he got home.

The emotional reunion of 12 Edmonton-based soldiers, their families and friends became the centre of attention at the Edmonton International Airport.

“It’s wonderful. I can’t explain the feeling,” Daley said.

While being away from his family was hard, he said it was worth it because the soldiers’ mission was successful as evidenced by the stability in Kandahar compared to nine months ago when they deployed.

Afghans have become friendlier because now they recognize that the soldiers are there on a reconstruction mission, he said.

Maj.-Gen. Tim Grant, former top soldier of task force Afghanistan, told a press conference Canada’s mission was indeed a success.

However, one thing he failed in, he said, was to convince Afghanistan-based reporters to report on progress in Kandahar.

The core of reporting from the region mostly dealt with combat operations and deaths, he said. “That’s an important part of the story, there’s no doubt.”

But soldiers knowingly risk their lives so that the mission of rebuilding hospitals, giving people a good life, and letting boys and girls go to school can happen, he said.

“That’s the message that we just can’t get across, but it’s happening.”
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Pakistani attack kills 10 suspected militants
Associated Press August 8, 2007
Article Link

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday that talk of U.S. military strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan only hurts the fight against terrorism, and his troops bombarded militant hideouts in their strongest response yet to a month of anti-government attacks. Ten suspected militants were killed.

 
The assault by artillery and helicopter gunships "knocked out" two compounds near the border with Afghanistan that were used to stage attacks on security forces, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad.
Ten militants were killed and at least seven were wounded in the operation, about 10 miles west of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, he said.
There were at least four smaller-scale bombings and shootings in the border region Tuesday, the latest in almost daily violence that has intensified pressure on Musharraf to crack down on militants.
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No charges in friendly fire death
Nicole Baer CanWest News Service Tuesday, August 07, 2007
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OTTAWA - The "fog of war," combined with a series of critical human errors, led to the death of a Canadian soldier in a U.S. friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in late March 2006, a Canadian Forces board of inquiry has concluded.

However, the Canadian military's policing arm announced Tuesday no charges will be laid in the death of Pte. Robert Costall at the hands of U.S. Army gunners. Soldiers from the two countries were engaged in a fierce firefight with Taliban insurgents in Helmand province. An American soldier also died and three Canadian troops were injured.

"The three causes for the friendly fire incident were incomplete co-ordination and control, poor situational awareness, and an error in battlefield combat identification," Brig.-Gen. Christopher Davis, president of the board of inquiry, wrote in his final report on the incident, unclassified portions of which were released Tuesday.

"The lack of detailed co-ordination, coupled with inadequate control measures, added to the flawed situational awareness of the U.S. Army gun crew."

In clearing the Canadian troops and officers who were joining U.S. forces already in place at a forward operating base named Robinson, the report noted that "no one person or persons met the requirements for blame," which include a capacity to foresee the tragedy and failing to take steps to prevent it. 
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David Cameron: We still don't have a proper plan for Afghanistan
[Published: Wednesday 8, August 2007 - 09:45]
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Landing in an RAF Hercules at Camp Bastion, our desert fortress deep in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, you are struck immediately by the intensity of the British military effort. Helicopters land and take off, personnel move briskly about their business, the field hospital stands ready to receive casualties as our troops advance in furnace-like heat up the valley.

Our forces are performing daily acts of heroism in the toughest of combat environments. The amount of ammunition used testifies to the ferocity of the fighting. Forty-five soldiers have been killed in action. And yet several soldiers I spoke to felt they were taking part in a forgotten campaign.

We need to wake up to what is happening in Afghanistan. As the cradle of 9/11, preventing a relapse into Taliban control matters fundamentally to Britain's national security.

Due to the campaign over the past year, the military position has shifted away from the Taliban. In a conventional military sense, the insurgents are on the back foot. And yet our commanders are the first to say that military force alone will not bring stability. If we carry on as we are we could end up winning the war in Afghanistan, but still lose the country.

A year ago, General David Richards, then the British Commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), warned of the risk of failing in Afghanistan. To avoid this we now need to make some urgent course corrections. First, we must be realistic about what we are aiming to achieve, and the timescale. As our ambassador has said, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to avoid giving the impression that we can impose fully fledged Western notions of democracy and liberalism in a society that is deeply traditional. We must work with the grain of Afghan society.

Second, we need to promote local security solutions. Up to now, it has been too easy, once international forces have left an area, for the Taliban to slip back in. We need to give overriding priority to training up the Afghan army, as well as the police, whose reputation - in contrast to the army - is patchy. We should also look at how we can persuade shuras and tribal elders to help shore up local security.
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It's easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan
Simultaneously stressed and bored, U.S. soldiers are turning to the widely available drug for a quick escape.
By Shaun McCanna
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Aug. 7, 2007 | BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- Just outside the main gate to Bagram airfield, a U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, sits a series of small makeshift shops known by locals as the Bagram Bazaar. For Afghans, it is the place to buy American goods, but the stalls that make up the heart of the bazaar are also well known for what they provide American soldiers stationed at Bagram. Walking through the bazaar it takes less than 10 minutes for a vendor in his early 20s to step out and ask, "You want whiskey?" "No, heroin," I tell him. He ushers me into his store with a smile.

The shop is small, 9 feet wide by 14 feet deep, and dark. The walls at the front are lined with dusty cans of soda, padlocks and miscellaneous beauty supplies. As we enter, a teenager is visible at the back, seated in a chair next to a collection of American military knives and flashlights. The shopkeeper speaks to him in Dari. The teen stands and heads for the door, where he stops and asks my Afghan driver a question. My driver translates, "He wants to know how much you want? Twenty, 30, 50 dollars' worth?" From past experience, for I have arranged this same transaction a dozen times in a dozen different Bagram Bazaar shops, I know that the $30 bag will contain enough pure to bring hundreds of dollars on the streets of any American city. Afghanistan, after all, is the source of 90 percent of the world's heroin. I say 30 and the teen jogs off.

The true extent of the heroin problem among American soldiers now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is unknown. At Bagram, according to a written statement provided by a spokesperson for the base, Army Maj. Chris Belcher, the "Military Police receive few reports of alcohol or drug issues." The military has statistics on how many troops failed drug tests, but the best information on long-term addiction comes from the U.S. Veterans Administration. The VA is the world's largest provider of substance abuse services, caring for more than 350,000 veterans per year, of whom about 30,000 are being treated for opiate addiction. Only preliminary information for Iraq and Afghanistan is available, however, and veterans of those conflicts are not yet showing up in the stats. According to the VA's annual "Yellowbook" report on substance abuse, during Fiscal Year 2006, fewer than 9,000 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) sought treatment for substance abuse of all kinds at the VA; the report did not specify how many were treated for opiate abuse.
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Tales of Afghanistan aim to help students heal
Written by Canadians, the series contains lessons about post-traumatic stress disorder, ethnic tolerance and dispute resolution
JILL MAHONEY EDUCATION REPORTER August 7, 2007
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The book begins with Jameela waiting in the garden for her little brother to return from school. Life at home has not been happy since "that bad day" when her uncle died and her father lost part of his leg in a land mine explosion.

The story of 10-year-old Jameela and her family is the story of Afghanistan's children. In the course of a year or so, the farming clan is devastated by the land mine, their village is bombed and they flee to a displaced person's camp before finally returning home.

A Journey of Peace, a 16-part series about the family's struggles to cope with the trauma of war, will soon be introduced to all Afghan students as part of a school-based healing and peace-building program. The series was developed, written and illustrated half a world away in Hamilton, by a group of mental-health experts, peace activists and Afghan refugees.

"We've never had stories this rich here," Susan Wardak, an adviser to Afghanistan's minister of education, said in an interview from Kabul. "It's really reflecting the Afghan reality; it's really meeting their needs."
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[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND AUGUST 9

British Criticize U.S. Air Attacks in Afghan Region
NY Times, Aug. 9, by Carlotta Gall
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/pop/articles/09casualties.html

SANGIN, Afghanistan — A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people.

Other British officers here in Helmand Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area. They also expressed concerns that the Americans’ extensive use of air power was turning the people against the foreign presence as British forces were trying to solidify recent gains against the Taliban.

An American military spokesman denied that the request for American forces to leave was ever made, either formally or otherwise, or that they had caused most of the casualties. But the episode underlines differences of opinion among NATO and American military forces in Afghanistan on tactics for fighting Taliban insurgents, and concerns among soldiers about the consequences of the high level of civilians being killed in fighting...

After months of heavy fighting that began in early 2006, the British commanders say they are finally making headway in securing important areas such as this town, and are now in the difficult position of trying to win back support among local people whose lives have been devastated by aerial bombing.

American Special Forces have been active in Helmand since United States forces first entered Afghanistan in late 2001, and for several years they maintained a small base outside the town of Gereshk. But the foreign troop presence was never more than a few hundred men.

British forces arrived in the spring of 2006 and now have command of the province with some 6,000 troops deployed, with small units of Estonians and Danish troops. American Special Forces have continued to assist in fighting insurgents, operating as advisers to Afghan national security forces.

It is these American teams that are coming under criticism. They tend to work in small units that rely heavily on air cover because they are vulnerable to large groups of insurgents. Such Special Forces teams have often called in airstrikes in Helmand and other places where civilians have subsequently been found to have suffered casualties...

The chief British press officer in Helmand, Col. Charles Mayo, defended the American Special Forces and said they were essential to NATO’s efforts to clear out heavily entrenched Taliban insurgents.

An American military spokesman said United States Special Forces would continue to operate in Helmand for the foreseeable future. He denied that their tactics had caused greater civilian deaths and blamed the Taliban for fighting from civilian compounds...

...The chief British press officer in Helmand, Col. Charles Mayo, defended the American Special Forces and said they were essential to NATO’s efforts to clear out heavily entrenched Taliban insurgents.

An American military spokesman said United States Special Forces would continue to operate in Helmand for the foreseeable future. He denied that their tactics had caused greater civilian deaths and blamed the Taliban for fighting from civilian compounds... 

 

[GAP]

Articles found August 13, 2007

Five Canadian soldiers injured in Afghanistan
Andrew Mayeda CanWest News Service Saturday, August 11, 2007
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Five Canadian soldiers were injured early Sunday after their supply convoy was ambushed by Taliban insurgents.

The soldiers were travelling in an RG-31 Nyala armoured vehicle as part of a convoy that was supplying a Canadian forward operating base in Masum Ghar, southwest of Kandahar City.

On their way back from Masum Ghar, the vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device planted along the road. The convoy then came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades.

None of the soldiers was critically injured in the blast. They were evacuated to Kandahar Airfield, NATO's military base in southern Afghanistan, for treatment. In line with military policy, their names were not released.

All but one of the soldiers were part of the battle group led by Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, commonly known as the Van Doos. However, it was not immediately clear if the soldiers are based in Quebec.

Military officials would not say whether the IED was remotely detonated or "pressure plated." The military is still investigating the nature of the bomb.

The attack came only hours after a top Canadian military commander touted the progress Canada has made in securing the province against insurgents.

"The security situation has improved immensely over the last year," Lt.-Col. Rob Walker said Saturday as his regiment handed over command of Canada's battle group to the Van Doos.

Walker said traffic along the roads around Kandahar City had increased and commerce had picked up.
"The bad news for the Taliban is they have been defeated time and time again on the battlefield. They are having less and less influence on the population of Kandahar province."
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How The 'Good War' In Afghanistan Went Bad 
2007-08-11 14:12:47 (2 days ago) Posted By: Intellpuke
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A year after the Taliban fell to an American-led coalition, a group of NATO ambassadors landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, to survey what appeared to be a triumph - a fresh start for a country ripped apart by years of war with the Soviets and brutal repression by religious extremists.

With a senior American diplomat, R. Nicholas Burns, leading the way, they thundered around the country in Black Hawk helicopters, with little fear for their safety. They strolled quiet streets in Kandahar and sipped tea with tribal leaders. At a briefing from the United States Central Command, they were told that the Taliban were now a “spent force”.

“Some of us were saying, ‘Not so fast’,” Burns, now the under secretary of state for political affairs, recalled. “A number of us assumed that the Taliban was too enmeshed in Afghan society to just disappear as a political and military force.”
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Australian troops under renewed Taliban attack
Tom Hyland August 12, 2007
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AUSTRALIAN reconstruction troops in Afghanistan have come under heavy attack twice in recent days in sustained and co-ordinated assaults forming their toughest challenge yet from Taliban fighters.

Until now, the reconstruction troops — unlike Australian special forces — have not been involved in intense combat.

No Australians were injured in the attacks, but a number of Taliban fighters were killed, their forces repelled with the support of armoured vehicles and helicopter gunships.

The attacks, on Wednesday and Friday, show the Taliban can operate close to the Australians, can launch co-ordinated attacks from multiple positions — and are willing to stand and fight.

The first of the attacks prompted Prime Minister John Howard to acknowledge for the first time that Oruzgan province in south-central Afghanistan, where the Australians are based, is more dangerous than southern Iraq, where 500 Australian troops are serving.

The Australian Defence Force has released broad outlines of the two attacks, which took place in the same area in the vicinity of Tarin Kowt, the capital of Oruzgan.

Wednesday's attack targeted Reconstruction Task Force engineers carrying out "quick impact projects". Infantry protecting the engineers came under fire, and when an Australian armoured vehicle went to their aid, it was targeted by a volley of rocket-propelled grenades from an adjoining Taliban position.

The Australians then called in support from Dutch Apache attack helicopters.

ADF spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said the fighting, which he described as "close and intense", went on for two hours, involving several distinct engagements.

"Afghanistan remains a dangerous place," he told The Sunday Age.

"When they (the Taliban) hit, they hit pretty hard. They didn't just hit and leave."
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British soldier killed in attack on base in southern Afghanistan
The Associated PressPublished: August 12, 2007
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LONDON: A British soldier was killed in an attack on a base in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defense said Sunday. Five other soldiers were lightly injured in the attack.

The soldier, from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, was fatally injured when a British patrol base in the Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan came under small arms fire Saturday afternoon, the ministry said in a statement. The soldier was ferried to a military hospital by helicopter but died.
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Coalition base in Afghanistan attacked twice in one day
August 11, 2007 
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CNN) -- Taliban militants attacked a coalition military base in southern Afghanistan for the second time Saturday and the third time this week, the U.S.-led coalition said.

It warned the ambushes could "possibly be a rehearsal for a much bigger attack, possibly an attempt to completely overrun the post."

Afghan and coalition soldiers at Firebase Anaconda in Uruzgan province fought off the attackers Saturday. Several Taliban militants were killed, and two insurgents were wounded and taken into custody.

Earlier, another attack at the base led to fighting that killed four militants.

On Tuesday, 75 fighters ambushed the same outpost from three directions. Almost a third of them were killed when troops and U.S. warplanes repelled the attack. Along with U.S.-led coalition forces, there is a large Dutch troop presence in Uruzgan.
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Report: Afghan, Taliban battling
Taliban militants attacked a coalition military base in southern Afghanistan for the second time Saturday and the third time this week, the U.S.-led coalition said.
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Coalition Service Members search for IED material and Taliban members in Margah village in Afghanistan in a recent operation.

It warned the ambushes could "possibly be a rehearsal for a much bigger attack, possibly an attempt to completely overrun the post."

Afghan and coalition soldiers at Firebase Anaconda in Uruzgan province fought off the attackers Saturday. Several Taliban militants were killed, and two insurgents were wounded and taken into custody.

Earlier, another attack at the base led to fighting that killed four militants.

On Tuesday, 75 fighters ambushed the same outpost from three directions. Almost a third of them were killed when troops and U.S. warplanes repelled the attack. Along with U.S.-led coalition forces, there is a large Dutch troop presence in Uruzgan.
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More Articles available here
MILNEWS.ca

CANinKandahar

 

[GAP]

1st Polish soldier killed in Afghanistan
The Associated Press Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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WARSAW, Poland: A Polish officer was killed during an attack on a military convoy in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, making him the first soldier from Poland to be killed in the Afghan mission, the defense minister said.

2nd Lt. Lukasz Kurowski, 28, was killed in an exchange of fire some 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of a base in the city of Gardez, Aleksander Szczyglo said on TVN24 television.

Kurowski was immediately taken to a hospital, but died on the way, Szczyglo said.

He is the first fatality among the 1,200 troops that Poland has stationed in Afghanistan as part of a NATO mission. In Iraq, Poland has reported the deaths of 21 soldiers.
end

 

[MarkOttawa]

STORIES FOUND AUG. 14

Afghanistan operation 'is a long-term commitment'
The Independent, Aug. 14
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2861734.ece

The Defence Secretary, Des Browne, acknowledged yesterday that Afghanistan was a "long-term commitment" for Britain. He said he had "never underestimated the degree of difficulty we face" in the country, a very different position from the one taken by his predecessor, John Reid, who declared when he sent UK forces into Helmand at the beginning of last year that the mission would last three years and might end "without a shot being fired in anger".

Now, two million rounds of ammunition and dozens of casualities later, no one in the British military and diplomatic circles believes that Afghanistan is going to be anything but a very long haul. The international community, with the UK playing a central role, we are told, can expect to be in the country from anything between 10 and 30 years.

Mr Browne was speaking after the latest death of a member of the British forces, the second to be killed in two days. This brings the total number of British deaths to 70 since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. This most recent casualty, a soldier from the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment, died after his base, north-east of Sangin, came under fire. Five others were injured...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found August 15, 2007

Three Germans killed in Afghanistan   
Article Link

Three Germans travelling in a diplomatic convoy have been killed and one wounded in a roadside bomb blast near Kabul, the Afghan capital.

Zalmay Khan, a deputy police chief, said that three German soldiers were killed in the attack, but the German defence ministry has denied that the casualties were soldiers.

The blast that hit the convoy turned one of the two vehicles in the convoy onto its side.

The group was travelling on a road about 10km southeast of Kabul.
 
Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was aware of an explosion near a military base but did not know how many casualties there were.

Isaf also said the blast was caused by a land mine.

Amir Mohammad, a police officer, said it was not clear if the mine was recently planted or if it was an old one.
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Harper bolsters front line
PM makes move to tackle Afghan war controversy
Juliet O'Neill, The Ottawa Citizen; with files from The Montreal Gazette Published: Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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Embattled Gordon O'Connor was demoted yesterday and replaced as defence minister by Peter MacKay, the former foreign affairs minister, in a cabinet shuffle aimed in part at bracing the government for months of controversy over Canada's military mission in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper also bolstered the Quebec profile on his front bench by reassigning Maxime Bernier, an ambitious Quebec MP, from the industry portfolio to foreign affairs. Josée Verner, the international co-operation minister, was elevated to heritage.

Opposition parties immediately accused Mr. Harper of merely changing the faces on the front bench of his minority Conservative government. They condemned the shuffle as meaningless, foreshadowing further dispute over the government's handling of the mission in Afghanistan and the timing of Canada's withdrawal.
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Lawyers critical to Afghanistan, CBA hears
KIRK MAKIN From Wednesday's Globe and Mail August 15, 2007 at 4:22 AM EDT
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CALGARY — They haggle with Afghan families to compensate the deaths of innocent relatives, they vet military plans to assess their legality, and they ensure that every soldier's will is properly witnessed.

They are lawyers - vital cogs and unsung heroes of the Afghan military effort, without whom very little could take place, a top Canadian military figure told a Canadian Bar Association convention yesterday.

"The lawyer is an indisputable part of the military operation in Afghanistan," said Brigadier-General David Fraser, commander of the multinational Afghanistan Task Force in 2006. "I've been in a lot of operations, but I never needed lawyers more than I did there.

"When I get up at 2 a.m., my lawyers get up at 2 a.m.," he said. "They are involved in all our meetings. ... They provide advice, even if it is not what the commander wants to hear. And it takes real moral courage for a lawyer to stand up and say: 'Boss, I don't know about this.' "

Brig.-Gen. Fraser said that the "stable" of lawyers who worked under him generally specialized in either international law, Canadian law, Afghan law or United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Some of the most critical advice they provided involved whether a sensitive target - such as a mosque that is being used by insurgents - can be considered a "valid military target," he said.

One of the most stressful inevitabilities of warfare is that innocent lives are sometimes taken or that possessions are destroyed in an effort to root out insurgents, he said.

"Here is where we are different from the Taliban," Brig.-Gen Fraser said. "The Taliban doesn't give a rat's ass. ... But we have to do something for the families to right a wrong."
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O'Connor a controversial target through his tenure
Updated Tue. Aug. 14 2007 4:02 PM ET Canadian Press
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Gordon O'Connor was a target from the day he was sworn in as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's first defence minister in February 2006.

O'Connor was demoted Tuesday to become the new minister of national revenue, after months of attack from the opposition.

His background as a defence lobbyist; rumours of personality clashes with his senior soldier, Gen. Rick Hillier; mixed messages about Afghanistan; and his stiff, terse speaking style helped make him an easy mark for opposition snipers.

But the problems of O'Connor's tenure went beyond image, said David Bercuson, military historian and director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

The complaints about O'Connor's earlier career as a lobbyist for military complaints were "a red herring,'' he said.

"That was a chink the opposition went after.''

The real problem was where the military file fit with Tory policy. Harper made a number of promises on the hustings, but Defence wasn't among his much-touted priorities.

"When the Conservatives got in, the message about what the military was supposed to be doing was not especially clear,'' Bercuson said.

There was a disconnect between what the government wanted the military to do and what it was willing to pay for, he said. The first Tory budget offered more money for the Canadian Forces, but the commitment was down the road, not up front.
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[MarkOttawa]

Fight Less, Win More
Washington Post, Aug. 12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/09/AR2007080900667.html

...one of my many gratifying moments at the academy came at the start of a class on targeting. I told the students to list the top three targets they would aim for if they were leading forces in Zabul province, a Taliban stronghold. When I asked a U.S. officer to share his list, he rattled off the names of three senior Taliban leaders to be captured or killed. Then I turned and asked an Afghan officer the same question. "First we must target the local councils to see how we can best help them," he replied. "Then we must target the local mullahs to find out their needs and let them know we respect their authority." Exactly. In counterinsurgency warfare, targeting is more about whom you bring in than whom you take out...

On the last afternoon of the course, I asked my students to define victory in Afghanistan. We'd talked about this earlier in the week, and most of their answers had focused on militarily defeating the Taliban or killing Osama bin Laden. Now the Afghan officers took the lead in a spirited discussion with their U.S. and NATO classmates. Finally the group agreed on a unanimous result, which neatly expresses the prize we're striving for: "Victory is achieved when the people of Afghanistan consent to the legitimacy of their government and stop actively and passively supporting the insurgency."..

On the Road to Jalalabad
Don't believe the naysayers. Afghanistan is doing as well as anyone has a right to expect.
WSJ, Aug. 13
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010464

Once in Kabul I bought a new SIM card for my mobile phone and found that what would have cost me $40 a few years ago and $9 in September last year now cost only $3. Not surprisingly, mobile phones have spread to a broad section of Afghanistan's 24 million people, with the two major providers, AWCC and Roshan, claiming a total of three million subscribers, up from two million in September last year. Amin Ramin, managing director of AWCC, estimates that his company alone will count two million subscribers by the end of 2007 and three million by the end of 2008.

I spotted similarly hopeful trends in three heavily Pashtun provinces--Nangarhar, Laghman and Khost--in eastern Afghanistan.

But first, it's important to note that to talk about "reconstruction" is the biggest lie in Afghanistan. Before the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan was long one of the poorest countries in the world and has never had a lot of infrastructure. There are ruins in the country, of course, but 95% of them are in or near Kabul itself. Most of Afghanistan lives much as it always has, subsisting on small-scale farming and trading.

We can do nothing about many of Afghanistan's barriers to development. For starters, 86% of its land area is non-arable. It has also never had a broad distribution of income or land. According to Afghan-Australian historian Amin Saikal, up until the early 1920s when King Amanullah gave crown lands to the poor, only 20% of peasants worked their own properties.

This is why many foreign development experts working in Kabul say privately that if in a couple of decades Afghanistan reaches the level of Bangladesh--which in 2006 had a per capita GDP of about $419 per year, one of the lowest in the world--then they will judge their time in the country a success.

But I am more optimistic. Jalalabad, the largest city of eastern Afghanistan, with 400,000 people, is now just a three-hour drive to Kabul on a good road recently built by the European Union. Another hour's drive brings you to Mehtar Lam, capital of Afghanistan's Laghman province, on another good road funded by USAID.

The U.S. is now planning to start a second provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Nangarhar Province, and it will be staffed by military reservists who are farmers and ranchers in civilian life. This second PRT will work with local farmers in Nangahar's lush river valley, while also building infrastructure to get crops to market--cold storage facilities and local roads. Air Force Lt. Col. Gordon Phillips, the commander of the existing PRT, says that blacktop roads will link all district centers in the province to the main road to Kabul by the end of this year.

"Every day we open 15 to 20 new accounts," says Maseh Arifi, the 24-year-old manager of the Jalalabad branch of Azizi Bank, one of Afghanistan's two homegrown consumer banks. The branch opened at the end of last August and has 18,000 accounts. Next door, rival Kabul Bank has opened 9,400 accounts totaling $7 million in two years. The 27,000 bank accounts represent about 15% of 660,000 adults of Jalalabad--and doesn't count some of the most prosperous locals, who commute to Peshawar to do their banking. In Nangarhar, AWCC and Roshan together have about 206,000 mobile phone customers, 31% of the adults.

Further south is Khost, a province that received little help from the central government in recent decades. Now construction cranes hover over Khost City, with modern five- and six-story office buildings and shopping centers rising amid grimy two-story concrete bazaars. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently finished building a new university in the city. And this month the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency, an investment-facilitating agency, is inviting 300 overseas Khostis to come discuss building an industrial park.

Both Kabul Bank and Azizi Bank opened their Khost branches in the summer of 2006, and each have about 3,000 accounts. Both branch managers expect their numbers to double this year. The numbers are low because some local residents view even non-interest bearing accounts as un-Islamic. (Competing fatwas have been issued by various mullahs on the topic.) About 65,000 people have mobile phones in the province...

Afghanistan is still a poor rural country with a mainly illiterate population, but it's improving rapidly, and with the exception of Helmand Province and a few bad districts in Uruzgun, Kandahar and Loghar [emphasis added], it's much like any number of developing countries in terms of security. We can't give every country everything they'd like, and it will take decades for the rule of law to be as firmly established here as it is in the West. But we can and are helping the Afghans pull themselves up to the next rung on the development ladder.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found August 16, 2007

Afghan, Coalition Forces Repel Two Ambush Attacks
American Forces Press Service
Article Link

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2007 – Afghan National Army and police forces supported by coalition forces defeated two separate Taliban ambushes yesterday and today in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, military officials reported.
The first ambush began yesterday afternoon northwest of the Sangin District Center. A combined force led by an element of Afghan National Auxiliary Police advised by coalition forces was on a combat patrol near the village of Regay when insurgents attacked from multiple compounds and trenches using small-arms fire, mortars and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers.

The Afghan police-led force repelled the attempted ambush with small-arms fire and artillery. When the insurgents reinforced their fighting positions, the Afghan police requested coalition close-air support, and coalition aircraft performed precision air strikes on the insurgents.

Two insurgents were wounded, and four were killed in the engagement.

“The (Afghan national security forces) are defeating the extremist fighters in the Helmand River area because (they) are trained and cohesive warriors who have become seasoned and skilled defenders of their country,” said Army Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a Combined Joint Task Force 82 spokeswoman. “Credible intelligence suggests the Taliban will continue their attempt to maintain a strong presence in the region as part of a self-destructive effort to block forces supporting the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan who are clearing the insurgents from the Musa Qala area.”
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Army Engineers Work to Connect Afghanistan One Road at a Time
By Sgt. David E. Roscoe, USA
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FORWARD OPERATING BASE ORGUN-E, Afghanistan, Aug. 15, 2007 – U.S. Army engineers in Afghanistan are doing their part to restore security and the country’s economy by building roads, bridges and levees to connect Afghanistan’s people.

Afghanistan’s rugged terrain and mountainous landscape isolates most of the population from the country’s major cities and industrial area. Lack of funding, harsh seasonal weather and flash floods have made it almost impossible to maintain a lasting road system within the country. Only about 35,000 kilometers of roads connect the country’s economic centers. This explains why one of the main goals for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other engineer units is to build and repair an efficient road system in Afghanistan.

However, major concerns arise for soldiers constructing roads in a combat environment. Improvised explosive devices, car bombs and ambushes are a constant threat to soldiers working on roads.

“Our company has been attacked by one IED and one (car bomb), found three IEDs, and been ambushed three times while conducting road-construction missions in Afghanistan,” Army Capt. Nicholas O. Melin, commander of Company B, 864th Engineer Combat Battalion, said. “The motivating thing about all this is that our soldiers are not allowing these obstacles to stop them, and they have maintained their good spirits in the face of danger.”
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MacKay plays defence
By Paul Berton
  Article Link

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it's business as usual despite this week's cabinet shuffle, but clearly it is not.

Replacing Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor with Peter MacKay from foreign affairs is an acknowledgement, finally, that Canada's role in Afghanistan needs to be better communicated to the Canadian people.

But Harper knows better communication alone, however helpful, will not do the job. Canadians need a broader debate about our continuing role and objectives in Afghanistan.

The original goal of defeating the Taliban was long ago squandered when the United States opened a second front in Iraq. It's too late now to expect anything so definitive anytime soon.

Reducing casualties is also worthy, but that too, is a challenge indeed as long as Canada remains in the Kandahar region, which it will be until at least 2009.

Harper has said he will not extend that without support from all parties, and a Commons vote on the question may come as early as next spring.
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Afghan empire's last symbols under threat
Wed Aug 15, 2007 10:39AM EDT By Sayed Salahuddin
Article Link

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - For more than eight centuries the "Towers of Victory" -- monuments to Afghanistan's greatest empire -- have survived wars and invasions, but now weather and neglect could cause them to come crashing down.

From its base in the Afghan city of Ghazni, the dynasty of Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi extended its rule to stretch from the River Tigris in modern day Iraq to the River Ganges in India.

The two toffee-colored minarets, adorned with terra-cotta tiles were raised in the early 12th century as monuments to the victories of the Afghan armies that built the empire.

Since then, Afghanistan has more often been victim of invasion than the perpetrator of them.

The upper portions of the Towers of Victory have eroded away over time, so now only the bases remain -- though they still stand at around 7 meters (24 feet) tall.

"If attention is not paid, there is the possibility they will be destroyed," said Aqa Mohammad Khoshazada, a senior official with Ghazni's culture and information department. "Floods and rain in spring and snow in winter all end up around the minarets."

Ghazni is regarded as the cradle of Afghan culture and arts and during his rule Mahmoud had attracted 400 scholars and poets to his court. But the sultan was also an iconoclast who destroyed hundreds of Hindu statues during campaigns to introduce Islam into India.

NO RESOURCES

Mahmoud died in 1030. His son, Sultan Masud, built one of the minarets. The other was erected by another successor.

The Ghaznavis' rule lasted for more than two centuries.

The city was then razed to the ground by Allauddin Ghori from central Afghanistan, who earned the nickname of "World Burner" for the massacre of Ghazni's people in an orgy of destruction and looting.

The city flourished again, only to be destroyed again by a son of Ghenghiz Khan in 1221. But the minarets survived.

Ghazni changed hands between British and Afghan forces several times in the 19th century suffering more sieges and massacres. More fighting during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, followed by the civil war of the 1990s, also left their mark on Ghazni.

Ghazni's Towers of Victory stand several hundred meters away from each other and lie at the bottom of a hill.
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U.S.-led forces pound Tora Bora
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- U.S. and Afghan air and ground forces pounded al Qaeda militants for a second day on Thursday in the Tora Bora mountains close to the Pakistan border where Osama bin Laden once fled in the wake of the 2001 invasion.

The steep slopes of the mountains are riddled with cave and tunnel complexes built by Afghan and Arab fighters during the 1980s struggle against the Soviet occupation and provide an ideal hideout for guerrilla fighters.

"It is a joint operation conducted by Afghan and U.S. forces, divided by ground and air assets," said Captain Vanessa Bowman, spokeswoman for U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

"Afghan and U.S. forces engaged al Qaeda and other violent extremist fighters in the eastern Afghanistan region in Tora Bora," she said, adding that the operation began on Wednesday.

Pakistan has deployed a "limited number" of regular army troops in Kurram tribal region in its side of the Tora Bora range, a security official said.

"It has been done over the past three days and it was done in coordination with allied forces in Afghanistan," he said. "We have made all arrangements to block any infiltration of militants from the other side. So far there has been no attempt of any infiltration."

Afghan media quoted local government officials as saying some 50 militants had been killed in the fighting.

Local residents said dozens of families have fled the area and three villages had been bombed by U.S. and Afghan forces and up to 30 civilians had been killed in the fighting.

The U.S. military said it had no substantiated reports of any civilian casualties.

"We are not targeting any villages and the operation are specifically being conducting away from populated areas," a U.S. spokesman said.

It was not possible to independently verify any casualties.

Aid organization had suspended projects in the Tora Bora region, said a Western security official in the city of Jalalabad, some 50 km (30 miles) north of the mountains.

"We see a lot of air activity going towards that region, it looks like it's quite intense today," he said.
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More Articles available here
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CANinKandahar

 

[MarkOttawa]

Further to this story above, Afghan empire's last symbols under threat, the Ghaznavids actually were ethnically Turks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaznavid_Empire
http://faculty.oxy.edu/richmond/csp8/central_asia_to_1600.htm

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Edward Campbell]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070817.wblatchford17/BNStory/International/home
'We have trusted these guys with our lives'

CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD

From Friday's Globe and Mail
August 17, 2007 at 3:02 AM EDT

KANDAHAR — So much of what Canada's small team of soldier mentors does with the Afghan National Army is so hard to measure, if not invisible to the naked eye, that it's a little like being a parent, says outgoing commanding officer Lieutenant-Colonel Wayne Eyre.

"It's like watching your kids grow," he says. "It's hard when you're right in there. You've got to take a step back."

So three or four weeks ago, as the end of the six-month tour of the 90-member OMLT (Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team) approached, Lt.-Col. Eyre and his soldiers did the equivalent of what moms and dads do when they look to marks in the kitchen doorway to get a handle on how much their children have sprouted - they looked for milestones.

There are plenty.

When this rotation of the OMLT arrived last February, it was mentoring less than 20 per cent of soldiers from the ANA's 205 (or Hero) Brigade; as Lt.-Col. Eyre's group departed southern Afghanistan this week, it was mentoring more than 80 per cent. In February, the 2nd Kandak (or battalion) was using its medical platoon to man a checkpoint, with medics still being regularly pressed into service as extra riflemen; now, medics are treating wounded. In February, ANA soldiers were still scrounging for equipment and supplies wherever they could, as they had learned to do; now, they get them through the ANA's own logistics kandak.

But more important, Lt.-Col. Eyre says, is that at the kandak level - the 2nd Kandak, which operates in the volatile Zhari-Panwaii area just west of Kandahar city, is the battalion with which the OMLT has worked most closely - ANA commanders are planning operations.

"Up to that point," Lt.-Col. Eyre says, "it was all coalition-led [the International Security Assistance Force, commanded in the south by multinational NATO forces]. The battle group would say, 'We think we need an operation here, we'd like you to participate.'... Now, they're [the ANA] at the stage where their kandak commander would say, 'We think we need to go into this area and this is what I'd like to do, and this is what I need the battle group to provide me, whether a quick reaction force or artillery.' "

It's called building capacity, and it's not just the focus of Canadian efforts here, it's also the only way, Lt.-Col. Eyre believes, for the ANA and ultimately for Afghanistan to succeed.

"We're teaching them to function on their own," he says. "We've been very, very careful not to build a mirror image of ourselves. It would be well within our comfort zone to create an army in our own image, but we've got to create something that's going to last after we depart. And we have to leave some time."

Afghanistan history teaches that "every foreign army is eventually seen as [an] occupying force, so the longer we have a big footprint here, the more chances, we're going to have that."

Key to the collaborative planning, Lt.-Col. Eyre says, is trust. "We bring them into the planning process early - these guys have been fighting here for decades, they know the ground - and not everybody is comfortable with that because there's the operational security issue." What he means, of course, is the fear that plans will be leaked to Taliban forces, putting Canadian and coalition soldiers into jeopardy.

"But you have to take a risk with that," he says, "and balance the risk with the long-term development goals, and taking that risk, you also show trust, which goes a long way toward rapport."

Lt.-Col. Eyre took it, and says flatly at no time was his faith misplaced; rather the opposite.

"We have trusted these guys with our lives," he says, "and the only reason a good portion of my team is alive is because the ANA kept them alive.

"We're out there in a forward operating base, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Taliban, a small team of coalition mentors and an ANA company - they keep us alive."

The OMLT lost only one soldier, Corporal Matthew McCully, and another wounded, Sergeant Steve Powell, both of whom were hit in an IED strike in May.

Lt.-Col. Eyre learned of the bombing as he was at London's Heathrow Airport, awaiting a flight to the Caribbean to begin leave with his wife Jennifer and their two youngsters.

He'd told his deputy to call him only in the event of casualties, and was 20 minutes away from boarding the plane when he got a page; he tried calling, but couldn't get through, and spent the nine-hour flight worrying.

But as a member of the Edmonton-based 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Lt.-Col. Eyre also knew many of the seven Patricias killed from the battle group, which in total lost 22 troops. The ANA's 205 Brigade lost 12 soldiers, the 2nd Kandak three.

As soon as his team took over headquarters, Lt.-Col. Eyre became the mentor first for Brigadier-General Khair Mohammad, then for his successor, Colonel Abdul Basir. His personal experience has taught him that mentoring isn't a one-way road: He learned as much as he taught.

"First," he says, "that there are far more ways of doing things than we are trained [to recognize]. You have to accept that they will come up with solutions that are imperfect in our eyes but our eyes may not have a perfect solution.

"Patience is incredibly important. You relearn that every day. I told the guys before we came over, if you're a perfectionist you're gonna have a nervous breakdown, so you may as well pack your bags and go home or not even come over."

He divided his time between visiting his men in the field, some of whom lived and worked with the ANA for all but a week of their tour, and the 205's base near Kandahar Air Field.

This week, at a handover ceremony to the new larger version of the OMLT, headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Stéphane Lafaut of the 3rd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, or Van Doos, Col. Basir was in the audience to hear Lt.-Col. Eyre describe Afghans as "some of the most natural warriors in the world" and Lt.-Col. Eyre to hear Col. Basir promise that "we will never forget" the Canadians who died here. "Their names will be written in the pages of the history books of Afghanistan in golden ink."

The two exchanged gifts. Lt.-Col. Eyre's was a picture of Col. Basir addressing his soldiers.

It exemplified what Lt.-Col. Eyre loves about him. "Every time that he talks to soldiers," he says, "he talks about professionalism, about keeping the local population onside, about the importance of discipline, about pride in their country and in their army, of national unity."

The colonel's four-man team of bodyguards, for instance, includes a Pashtun, a Tajik, an Uzbek and a Hazara, one each from the country's dominant tribes.

"The ANA is the most successful institution of national unity this country has seen for a long, long time," Lt.-Col. Eyre says - again, not unlike his own unit, drawn from all three regular Canadian infantry regiments (the Patricias, the Royal Canadian Regiment and the Vandoos), French and English, and from across the country.

cblatchford@globeandmail.com

 

[The Bread Guy]

Name of Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan released
News release, CEFCOM NR–07.033, 19 Aug 07
Article link

OTTAWA – The identity of the Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan today is as follows:

    * Private Simon Longtin of the 3e Bataillon, Royal 22e Régiment, based out of Valcartier, Quebec.

Pte Longtin succumbed to his injuries after his LAV III struck an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) roughly 1:41 am Kandahar time, approximately 20 kms West of Kandahar City. At the time of the incident, the Canadian convoy was returning from a Forward Operating Base following a re-supply mission from Kandahar Airfield.

-30-

Canadian soldier killed in southern Afghanistan
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD, Globe and Mail, August 19, 2007 at 10:52 AM EDT
Article link

MA’SUM GHAR, Afghanistan — Quebec's proud infantry regiment has begun a grim initiation into the cycle of death and grief already achingly familiar to other units from across Canada.  Simon Longtin, a private with Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, the Royal 22nd Regiment or Van Doos as the troops are known, died last evening after his convoy, completing a routine re-supply run, struck an Improvised Explosive Device only five kilometers from the safety of a forward operating base.  Pte. Longtin, who hailed from the Montreal area, was the driver of a 2 Platoon Light Armored Vehicle, or LAV, and was simply unlucky, Charlie Company's officer commanding, Major Patrick Robichaud, said sorrowfully this morning.  All the other soldiers in the vehicle were unhurt, "not even a bump," he said.  The convoy was traveling from the sprawling coalition base at Kandahar Air Field back to the smaller base at Ma'sum Ghar, where most of Charlie Company is stationed. The soldier was evacuated by helicopter to the hospital at the big air field, but was pronounced dead on arrival.  The base sits smack in the midst of the Arghendab River valley in the Panjwaii district where so much Canadian blood has been spilled over the past two summers ....



Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan near Kandahar; first Van Doo to die
MARTIN OUELLET, Canadian Press, 19 AUg 07
Article link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Another Canadian soldier has been killed in southern Afghanistan - the 67th since the military mission began in 2002.  Pte. Simon Longtin, 23, of Longueuil, Que., on Montreal's south shore, was killed early today when his light armoured vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb at 1:40 a.m. local time.  Longtin, a member of the Royal 22nd Regiment - the Van Doos - was in a convoy on escort duty when the bomb detonated west of Kandahar city, five kilometres east of the volatile village of Masum Ghar.  Col. Christian Juneau, deputy commander of the Canadian joint task force, said was evacuated by helicopter from the scene of the attack but was dead on arrival at the military hospital in Kandahar.  "It's almost like losing a brother," Juneau said. "We're a big family here, brothers in arms, and it's not just a statement that we take lightly in the military. So it really touches every one of us pretty deeply. But we'll mourn, we'll pay respects to the family and our fallen comrade and we'll carry on with the mission."....



Private Simon Longtin first Van Doo killed in Afghanistan
Andrew Mayeda , CanWest News Service, August 19, 2007
Article link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A Canadian soldier was killed early Sunday by a roadside bomb, becoming the first member of Quebec's storied Van Doos regiment to die while serving in Afghanistan.  The solider has been identified as Pte. Simon Longtin. Pte Longtin was a member of 3e Bataillon du Royal 22e Regiment, based out of Valcartier, Que.  Pte. Longtin was travelling in a LAV-III armoured vehicle as part of a supply convoy when it struck an improvised explosive device at 1:41 a.m. local time.  Private Simon Longtin of the 3e Bataillon, Royal 22e Rgiment, based out of Valcartier, Quebec succumbed to his injuries after his LAV III struck an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) roughly 1:41 a.m. Kandahar time, approximately 20 kms West of Kandahar City. At the time of the incident, the Canadian convoy was returning from a Forward Operating Base following a re-supply mission from Kandahar Airfield.  "There is no way to comfort those who are grieving today, except to say this soldier was an exceptional Canadian who deserved the gratitude and respect of his nation," said Col. Christian Juneau, Canada's deputy commander in Afghanistan.  Canadian Forces exchanged fire with Taliban insurgents after the blast -- 20 kilometres west of Kandahar City -- but no other Canadian soldiers were injured and no Taliban casualties could be confirmed.  The soldier was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital at Kandahar Airfield, but pronounced dead upon arrival ....



Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan
Reuters (UK), 19 Aug 2007
Article link

A Canadian soldier was killed on Sunday when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb near the southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar, the Canadian military said.  The statement from the Canadian Department of National Defence said the soldier had been traveling in a supply convoy when his armored vehicle hit the improvised bomb ....

 

[MarkOttawa]

UK troops 'stretched but winning' 
British troops are "stretched" but they are winning the tactical battle in Afghanistan, the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has said. 
BBC, Aug. 19
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6953532.stm

...
He said he had "pride and admiration" for all the young soldiers in the British army and said there was no other force that could be doing such a difficult task in the country.

"With the training we've got, the equipment we've got, and determination, and leadership, we're winning our tactical engagements," he said.

"Of course, tragically, we take casualties from time to time. I don't want to get into a numbers count, but the Taleban have taken a lot more casualties than we have."

While troops were "certainly stretched" and soldiers were not getting as long in barracks as he would like, morale was good, he said.

"We can be busy, we can be stretched, we can run hot - provided we are looking after individuals.

"Critically, our soldiers feel valued and supported and thanked for what they are doing."

Forces 'overstretched'

His comments came as Defence Secretary Des Browne denied claims the government is failing in its duty to UK troops who put their lives on the line for their country.

The Royal British Legion had said the Military Covenant - guaranteeing troops fair treatment in return for forgoing other rights - is not being upheld.

Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "We face the problem that in Britain the government has overstretched our armed forces without giving them sufficient resources to do the job they're being asked to do."

He went on to criticise the level of commitment from Britain's allies.

Dr Fox said: "Our international allies, particularly some of our European allies and Nato, simply have not been stepping up to the plate in an international operation of this nature."

Medal petition

Gen Dannatt also backed calls for special recognition for those involved in fighting in southern Afghanistan which he said was "of a greater intensity than that which had gone on elsewhere in Afghanistan in recent years"...

Retreat & redeploy: The case for withdrawing from Iraq and taking the fight to the Taliban
Independent on Sunday, Aug. 19
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2876549.ece

...
Last week Major General Graham Binns took over as commander of the multinational force in south-east Iraq for another torrid six months. But this was not how the script was intended to run. His predecessor, Major General Jonathan Shaw, was supposed to be the last general to hold the post, because it was expected that during his tour he would hand over security in Basra city and province to the 10th Division of the Iraqi Army, and pave the way for full political control by the Iraqi provincial council.

Instead, the fighting in Basra this summer has been more intense than at any time since the allied invasion in 2003. Already 41 British servicemen and women have been killed this year, more than in any other year since 2003. If losses were to continue at the present rate, they might exceed the 53 suffered four years ago, when some 45,000 British troops took part in a full-scale war. The question now is: are British soldiers dying needlessly in southern Iraq?..

But in October General Dannatt expressed another concern: that the strains of fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan could "break" the Army. When his predecessor, General Sir Mike Jackson, agreed to send troops to southern Afghanistan early last year, the assumption was that the British presence in Iraq would be cut to around 2,000 within six months. Eighteen months later there are still nearly three times that number in Iraq; in Afghanistan the initial deployment of 3,300 has more than doubled, and will increase to 7,800 by the end of the year. The casualty figures here are also high. According to reports in today's Observer almost half the 1,500 frontline troops in Helmand province have been treated on the battlefield for serious injuries since April. Official casualty figures are much lower as these only record troops that were treated in hospital.

Not only is this putting a near-intolerable strain on the Army's resources, according to commanders, but the tempo of operations is causing the manpower shortage to get steadily worse. And there are ominous signs that increasing numbers of officers and soldiers have had enough, and are leaving early. One Parachute Regiment officer has decided to quit after being faced with a second tour in Afghanistan in 18 months. "He has a young family," a friend said, "and he could not see that this scale of fighting was achieving what it is supposed to."

Last autumn General Dannatt warned that the Army was in danger of "running hot" with the demands of both fronts. The worsening situation since then has been underlined by the statistics for the 1st Battalion the Royal Anglians, who have been in Helmand province for just over four months. In that time the battle group of roughly 650 troops has lost 131, including five killed, two dozen seriously wounded, and some 60 from injuries including broken legs and arms.

In some of the vital forward fighting units, the infantry battalions especially, attrition rates are heading towards 20 per cent, including fatalities, injuries and sickness. Yet Louise Heywood, head of the UK armed forces programme at the Royal United Services Institute, said that even if thousands of troops were pulled out of Iraq soon, no plans exist to send them to Afghanistan. The aim instead would be to restore the normal 18-month break between six-month combat tours, during which troops would spend a year on home service and six months training. At least until next year, however, the forces are likely to remain at full stretch in both theatres, instead of being able to concentrate on Afghanistan, as commanders have long been seeking...

'It's bleak and ferocious, but is it still winnable?'
The Observer, Aug. 19
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2151830,00.html

As usual, the conversation turned towards the same simple question. 'Do you think it is winnable?', the British commanders, officers and soldiers of Helmand would ask. It was a tough call. Talk would then veer towards the intractability of fighting, the miasma of tribal politics, terrorism and the deaths of British men.
The obstacles were piled high. Progress, by comparison, seemed stunted. Few who asked seemed sure of success. Some sensed it was possible, others wondered at what cost. One officer simply exhaled sharply and gazed at his desert combat boots...

Such discussions, often conducted against the soundtrack of fighting, would unfailingly find agreement on one topic: more young adults from Britain would die here. The nagging dread that they might perish in vain was palpable.
During weeks as the only newspaper on Afghanistan's front line, The Observer had access to those embroiled in the bitterest fighting for decades, a unique insight into a conflict more complex, ferocious and challenging than is popularly understood. Their assessments, hopes and fears offer an extraordinary, at times bleak, picture of a daunting war. No one privy to its intensity dared believe a quick-fix solution is near, but occasionally chinks of hope would appear amid the unrelenting demands of what the historians may recall as one of the most difficult campaigns in British military history.

For now the so-called Unwinnable War remains winnable. Just. Time is tight, more troops are desperately needed and the Afghan people require convincing. All the time an enemy is evolving and, more than ever, it is events beyond the borders of southern Afghanistan that may yet conspire most against the British in Helmand.

He thought he was safe in assuming he had witnessed the worst British fighting of modern times. A veteran of the close-quarters battle for Goose Green during the Falklands conflict, the army medic felt qualified to offer his verdict on what he had witnessed in Helmand.

'Every life lost here is an utter waste,' he said in his makeshift military surgery. Day after day he watched British men, filthy and exhausted, troop home after hours of fighting. Often they could celebrate another tactical victory. Yet the enemy kept growing stronger.

Defeated in the morning, the insurgents strengthened overnight. British infantrymen are locked in combat against a hydra: chop off one head and it sprouts two more...

...Ostensibly the British troops are reported to be battling the Taliban, but already that appears something of a misnomer. Soldier after soldier described an altogether different beast. The Taliban - in their sandals, distinctive black robes and armed with AK-47 rifles - are very much last summer's adversary.

The conflict in Helmand has morphed way beyond that of crushing the Taliban. The nightmare scenario has unfolded: the Helmand valley has mutated into a geopolitical battleground for jihadists, a blooding ground for budding martyrs from across the globe.

Convoys of Toyota Land Cruisers carrying holy warriors stream daily from Pakistan's porous border to target British teenagers.

'You have to ask whether British troops should have been sent here in the first place; our presence has only succeeded in attracting trouble,' said one senior officer. Experienced Chechen separatists recently arrived to take the battle to the British.

Apocryphal maybe, but intelligence is also rumoured to have heard the lilt of Brummie fighters discussing killing British soldiers. After one particularly fierce exchange, one insurgent was heard lamenting: 'Jihad is sure hard.' Men from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment portray an increasingly well-trained foe. One said: 'They look smarter than the Taliban. Most now wear the Pakistan dishdash. Their fire and weaponry is getting more accurate all the time. Someone is training these guys.'..

Advanced surface-to-air missiles and armour-piercing machine guns accurate over a one-kilometre firing range have started targeting the British. One missile recently locked on to a British Harrier jet, forcing the pilot to take evasive action. This is hi-tech stuff.

But British commanders also voice concerns about another profound threat, this time unfolding in their ranks. The unforeseen ferocity of operations in Helmand is set to precipitate an exodus of soldiers. One of the war's less known side effects has been its impact on a generation of infantrymen who signed up to fight but whose lust for battle has been sated in the most remarkable way...

Overstretching the few soldiers available in Helmand increases the risk of the enemy moving back into areas once occupied by British forces, a politically untenable scenario. As usual, the central dilemma boils down to a lack of manpower where it matters, with the British still immersed in Iraq.

Nato must convince other countries to accept its mandate in Helmand or contemplate failure of its mission to stabilise the province. The suspicion that Britain is carrying too much of Nato's Afghan burden is widespread among those in Helmand. One can only guess how frequently the commander of British forces in Helmand, Brigadier John Lorimer, must have prayed for the thousands of extra men he so clearly must crave.

One of the greatest tragedies of Helmand so far is the pace of reconstruction promised by the international community. During the approaching winter, much must be done. Pledges of new schools, roads and businesses must be delivered...

The plan is for a 70,000-strong Afghan army that will be self-functioning as soon as December. Early signs are promising, but just 1,700 are on the ground at any one time. Around 300 are absent without leave. British troops describe Afghan recruits as fine but erratic fighters. Some think nothing of charging headlong into machine-gun fire, others scarper at the first whiff of danger.

Little doubt, though, that the progress reports being filed back to Whitehall will shimmer with optimism. There can often seem a disconnect between the upbeat appraisal of civil servants to the chaotic, bloody reality of Helmand. Defence Secretary Des Browne's verdict last week that British forces have reached a 'turning point' in stabilising Afghanistan betrays an idealism impossible to square with the fighting raging throughout the region...

The challenges are numerous. The window of winnability finite. The only certitude is that more British blood will be spilt beside the river that lends its name to this most desperate and dangerous of regions.

Mark
Ottawa