Topic: The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread September 2010

[GAP]

The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread September 2010              
 
News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!
 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 2

Near Kandahar, the Prize Is an Empty Town
NY Times, Sept. 1
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/world/asia/02kandahar.html?_r=1

MEHLAJAT, Afghanistan — When the governor of Kandahar Province came to this town, freshly liberated on Sunday from the Taliban, his armed entourage appeared to outnumber what was left of the population.

“Don’t worry,” Gov. Tooryalai Wesa told the few elders who ventured out of their homes. “The Taliban are gone. Our security forces will not leave you alone. You’re safe now.”

For the moment, this farming community of about 60,000 people on the edge of Kandahar City looked more like a ghost town, doors closed and windows barred, with hardly anyone on the streets. Laced with booby-traps and hidden bombs, the wheat and corn fields nearby were empty of workers.

The tempo of operations throughout the districts surrounding Kandahar has been steadily increasing in recent weeks, but nowhere more suddenly than in this town and the surrounding Dand district.

While many operations in Afghanistan are now joint ones between NATO and Afghan forces, in most of them, the phrase “Afghan-led” is little more than a fiction. This was an exception.

While American commanders said the operation pointed the way to Afghanistan’s future, the outcome — a town filled with bombs and booby traps but devoid of most residents or fighters — showed just how difficult it would be to secure the area and win over residents. The reasons the Afghans took the lead seemed to have more to do with local politics than coalition building.

When Muhammad Rasol, the police chief of the Daman district, to the east of the city, and three officers were killed by a suicide bomber on Aug. 18, Kandahar’s powerful provincial assembly chairman, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was furious and complained to his brother, President Hamid Karzai, American officials said.

President Karzai issued an unprecedented decree giving the powers of commander in chief to the governor of Kandahar Province, Mr. Wesa, and ordering him to convene an urgent “military shura” to discuss a response. Mr. Wesa is a close ally of the president’s brother.

Mehlajat has been infamous as a staging area for Taliban assassinations, and in just the previous three weeks, 10 people had been killed here. A local Taliban court had issued death sentences against anyone suspected of links to the government; four of the victims were hung from electricity poles and another from a tree. Two truck bombs last year and many of the assassinations in Kandahar, now taking place at the rate of two or three a day, have been attributed to members of the Taliban from here.

The governor’s military shura decided to hit Mehlajat , and do it quickly. The operation was led by Col. Abdul Razaq, a controversial figure  and an ally of Ahmed Wali Karzai, who leads a unit of the Border Police in the province. It also included army forces and other police units, all under the governor’s ultimate command.

The Afghans informed NATO commanders that they were going ahead on two weeks’ notice — a remarkably short time for a major operation involving what the Afghans said were 1,700 police officers and soldiers.

“It came about rather quickly,” said Lt. Col. Victor Garcia, deputy commander of the United States Army’s Task Force Raider, which backed up the Afghans. “It was a happy surprise.”

It was not a surprise to the Taliban, however, who had either fled or hid by the time the operation started, local residents said. Other than two policemen wounded by a roadside bomb, there were no casualties. “We blocked all ways in and out for them,” said Colonel Razaq, who added that the authorities had picked up 100 people suspected of being Taliban fighters...

Mark
Ottawa

[Dog Walker]

Afghanistan still confounds efforts to save it from itself

 http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Afghanistan+still+confounds+efforts+save+from+itself/3479279/story.html

By Brian Hutchinson, Postmedia News
September 3, 2010 3:02 PM

SPERWAN GHAR, Afghanistan — Measuring the success or failure of Canada's combat mission in Kandahar will depend on how events unfold this month and next, around a downtrodden village cluster deep in Panjwaii district.
After four years of effort and heavy sacrifices, Canada's military is still confounded by this place, the seat of Taliban power and home to a tiny, unhappy populace. Panjwaii is not secure. Insurgents continue to assemble here, kill troops and plan attacks on Kandahar City and places beyond.
Maj. Eleanor Taylor is blunt: "We cannot protect the population the way we're currently configured."
The Antigonish, N.S., native commands Charles Company, 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group (1RCR). It's placed inside a Soviet-era military instalment at Sperwan Ghar, 30 kilometres west of Kandahar's capital and right on the Taliban's doorstep. This is the western front, where the most Canadian soldiers can manage are short patrols and attempts to "disrupt" Taliban activities.
Taylor's company does its best and enjoys "some rays of hope," she says, but it's caught in the same numbers game as others that came before it. Resources are spread too thin. There aren't enough soldiers. And the Afghan National Army troops operating in the area are often a hindrance, not a help.
Knowing the battle for Panjwaii was once considered a high point for Canadian battle groups makes the current predicament seem worse.
Canadians arrived in Panjwaii in 2006. First the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), and then 1RCR, including Charles Co. They beat back the insurgency. Charles Co. played a crucial role in Operation Medusa, a notable offensive campaign that opened up most of the district and allowed Canadians to build a string of forward operating bases and strong points, all the way to Panjwaii district's western boundary.But the tables turned. The Taliban came back in force and by 2008 the Canadians were drawing back. Those western strong points are long gone.
With security disrupted, development in Panjwaii has stalled. Road paving projects are on hold because contractors and local workers risk being killed. Irrigation repairs and health clinics have been postponed.
The district lacks transparent, effective governance. Panjwaii's illiterate district governor, Haji Baran, is by most accounts dispirited, unengaged, and suspicious of those around him. He has no staff to help him govern; civil servants from the cities will not venture into Panjwaii. Kandahar Gov. Tooryalai Wesa seldom visits.
The Taliban have filled the vacuum. The insurgents run a medieval court system from Zangabad, a village just west of Sperwan Ghar. It's their district council, where mercy, not vengeance, is spared.
Last winter, insurgents rarely strayed east of Zangabad. A PPCLI company in Sperwan Ghar had to go looking for them, explained Taylor. She inherited a fairly quiet area. When Charles Co. arrived at the beginning of May, Sperwan Ghar and points east were considered "permissive," or relatively safe to move around.
"Then everything transitioned," said Taylor. The Taliban prepared for another fighting season. They assembled a larger fighting force and started launching regular attacks on Charles Co. and on other Canadian and Afghan units nearby. They used small arms, rocket propelled grenades and mortars.
"We knew we were facing something new," said Taylor. "They had foreign fighters. We took direct contact for the first time. Then, there was contact every day." Petty Officer Second Class Douglas Craig Blake, a navy explosive ordnance disposal officer, was killed by an IED blast near Sperwan Ghar on May 3.
The Taliban also began planning their response to Operation Hamkari, a large, three-phase coalition campaign aimed at securing key Kandahar districts, including Panjwaii. Hamkari may be the last, large-scale operation involving Canadian planning and combat teams before troops are withdrawn next summer.
Phase 1 saw U.S. and Afghan forces establish a network of security checkpoints around Kandahar City. Phase 2 saw them aggressively clear Arghandab district, north of the capital. According to senior military sources, Phase 2 was more "kinetic," or combat-intensive, than had been anticipated.
The Taliban fought back, hard.
Phase 3 is scheduled for Panjwaii and the adjoining Zhari district, once a Canadian area of operation and now an American responsibility. Phase 3 won't likely start in earnest before mid or late September. Much depends on the readiness of Afghan national security forces, and on the Afghan government's resolve, which can seem shaky.
British Maj.-Gen. Nick Carter, commander of coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, says the intention is to sweep through all of Panjwaii, including Zangabad, and reclaim territory formerly held by Canadians.Insurgents are warning locals to avoid the "infidels."
Villagers and farmers thought to be sympathetic to the coalition have had threatening notes pinned to their front doors. These so-called night letters instruct their recipients to either leave the area or to appear before the Taliban court in Zangabad.
Some have decided to defy the orders and to remain in their homes instead. Most have fled Panjwaii. A few have gone to Zangabad, to the Taliban court. They've returned with cuts and bruises on their legs, said Taylor. Several didn't return at all.
Taliban tactics are increasingly vile, Taylor added. They use children to conduct attacks on Canadian forces. A local insurgent, a man in his 20s, is known to recruit boys at least as young as eight to "emplace IEDs" near Canadian positions and routes at Sperwan Ghar.
"They know we can't take action against children," said Taylor.
"I've given up trying to explain to people back home how ugly the insurgency is."
Taliban activities intensified in July and August but have recently tapered, perhaps thanks to Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer. Ramadan concludes next week.
More troops will mass in Panjwaii. Until then, says Taylor, "we can build obstacles around here and take a bite out of the insurgency. We can disrupt."

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 4

Gates Sees 2-3 Years of Combat in Afghanistan
Wall St. Journal, Sept. 5 (sic)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704855104575469770302547514.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

COMBAT OUTPOST SENJARAY, Afghanistan—Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he envisions two or three more years of combat operations in Afghanistan before the U.S. transitions to an advisory role, a mission likely to last years more.

Mr. Gates’s comments Friday at a military camp outside Kandahar were his most decisive to date on the war’s timeline. They came as he made a vigorous, public case that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy would prove to be working by the time the Obama administration begins its next review of the war in December.

President Barack Obama announced a surge of 30,000 U.S. troops in December 2009, bringing the current American force to about 100,000 today. But Mr. Obama has pledged to begin drawing down the surge troops in July. The timeline outlined by Mr. Gates Friday appeared to be an attempt to set expectations that combat will continue in Afghanistan, without making it appear that he supports an endless war.

Pulling out combat forces in three years would ensure that the allied presence has transitioned to a training mission by the time British troops are due to withdraw in 2015. It would also meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s goal of having his own army take responsibility for security by 2014…

Mr. Gates strongly opposes an abrupt strategy change that would move the U.S. toward a counterterrorism strategy that is more focused on killing militants and less focused on protecting population centers.

On Friday he said a move to a counterterrorism strategy would simply result in pushing insurgents from one place to another as in an arcade game of “whack-a-mole.”..

A twofold conflict in Helmand
Washington Post, Sept. 4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305996.html

IN MUSA QALA, AFGHANISTAN U.S. Marines and British civilian advisers are waging two wars in the hilly northern half of Helmand province: They're fighting the Taliban, and they're quarreling with each other.

The disagreements among the supposed allies are almost as frequent as firefights with insurgents. The Americans contend that the British forces they replaced this spring were too complacent in dealing with the Taliban. The British maintain that the Americans are too aggressive and that they are compromising hard-fought security gains by pushing into irrelevant places and overextending themselves.

"They were here for four years," one field-grade Marine officer huffed about the British military. "What did they do?"

"They've been in Musa Qala for four months," a British civilian in Helmand said of the U.S. Marines. "The situation up there has gotten worse, not better."

The disputes here, which also extend to the pace of reconstruction projects and the embrace of a former warlord who has become the police chief, illuminate the tensions that are flaring as U.S. forces surge into parts of southern Afghanistan that had once been the almost-exclusive domain of NATO allies. There are now about 20,000 U.S. troops in Helmand; the 10,000 British soldiers who once roamed all over the province are now consolidating their operations in a handful of districts around the provincial capital.

The new U.S. troops in the south are intended to replace departing Dutch soldiers and relieve pressure on under-resourced and overburdened military personnel from Britain and Canada, where public support for the war has fallen even more precipitously than in the United States. But the transition entails significant new risks for U.S. forces, who are now responsible for more dangerous parts of the country.

To the south of Musa Qala, U.S. Marines are in the process of moving into Sangin district, where more than 100 British troops - nearly one-third of that country's total war dead - were killed over the past four years. Senior Marine officers initially resisted being saddled with the area, which they dubbed "the killing fields," but they relented after pressure from top U.S. commanders.

The influx also has elicited conflicting emotions from coalition partners. British and Canadian officers say they didn't have the manpower or equipment to confront a mushrooming insurgency by themselves, but they also cringe at the need to be bailed out by the United States [emphasis added]...

Mark
Ottawa

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 5

War gains in Afghanistan overstated
Allies have been 'over-enthusiastic' in depicting progress, general admits
Ottawa Citizen, Sept. 5
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/gains+Afghanistan+overstated/3484635/story.html#ixzz0yf4ZO6LP

International forces in Afghanistan have at times overstated the progress being made this year, the deputy commander of the NATO-led force said on Saturday, with advances coming slower than originally expected.

British Lieutenant-General Sir Nick Parker, second-in-command of the International Security Assistance Force behind U.S. General David Petraeus, said progress had been slowed by the complexity of the mission.

Petraeus has said in a range of interviews in recent weeks that progress was being made and that the Taliban's momentum had been checked, though violence across the country is at its worst since the hardline Islamists were ousted in late 2001...

ISAF troops have faced stiff resistance since Operation Moshtarak began in late February, particularly around the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in the Helmand River valley.

"If you were to go back and listen to the sort of things we said in January and February, before Moshtarak started, I think we were probably a little bit over-enthusiastic," Parker told a small group of reporters in Kabul.

"I was, in some of the things I said, a little bit too positive in some respects," he said...

Parker said it had proven more difficult than expected to establish lasting government and development agencies, despite hopes for a new "government in a box" strategy to follow military operations in Marjah.

"That's nobody's fault, that's just the complexity of the environment we're operating in," Parker said.

On Tuesday, Petraeus said in an interview that his forces had taken a heavy toll on the Taliban leadership, but also acknowledged that the Islamists were fighting back and that their "footprint" had spread this year... 

Why Afghanistan is at best a work in progress
Washington Post, Sept. 5, by David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090304152.html

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN

Under a scorching sun, Defense Secretary Bob Gates tells soldiers from the first U.S. combat brigade deployed inside this city that they're the "forward foxhole" in the fight against the Taliban. It's already a bloody battle: In its first two weeks here, the brigade has lost eight soldiers, including five killed last Monday in a roadside bombing.

Gates hears an upbeat account from the brigade's commanders about their patrols alongside the Afghan army and police in this Taliban stronghold. And, after touring several fronts in the make-or-break Kandahar campaign, Gates tells reporters that he's "encouraged" about prospects for stabilizing the area and eventually transferring responsibility for security to the Afghans.

Soldiers gathered in the shade for a smoke offered a more cautious assessment. Sgt. Michael Ellis, who leads the security team for one of the brigade's commanders, says of the Afghan army and police: "They're just not up to speed. They lack organization." He says that when he came under attack with Afghan troops a few days ago, some of them began firing their AK-47s erratically into the sky.

This contrast between commanders' high hopes for Afghanistan and stubborn realities on the ground is the strongest impression during a visit here. Traveling with the military, there's always something of a contact high -- with senior officers assuring visitors that the mission can be achieved. But the Afghan strategy is still very much a work in progress, with many of the key concepts still unproven on the battlefield.

Enthusiasm certainly was the theme of a briefing that Gen. David Petraeus gave to reporters traveling with Gates. He stuck to an upbeat script, using slides remade from those he developed during his successful Iraq campaign. Petraeus, who took over command just two months ago, said that he is still framing the details of his "commander's guidance" for this war.

In an interview, Gates offered a more careful analysis than the one he gave in the blazing Kandahar heat.

"I think it's too early to draw any conclusions," he said. "We need some months more to look at this" before a December review evaluating "proof of concept."..

As Petraeus shapes his battle plans, he is coming at the problem from several directions at once. There's a top-down component, working with Afghan ministries and the national army and police. But there's also a bottom-up push, in which U.S. Special Forces will work with tribal leaders to form "local police [emphasis added].".. 

The plan for Kandahar is that U.S. and Afghan troops will establish joint outposts in the city's 17 precincts and surrounding areas, so that the population feels safe enough to attend the shuras, or councils. The Taliban has responded with a wave of assassinations, and Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, who is Petraeus's deputy, said that the offensive will succeed only if local leaders "take risks" and brave the intimidation. That's a lot to ask of people who mistrust both America and the Karzai government, and it may be the weakest link in the U.S. plan...

Karzai forms peace-talk council to deal with Taliban
AP, Sept. 4
http://www.france24.com/en/20100904-karzai-peace-talk-council-deal-taliban-afghanistan-insurgents

...
President Hamid Karzai said Saturday he will name the members of a council next week to pursue peace talks with insurgents willing to renounce violence, honor the Afghan constitution, and sever ties with terrorist networks.
 
The announcement came amid a further round of insurgent violence, with seven people, including four policemen, killed by a suicide bomber perched on the back of a motorcycle in the increasingly violent northern province of Kunduz.
 
At least three people were also killed and 11 wounded in a suicide car bomb attack on a U.S. Army convoy in the insurgent hotbed of Kandahar, according to local hospitals. NATO said there were no injuries to coalition forces or damage to their vehicles.
 
A statement issued by Karzai’s office called the formation of the High Peace Council a “significant step toward peace talks.”
 
It said the members will include former Taliban, jihadi leaders, leading figures in Afghan society and women.
 
The establishment of such a panel was approved in June at a national peace conference in Kabul, a move welcomed by foreign governments working to stabilize the Afghan government and economy. Although the Taliban leadership has shown no appetite for talks, Karzai hopes the reconciliation process will help split the movement between its hardcore members and those less committed to its strict Islamic ideology...

MPs get their first chance to vote on Afghan withdrawal
Commons to have its say as ex-Army chief Dannatt condemns Blair and Brown over defence spending
Independent on Sunday, Sept. 5
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-get-their-first-chance-to-vote-on-afghan-withdrawal-2070835.html

The Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, will this week face calls to set out a detailed timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan in the first major Commons vote since the war began almost nine years ago.

New powers handed to backbenchers will allow MPs to debate the continued deployment of British forces, with many of the record new intake expected to express unease at the timescale for troops coming home...

The Commons vote comes amid claims the Blair-Brown rivalry at the heart of the Labour government caused "impossible operational pressures" for the armed forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The former head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, uses a new book, Leading from the Front, serialised in The Sunday Telegraph, to claim Gordon Brown was a "malign" influence by failing to fund military commitments agreed by his government. Tony Blair lacked the "moral courage" to overrule his Chancellor.

The coalition has empahsised that British forces will not remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. David Cameron expects the Afghan forces to take control of security by 2014 with a deadline for the withdrawal of British combat troops set for the following year [emphasis added]. The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, last week staged a surprise visit to Camp Bastion, and claimed the military campaign was "turning the corner" – though he admitted he had "no idea exactly how and when we will succeed [emphasis added]"...

More on Gen. Dannatt:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7982140/Army-chief-How-Blair-and-Brown-betrayed-our-troops.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7982262/If-British-armed-forces-chiefs-werent-seeing-intelligence-who-was.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7982001/A-political-feud-that-cost-our-soldiers-dear.html

Mark
Ottawa

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 6

NATO eyes 2,000 extra troops for Afghanistan: official
AFP, Sept. 6
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jkJxsMbT4Nb7_dQ3YLNojYkG6BTA

BRUSSELS — US General David Petraeus, the commander of the war in Afghanistan, has requested 2,000 extra troops to bolster a crucial mission to train Afghan security forces, a NATO official said Monday.

The mission would come on the heels of the deployment of tens of thousands of soldiers who were sent as part of a surge strategy aimed at crushing a resilient Taliban insurgency, the official said.

"There is now a discussion under way for additional resources, principally trainers, that could be sent to Afghanistan to bolster the mission," said the official, who requested anonymity.

At least 750 of the new soldiers would focus on training Afghan forces, he said, refusing to give more details about the rest of the mission. He said it was premature to say when the 2,000 extra troops would be deployed...

The US general's request was relayed to the transatlantic alliance's 28 members and it is up to individual governments to decide on whether to make contributions, the NATO official said...

Petraeus's request for 2,000 more troops comes ahead of a NATO summit in Lisbon on November 19-20 during which the Afghan campaign will feature prominently...

Helmand dam a monument to U.S. challenges
The Kajaki Dam in southern Afghanistan was built in the 1950s with U.S. aid but fell into disrepair in the late 1970s. Efforts to repair it have faltered as the Taliban controls an access road.
LA Times, Sept. 6
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-dam-20100906,0,2312264.story

Reporting from Forward Operating Base Zeebrugge,

There may be no better symbol of American involvement in southern Afghanistan — initial success, current frustration and an uncertain future — than the giant Kajaki Dam.

Built in 1953 by the U.S. government, the 320-foot high, 887-foot-wide dam was part of a U.S. economic aid initiative in Helmand province that included irrigation canals, roads, schools, health clinics and more. The dam helped make the region the agricultural heartland of this sprawling country.

Helmand became known as "Little America" as hundreds of American teachers, engineers and medical professionals lived and worked in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, and in smaller villages and in neighboring Kandahar. A power station with two hydroelectric turbines were added in 1975...

...as the war drags into its ninth year, the Kajaki Dam upgrade is indefinitely stalled. The road leading to the dam from the village of Sangin is controlled by the Taliban.

In fall 2008 amid a news blackout, a convoy of 2000 British soldiers transported 100 tons of material needed for the third turbine. But the equipment, which took five days to move, sits idle and the Chinese firm hired to install it has left Afghanistan, citing safety concerns.

A village directly south of the dam has become a ghost town after residents fled to escape the fighting and nightly visits by Taliban fighters warning them not to cooperate with the Americans.

Joel Hafvenstein, whose book, "Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier," chronicles an anti-poppy effort in Helmand by USAID in the middle of the last decade, said he was stunned when he learned in December that the agency he once worked for had put the Kajaki project on hold...

In June, the British Royal Marine Commandos were relieved by U.S. Marines from an artillery company: India Battery, 3rd Battalion, 12th Regiment. The U.S. troops — at company-level strength — are backed by M777 lightweight howitzers and by Marine helicopter gunships and fixed-wing craft.

In three months, the Marines have had 50-plus skirmishes with Taliban fighters who appear to be trying to position themselves for an assault on the dam. Three Marines have died; many more have been wounded.

"Something of significance happens every time" the Marines leave the base, said Capt. Richard Stinnett, the battery commander.

Much of what the Marines do is "pushing to contact" — military jargon for daring the enemy to fight. "We have to keep a little bit of aggressiveness to keep the enemy off balance [emphasis added]," said Lt. Col. Adam Tharp, future operations officer for Regional Combat Team 2...

More U.S. troops will be needed to secure the road, Tharp said, as well as an influx of Afghan security forces (now being trained) and cooperation from villagers along the route.

In Washington, USAID officials hope that can be accomplished next year so the Kajaki project can proceed. However, that timeline appears optimistic...

Mark
Ottawa

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 7

Taliban calling the shots in Panjwaii
Scene of past victories is increasingly becoming enemy territory
Postmedia News, Sept. 7, by Brian Hutchinson
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/news/3488336/story.html#ixzz0yqNSIX9J

Measuring the success or failure of Canada's combat mission in Kandahar will depend on how events unfold this month and next, around a downtrodden village cluster deep in Panjwaii district.

After four years of effort and heavy sacrifices, Canada's military is still confounded by this place, the seat of Taliban power and home to a tiny, unhappy populace. Panjwaii is not secure. Insurgents continue to assemble here, kill troops and plan attacks on Kandahar City and places beyond.

Maj. Eleanor Taylor is blunt: "We cannot protect the population the way we're currently configured."

The Antigonish, N.S., native commands Charles Company, 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group (1RCR). It's placed inside a Soviet-era military instalment at Sperwan Ghar, 30 kilometres west of Kandahar's capital and right on the Taliban's doorstep.

This is the western front, where the most Canadian soldiers can manage are short patrols and attempts to "disrupt" Taliban activities.

Taylor's company does its best and enjoys "some rays of hope," she says, but it's caught in the same numbers game as others that came before it. Resources are spread too thin. There aren't enough soldiers. And the Afghan National Army troops operating in the area are often a hindrance, not a help.

Knowing the battle for Panjwaii was once considered a high point for Canadian battle groups makes the current predicament seem worse...

Mark
Ottawa

[GAP]

Articles found August 8, 2010
 
Canada paid $650K to civilians caught in the crossfire
 Article Link
Mon Sep. 06 2010 10:44:36 AM The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Department of National Defence paid just over $650,000 during the course of two years to compensate Afghans for damages and deaths resulting from Canadian operations.

In the 2009 fiscal year, the department paid out $205,828 in 102 ex-gratia payments for damages and losses suffered by Afghan civilians, according to reports by the Receiver General of Canada. The payments ranged from as low as $104 to as much as $14,424.

Ex-gratia payments are made when there is no legal liability but compensation is made "in the interest of peace, security and public policy," said Capt. Yves Desbiens, spokesman for Canada's Task Force Kandahar. Under international law, nations who have troops in Afghanistan are not liable for damage or injury that results from lawful operations.

The department also paid out $77,703 in the same year in 30 payments ranging from $1,044 to $9,684 for claims against the Crown in the central Asian nation.

The previous fiscal year, Defence made 36 payments totalling $217,462 for claims against the Crown and 57 ex-gratia payments totalling $152,683. The highest payment was for $55,117.

The names of the recipients and the circumstances that led to the compensation awards were not disclosed.

"We strive to follow cultural customs and traditions in the manner in which we express our condolences," Desbiens said.
More on link
 
The sexually abused dancing boys of Afghanistan
By Rustam Qobil BBC World Service    7 September 2010 Last updated at 19:42 ET
Article Link

In Afghanistan women are not allowed to dance in public, but boys can be made to dance in women's clothing - and they are often sexually abused.

It's after midnight. I'm at a wedding party in a remote village in northern Afghanistan.

There is no sign of the bride or groom, or any women, only men. Some of them are armed, some of them are taking drugs.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

    Sometimes we gather together and put women's clothes and dancing bells on our boys and they dance for us for two-three hours - that's all”

End Quote 'Zabi'

Almost everyone's attention is focused on a 15-year-old boy. He's dancing for the crowd in a long and shiny woman's dress, his face covered by a red scarf.

He is wearing fake breasts and bells around his ankles. Someone offers him some US dollars and he grabs them with his teeth.

This is an ancient tradition. People call it bachabaze which literally means "playing with boys".

The most disturbing thing is what happens after the parties. Often the boys are taken to hotels and sexually abused.

The men behind the practice are often wealthy and powerful. Some of them keep several bachas (boys) and use them as status symbols - a display of their riches. The boys, who can be as young as 12, are usually orphans or from very poor families.
Omid's story

I spent months trying to find a bacha who was willing to talk about his experience.

Omid (not his real name) is 15 years old. His father died in the fields, when he stepped on a landmine. As the eldest son, it's his job to look after his mother - who begs on the streets - and two younger brothers
More on link
 
 US, British forces bicker over Afghan strategy

 Article Link

MUSA QALA, Afghanistan — US Marines and British civilian advisers are waging two wars in the hilly northern half of Helmand Province: They’re fighting the Taliban, and they’re quarreling with each other.

The disagreements among the supposed allies are almost as frequent as firefights with insurgents. The Americans contend that the British forces they replaced this spring were too complacent in dealing with the Taliban. The British maintain the Americans are too aggressive and that they are compromising hard-fought security gains by pushing into irrelevant places and overextending themselves.

“They were here for four years,’’ one field-grade Marine officer huffed about the British military. “What did they do?’’

“They’ve been in Musa Qala for four months,’’ a British civilian in Helmand said of the Marines. “The situation up there has gotten worse, not better.’’

The disputes here, which also extend to the pace of reconstruction projects and the embrace of a former warlord who has become the police chief, illuminate the tensions that are flaring as US forces surge into parts of southern Afghanistan that had once been the almost exclusive domain of NATO allies.
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Few Afghan translators get immigration nod
 Article Link
By BRYN WEESE, Parliamentary Bureau Last Updated: September 6, 2010

They risk their lives to help Canadian troops communicate with locals in embattled Afghanistan.

But more than a year after the government announced a fast-track immigration program for Afghan translators, only 50 have been given the nod to come to Canada — and even they are still waiting to clear security and medical screenings.

By mid-summer, more than 200 had applied.

And according to government officials, only another 50 of an estimated 300 Afghan translators in Kandahar who have helped the Canadian mission are expected to qualify before the program runs out next summer when the Canadian military mission there ends.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney admits the program was slow to start — blaming worsening violence in Afghanistan — but said he's "looking forward to being able to welcome the first group of Afghan translators in the next few months.

"We owe an immense debt to those Afghan translators who are risking their lives to support our mission," Kenney wrote in an e-mail.

To qualify, Afghan translators must have worked for 12 months in direct support of Canada's military mission in Kandahar and must be able to prove the dangers they face from the Taliban are directly related to their support of the Canadian mission. The risk must be greater than the risk facing others who work in a less direct roles.

Also, they must be recommended for the fast-track immigration program by a senior Canadian solider or diplomat they work with.

"As a result of our reviews, close to 50 applicants are now moving forward in the immigration process. Should they all pass security, criminality and health screening, they will be accompanied to Canada by some 75 eligible family members (including) wives and all dependent children," said Melanie Carkner, a spokeswoman with citizenship and immigration Canada. "Canada still expects that approximately 50 principal applicants, plus an average of two family members, totalling 150 people, will be eligible each year."
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Kandahar boardwalk is a world away from war
 Article Link
By TODD PITMAN (AP) – 1 day ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — It was a broiling fall evening in this southern Afghan battlezone, and U.S. Army Sgt. Charles Reed wanted to celebrate his birthday in style — at T.G.I. Friday's on the boardwalk.

So the military intelligence soldier ducked inside the Western diner with a dozen friends, climbed atop a chair, and began a slow, solo groove as smiling Asian waiters in baseball caps clapped a carefully practiced birthday cheer.

Two nonalcoholic Dutch beers and a $30 steak and shrimp dinner later, Reed stepped out of the air-conditioned cool of the wood-floored eatery — whose walls are plastered with guitars, surfboards and Elvis posters — and back into reality: the sweltering desert heat of a giant NATO military base ensconced in a rocky Afghan moonscape crawling with insurgents.

"It was kind of unreal," the Steamboat Springs, Colorado native said, describing his recent 34th birthday fete at Kandahar Airfield, better known as KAF. "At least for a few minutes, you could pretend you were somewhere else. It was like going back home."

The only difference, perhaps: most of the people ordering cheeseburgers and milkshakes were decked out in combat fatigues, and heavily armed.

T.G.I. Friday's is the apex of war-zone escapism on KAF's famed boardwalk, a Wild West-like quadrangle boasting three dozen glass-door shops and coffee bars that form a surreal counterpoint to the daily fighting going on just outside the base's walls.
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Assignment Afghanistan: The Struggle For Salavat – Part 4
September 7, 2010, by Adam Day HEARTS AND MINDS ON THE LINE
 Article Link

This is part four of Legion Magazine’s story on the efforts of one small Canadian unit to win the hearts and minds of a town in the Taliban heartland last fall. First Platoon of Alpha Company, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry has been in Salavat for a week and a half, living in a small school compound on the edge of town, struggling hard to get a grip on the distrustful, slightly hostile little community in the centre of Panjwai District, the deadliest place for Canadians in all of Kandahar Province.

Follow the links to read Part 1, Assignment Afghanistan: The Struggle For Salavat – Part 1, Part 2, Assignment Afghanistan: The Struggle For Salavat – Part 2 and Part 3, Assignment Afghanistan: The Struggle For Salavat – Part 3

Day 9 — A Shura Doesn’t Happen And A Hard-Charging Minesweeping Mission To The East

In the years the Canadian Forces have been at war in Afghanistan, certain things have changed for the better, operationally speaking. There are now Canadian helicopters ferrying troops and supplies, for example, so not as many soldiers die doing convoy duty on dusty bomb-strewn tracks in the outback. And the military itself seems to have gotten better at adapting to war’s unique demands. Back in 2006, many soldiers and leaders seemed fresh to the complexity of the conflict and prone to a kind of bureaucratic optimism: the command influence, you could call it. This was the tendency some had to ignore apparent difficulty and pass heedless good news up the chain of command in an apparent effort to make the sun shine on their own personal head. While I have been assured that this is an ancient military tradition—nothing more than a kind of bland careerism—the problems it created on the ground were serious: if everyone was passing sunshine upwards, the policies and directives that eventually came back down weren’t going to be all that pertinent to the actual situation.
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Afghans would welcome non-military help
  Article Link
 By Jennifer Campbell, Citizen Special September 8, 2010

Afghan Ambassador Jawed Ludin is still waiting to hear from Canada on what its future role will look like, but if a recent document leak is any indication, it doesn't bode well.

Emphasizing that the document, which outlined a strictly civilian role after troop withdrawal in July 2011, was a draft and isn't necessarily what Canada is planning, Ludin cautioned that his comments are not about it directly, but about the future role more generally.

"The mission in Afghanistan is at a really critical stage. We are on our way to accomplishing it. We've reached an important stage and the important thing is that we all keep up our commitments and not shy away from what it takes to really win this war," the ambassador said.

"Canada has had an important role and we're extremely grateful for that. What we would like, as Afghans, is to see Canada refocus its military engagement from the combat operations in Kandahar to a training mission for the Afghan army and the Afghan police."

Ludin said that would be the most significant contribution Canada could make at this critical point.
More on link

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 9

Surge Is Fully Deployed to Afghanistan
Wall St. Journal, Sept. 9
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704362404575479750755726446.html

SHARANA, Afghanistan—The final U.S. brigade sent to Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama's surge strategy assumed authority for a swath of the country's eastern territory Wednesday.

The 4th Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division has only a short time to make an impact before the harsh winter of eastern Afghanistan, due to set in by November, makes travel and combat difficult.

Commanders are also under pressure to show progress ahead of a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in November and the Obama administration's next strategy review, in December.

"The task is great and time is of the essence, as we face parliamentary elections and the future decisions of nations around the world and our own this fall," said Col. Sean Jenkins, at a ceremony in which his task force took charge of Paktika province.

The Taliban has threatened to attack polling stations during the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections. On Wednesday, Afghan election officials said scores of additional polling stations will be closed during the vote because of security conditions, the Associated Press reported.

The ceremony Wednesday officially put in place the last of the 30,000 infantry troops ordered into the country by Mr. Obama in December.

The 4th Brigade, known as Task Force Currahee, was the only large unit assigned to eastern Afghanistan as part of the Obama administration's troop build-up. The majority of the surge forces were sent to southern Afghanistan to participate in operations around Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

The first members of Task Force Currahee began arriving in Paktika in July. The majority of the forces arrived in the country in August and began a process of taking over from the 101st Division's 3rd Brigade.

The Taliban operate in much of the province, and the Haqqani network—an ally of al Qaeda—operates in the northern part, near its historic stronghold of Khost province.

Military officials in Washington and Kabul have said they hope building up conventional troops in eastern Afghanistan will help secure progress made by Special Operations troops.

Since the spring, Special Operations Forces have captured and killed dozens of militant leaders in eastern Afghanistan. But senior military officials say that without a larger troop presence to help improve security in population centers, they fear the militant networks will simply regenerate through new recruits.

The Taliban and the Haqqani network in recent years have taken refuge in Pakistan in winter months, but military officials believe the pattern could change this year because of the floods that have devastated much of Pakistan. Col. Jenkins said some groups of fighters may remain in Afghanistan, and could continue to fight or lay roadside bombs...

Mark
Ottawa

[GAP]

Articles found August 9, 2010
 
Medics getting more respect in Afghan army
Thu Jul 22, 6:13 PM By Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
 Article Link

PANJWAII, Afghanistan - With their military mission to Afghanistan ending in a year, Canadian mentors are training Afghan medics to teach their soldiers about combat first aid.

Afghanistan has traditionally put warriors on a pedestal while the position of healer hasn't been high on the wish list of soldiers in the Afghan National Army.

In Afghan society, being able to pick up a weapon and fight is a matter of honour. It wasn't long ago that ANA commanders would only grudgingly appoint members of their units as medics.

Those pushed into the role of medic had been generally considered unfit or unable to take part in combat. Medics would often be burdened with other more mundane duties around the camp.

But somewhere along the way, the old attitude has finally started to change. The countless injuries and deaths on the battlefield may have been a catalyst.

Canadian mentors are working to help the ANA stand on its own, and that includes providing medical care.

Master Cpl. Matt Macaulay, a member of the Canadian Operational Mentoring Liaison Team, has been working with Ibrahim, an ANA medic, at a forward operating base in the north Panjwaii district.

Macaulay has been teaching Ibrahim how to teach basic combat first aid to groups of Afghan soldiers.

"When we first got here, one of his jobs would be serving tea and cleaning things up," said Macaulay, a native of Dartmouth, N.S.
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Afghan intelligence officer bragged about torture, documents show
 Article Link
Murray Brewster

Ottawa — The Canadian Press Published on Wednesday, Sep. 08, 2010 3:13PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Sep. 08, 2010 5:18PM EDT

A member of Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service boasted to Canadian military officers in the spring of last year that his organization was able to “torture” or “beat” prisoners during the course of its investigations, federal documents say.

The startling declaration, believed to be the first to come directly from a serving National Directorate of Security officer, sent officials in Ottawa reeling and left Canadian diplomats and correctional officers in Kandahar scrambling to verify the statement, according to briefing notes obtained by The Canadian Press.

It was made during a May 9, 2009, meeting in Kandahar involving Canadian ground commanders, and critics say it's further proof Ottawa should not allow transfers to Afghan authorities.

Reports that the Afghan agency sanctions torture are legion, but those charges are usually made by human rights groups, humanitarian agencies and prisoners themselves. Serving intelligence officers are almost never that candid, and the claim precipitated an immediate halt in the transfer of prisoners by Brigadier-General Jon Vance, commander of the Canadian task force.

It was one of three occasions last year when Canadians stopped handing over suspected Taliban fighters. Defence Minister Peter MacKay acknowledged the May, 2009, pause in handovers under questioning in House of Commons last fall, but never explained the circumstances surrounding it – or a later incident the following September.

The only thing federal officials acknowledged was that the halts were related to “allegations about treatment” of prisoners. The suspension in September related to Afghan intelligence officers telling Canadians they needed more evidence when taking custody of suspected Taliban fighters.
More on link
 

[GAP]

Articles found August 10, 2010
 
3 Afghan insurgents killed in NATO airstrike
 Article Link

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan insurgent commander who was allegedly planning bombings in Kabul on the eve of the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections and two of his associates have been killed in an airstrike, NATO said Friday.

The military alliance said in a statement that intelligence sources tracked Nur Mohammed and two armed militants to a field in the remote Musahi district of Kabul province. Coalition aircraft conducted the airstrike Thursday night after ensuring no civilians were present, it added.

The statement said the senior insurgent commander was planning attacks in the capital before the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections. The Taliban has vowed to attack polling stations and warned Afghans not to participate in what it called a sham vote.

The insurgents want to topple the pro-Western government in Kabul and drive foreign troops from the country, and have boycotted or sought to sabotage all aspects of the political process, including elections.

"This was a very successful strike which stopped a very dangerous individual from conducting further attacks against Afghan civilians and Afghan and coalition forces," U.S. Air Force Col. James Dawkins said in the statement.
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Afghan prisons not 'torture chambers,' Canadian general testifies
  Article Link
 By Juliet O'Neill, Postmedia News September 9, 2010

Afghan prisons are not "torture chambers" and the subject of detainee abuse is a water cooler "conversation killer" in the military, a senior Canadian commander told an inquiry Thursday.

Maj.-Gen. Mike Ward also praised the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), the intelligence agency which operates many of the detention facilities, as far superior to Afghan police or the army in his testimony at the Military Police Complaints Commission.

Lawyers for the commission and for Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association probed Ward on his knowledge of and concern about the risk of torture to Afghans who were captured by Canadians and turned over to Afghan authorities when he served at headquarters of CEFCOM, the wing of the military that oversees Canada's international missions, in 2006 and in other roles in subsequent years.

The commission is holding public interest hearings into complaints by the human rights groups that Canadian military police failed to investigate the transfer by Canadian Forces to Afghan authorities — to prisons run by the NDS in many cases — of detainees at risk of torture.

Ward testified that he was aware of international reports by the U.S. State Department and human rights analysts about torture in Afghanistan through summaries provided for military strategy documents.
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US Koran-burning protests sweep Afghanistan
Article Link
  10 September 2010 Last updated at 09:12 ET

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Afghanistan over plans, now on hold, by a small Florida church to burn copies of the Koran.

Three people were shot when a protest near a Nato base in the north-east of the country turned violent.

President Hamid Karzai said the stunt had been an insult to Islam, while Indonesia's president said it threatened world peace.

President Barack Obama had warned it would be an al-Qaeda "recruitment bonanza", while Defence Secretary Robert Gates asked the pastor to cancel the protest.

Many of Friday's protests in Afghanistan were held after worshippers emerged from mosques, following Eid prayers marking the end of Ramadan.

Demonstrators burned a US flag and chanted "Death to Christians".
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[Dog Walker]

Canadian sojourn into 'Taliban town' a taste of what's to come in Panjwaii
Sep 10, 2010 08:30 am | Dene Moore, The Canadian Press

http://www.bonnyvillenouvelle.ca/article/GB/20100910/CP02/309109966/-1/bnv/canadian-sojourn-into-taliban-town-a-taste-of-whats-to-come-in&template=BNVcpart

FATHOLLAH, Afghanistan - The soldiers of Bravo Company, 5 Platoon, prepare for battle.
Some check, double check, then triple check their equipment. Some chat quietly. Others just rest, for they know they're about to pick a fight.
A few kilometres from this remote Canadian operating base in the heart of the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province lies the village of Fathollah, a maze of mud-walled compounds and merchant huts that divide the sprawling grape fields into what looks from above like a dusty jigsaw puzzle.
Fathollah is not a friendly place for coalition or Afghan government troops. One Canadian soldier lost his legs to an improvised explosive device near Fathollah a few weeks ago; another had his feet badly injured.
Every time Canadian soldiers go to the village they call "Taliban town," they are in a firefight on the way in or on the way out.
On this day, 5 Platoon plans to pay the village a visit and stay the night. The last time they did that, a grenade was lobbed over the wall of their compound.
"Half of that town is the enemy," Warrant Officer Byron Sheppard says before the convoy sets out. "There's probably people in there who want peace but it's a hardcore Taliban town."
It's a hardcore Taliban district, one where Canada has lost many soldiers in its four years of fighting in Kandahar and one that has remained a hive of insurgent activity. This fall, Canadian Forces will expand their presence in Panjwaii.
The Fathollah operation will give the new Afghan National Army soldiers partnered with the Canadians in the area a chance to meet the locals, most of whom are at best reluctant to have anything to do with pro-government forces. At worst, they're active insurgents.
"The idea is to get up in their face," says Sheppard, who was in Kandahar in 2006 when Canadian Forces took responsibility for the restive province.
As they arrive on the outskirts of Fathollah, a warning comes that two men were spotted planting an IED. Their activity is confirmed from an armoured vehicle and the convoy opens fire with 25 mm artillery before 5 Platoon proceeds into town.
Before long, in a dusty field outside town, an old man in a shalwar kameez signals an armoured vehicle. Members of the support team dismount and make their way across the sun-baked landscape.
A local resident has been shot in the leg. Will they help?
The answer is yes, although it's likely that the man was one of the two blown up while planting the IED.
The villagers bring the man over in a wheelbarrow. His right leg below the knee is nearly severed, held on only by skin and muscle tissue.
Master-Cpl. Patrik Schiess, the medic, and Cpl. Brad Johnston, who is trained in combat casualty care, do what they can for him and call in a helicopter to evacuate the injured man.
Inside Fathollah, the soldiers of 5 Platoon set out for a patrol with the ANA. Before long, they come into contact with the enemy: small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The RPG overshoots the patrol, exploding against a wall 25 metres behind them.
Later, Sheppard expresses shock about the number of children and local civilians who were in the vicinity. "There must have been 30 to 40 kids there, (and) 10-15 more local nationals (around us)."
The patrol returns to their operations post, and the firefight continues until they've fired off "pretty much everything" they have, he says, fighting off the enemy and winning the firefight.
A short time later, locals show up at the compound with two injured men.
"One had a stomach wound, his intestines were hanging out and he was in real bad shape," Sheppard says. "The other guy, he had shrapnel wounds to his chest."
Soldiers who recognized the men believe they may have been Taliban who were closing in on the patrol when the they were hit by a grenade from one of their comrades.
"They looked suspicious," he says. "They wouldn't engage with our soldiers or the ANA and they kept pushing kids in front of them, coming up to get a look at us, see what we were doing." The pair is evacuated by helicopter.
The next day, three men come to a nearby Canadian-ANA base to find out how they're doing.
"Are they alive or are they dead?" asks a man who said his cousin was among them.
"Alive," they're told at what is, at times, a heated meeting with Canadian Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) team members, a Canadian platoon commander and the area ANA chief.
"Do people understand that the Taliban just fired that RPG and fired these machine guns knowing full well that we were surrounded by children? Do they understand that?" asks CIMIC leader Capt. Rob Goldstein, incredulous.
"Yes, we know the Taliban. They don't care if anyone is around," responds the villager, who tells them that the insurgents come from the nearby village of Zalakan, and don't live in Fathollah.
For ANA commander Capt. Said Habib, that claim is too much.
"They are not telling the truth," he says in Pashto, looking directly at each man. "They're just wasting our time."

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 11

UK confirms troop presence in Afghanistan until 2015
Toronto Sun, Sept. 14
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/09/10/15313436.html

British legislators have overwhelmingly supported keeping their troops in Afghanistan until 2015 but that country's renewed support for their Afghanistan mission has no bearing on Canada's plans, according to the Prime Minister's office.

Thursday's 310 to 14 vote in Britain's House of Commons to reaffirm their military presence in the war-torn country was the first in nine years since Britain first deployed its troops there.

Canada's plan to pull our troops out next year, though, remains unchanged.

"Other countries will set their own policies," wrote PMO spokesman Andrew MacDougall in an e-mail. "The government's position has not changed: the military mission ends in 2011."..

Mark
Ottawa

[Dog Walker]

Assignment Kandahar: Canadian troops to correct setbacks with ‘massive activities’
Brian Hutchinson  September 11, 2010 – 10:40 am

http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/09/11/assignment-kandahar-canadian-troops-to-correct-setbacks-with-massive-activities/

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan–Describing the efforts of his soldiers in Kandahar this summer as “good, but not good enough,” the commander of Canadian troops overseas said “massive activities” are coming to win over key districts in the troubled Afghan province.
Speaking to reporters at Kandahar Airfield on Saturday, Lieutenant-General Marc Lessard said that “in the fall, high level security operations” will be conducted in Panjwaii and Dand districts, involving Canadian and Afghan National Security Forces.
“There’ll be a flurry of military operations starting with the major ones this fall, [and] there’ll be other ones certainly in the winter and spring,” said LGen Lessard, head of Canadian Expeditionary Force
Command. “We’re ready to launch.”
Focused combat and counterinsurgency activities will continue for ten months, to the conclusion of Canada’s combat mission in Kandahar in July 2011, he added. “Until the last minute we’re going to do every military operation.”
If Canadian troops do not improve conditions in the districts before leaving next year, their sacrifices since 2006 will have been wasted, he suggested.
“At the end of the day, when we cease operations in July…we have to ensure the situation is better in Dand and better in Panjwaii,” he said. “Because that’s part of our legacy. With the 150-plus killed, the hundreds of seriously injured, from our Canadian point of view, that’s our legacy.”
Afghan president Hamid Karzai “is aware of these operations,” he said. “They will be as, if not more, important” than than a large-scale military offensive in neighbouring Helmand province launched earlier this year. Centred around the Taliban-controlled town
of Marjah, the February campaign involved some 15,000 troops from Great Britain, the U.S., Canada and Afghanistan.
The next round of operations in Kandahar “will be at a very, very high level, in Zhari, Panjwaii and Dand [districts]” said Lgen Lessard, without going into specifics. Zhari district is now an American area of operation but the plans in place involve it as well.
LGen Lessard acknowledged that his troops have encountered significant setbacks since 2008, when hard-won territory in Panjwaii district was ceded to insurgents. “Let’s face it, it’s been a tough go,” he said.
As late as this June, the Canadian mission was in his view “regressing…There was a lot more enemy presence and a lot more activity…The enemy in eastern Panjwaii was definitely taking the initiative. I believe in the last two months, we’re holding. We, I
believe, have stopped the enemy initiative. That’s good, but that’s not good enough.”
Clearing the district of Taliban insurgents is just one element of a successful campaign, he added. Delivering services to long-suffering civilians is another.
“Kinetic force,” he said, “will be used, there’s no doubt. We will have to use force and do some engagements with the insurgents.” But bringing effective governance is crucial, he added. “What does that mean? The provincial governor, the district leader Haji Baran, with the local elders, [Canadians need to be] asking for their support, asking them to convince the insurgents to flee the village. Having the insurgents fleeing the village, whether it’s through coercion, convincing by the locals, or though military means, is good. But it means nothing if you don’t convince the local inhabitants that we’re
there to stay…Why would they put their lives at risk if we’re not there to stay?”
LGen Lessard said that past failures cannot be repeated. He used the village of Nakhonay in eastern Panjwaii as an example. In 2008, “twice we went to Nakhonay, and we cleared it, very successfully, and it looked good. A few weeks later, the insurgents were back.” Last fall, under the direction of Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, the village
was retaken and has since been held. “I never would have thought two years ago we would have a permanent presence in eastern Panjwaii,” LGen Lessard admitted.
LGen Lessard has stressed to his new commander in Kandahar,
Brigadier-General Dean Milner, that “when we cease operations, we want to make sure that we’ve improved the stability effects in our area of operation. That means Dand district and Panjwaii.”
Most important is building on what he calls the “enduring effects” of a military operation. “After we do these operations we [must] have something to ensure we keep the security, and we’re definitely looking to our Afghan partners, police and ANA [Afghan National Army] to have a foot on the ground, ensure security, be seen to ensure security.
[Local] perception is sometimes more important than what we perceive,”
said LGen Lessard

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 12

Security in Afghanistan Is Deteriorating, Aid Groups Say
NY Times, Sept. 11
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/asia/12afghan.html?ref=world

KABUL, Afghanistan — Even as more American troops flow into the country, Afghanistan  is more dangerous than it has ever been during this war, with security deteriorating in recent months, according to international organizations and humanitarian groups.

Large parts of the country that were once completely safe, like most of the northern provinces, now have a substantial Taliban presence — even in areas where there are few Pashtuns, who previously were the Taliban’s only supporters. As NATO forces poured in and shifted to the south to battle the Taliban in their stronghold, the Taliban responded with a surge of their own, greatly increasing their activities in the north and parts of the east.

The worsening security comes as the Obama administration is under increasing pressure to show results to maintain public support for the war, and raises serious concerns about whether the country can hold legitimate nationwide elections for Parliament next Saturday.

Unarmed government employees can no longer travel safely in 30 percent of the country’s 368 districts, according to published United Nations estimates, and there are districts deemed too dangerous to visit in all but one of the country’s 34 provinces.

[Interactive map here
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/12/world/asia/20100912-afghan-indicators.html?ref=asia ]

The number of insurgent attacks has increased significantly; in August 2009, insurgents carried out 630 attacks. This August, they initiated at least 1,353, according to the Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office, an independent organization financed by Western governments and agencies to monitor safety for aid workers.

An attack on a Western medical team in northern Afghanistan in early August, which killed 10 people, was the largest massacre in years of aid workers in Afghanistan.

“The humanitarian space is shrinking day by day,” said a CARE Afghanistan official, Abdul Kebar.

The International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, does not routinely release detailed data on attacks around the country, and the Afghan government stopped doing so in mid-2009. United Nations officials have also stopped releasing details of attacks, though they monitor them closely. Requests for access to that information were denied.

ISAF officials dispute the notion that security is slipping from them, pointing to their successes with targeted killings and captures of Taliban field commanders and members of the Taliban shadow government.

American military officials say the increased level of violence is related to the rise in the number of its forces here. The last 2,000 of 30,000 new American troops are expected to arrive in the next week or two [emphasis added], military officials say. The result is more military operations, they say, and more opportunities for the insurgents to attack coalition forces...

Last month, ISAF recorded 4,919 “kinetic events,” including small-arms fire, bombs and shelling, a 7 percent increase over the previous month, and a 49 percent increase over August 2009, according to Maj. Sunset R. Belinsky, an ISAF spokeswoman. August 2009 was itself an unusually active month for the insurgency as it sought to disrupt the presidential elections then.

With one attack after another, the Taliban and their insurgent allies have degraded security in almost every part of the country (the one exception is Panjshir Province in the north, which has never succumbed to Taliban control).

The Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office says that by almost every metric it has, Afghanistan is more dangerous now than at any time since 2001.

The most recent troop buildup comes in response to steady advances by the Taliban. Four years ago, the insurgents were active in only four provinces. Now they are active in 33 of 34, the organizations say...

Mark
Ottawa

[GAP]

Articles found September 13, 2010
 
Afghan returnees find Veterans Affairs a formidable foe
 By Mia Rabson, Winnipeg Free Press September 11, 2010
  Article Link

Jayson Nickol hasn’t yet seen his 30th birthday but thanks to a five-month tour in Afghanistan he is already suffering from arthritis and chronic pain.

The 26-year-old Winnipeg man was shot by an insurgent wielding an AK-47 in June 2008. The bullet shattered his right femur.

More than two years later, the injury has not fully healed and his doctors say it’s unlikely he will improve much more.

For Nickol, the physical recovery is not the only struggle in his post-Afghanistan life.

The fight with Veterans Affairs for disability pay related to his injury is as big a battle and far more frustrating.

"I’m more stressed about that than I was about getting shot," Nickol said. "The military has been pretty good about everything. Veterans Affairs Canada is a different story."

Nickol’s injury resulted in three bone grafts, two surgeries to implant and then replace a rod in his leg, months of physical therapy, weeks in the hospital and an end to the lifelong military career he once envisioned. He has developed arthritis in his hip and knee as his body compensates for the injured thigh bone.

"I come home at night and hobble around my house, pop a Tylenol 3 and go to bed," he said.
More on link
 
NATO airstrikes kill 14 insurgents in Afghanistan after joint patrol ambushed crossing river      
Written by Dusan Stojanovic, The Associated Press   Monday, September 13 2010
 Article Link

A series of NATO airstrikes killed 14 insurgents in central Afghanistan after a joint patrol with Afghan soldiers came under fire, the Western military alliance said Monday.

The clash happened Sunday while the patrol was crossing a river in Uruzgan province, a centre of the Taliban insurgency, NATO said in a statement.

NATO troops requested air support after receiving small-arms fire and concluding there was no danger of civilian casualties, it said.

Initial reports indicated no civilian casualties occurred, and members of the joint patrol were unhurt in the attack, NATO said.

The number of attacks and clashes are rising amid an allied offensive aimed at suppressing the stubborn Taliban insurgency.

The attacks coincide with rising tensions ahead of Saturday's parliamentary elections. The Taliban has vowed to target polling stations and warned Afghans not to participate in what it calls a sham vote.

NATO said Monday it detained a member of a district Taliban shadow government along with two of his associates in the eastern province of Paktika.

The suspect was planning to disrupt the elections and actively participated in Taliban propaganda campaigns, the alliance said in a statement.

Two Taliban militants were killed Friday and Saturday after NATO intelligence reports said they were planning to attack voting places.
More on link

[GAP]

Articles found September 14, 2010
 
Canada denies troops involved in Afghan drug smuggling
(AFP) – 17 hours ago
 Article Link

MONTREAL — Canada's armed forces Monday denied British press reports that Canadian troops stationed in Afghanistan were being investigated for smuggling heroin.

The Sunday Times this weekend reported that British military police were investigating the alleged involvement of both British and Canadian troops stationed in Afghanistan in a drug smuggling ring.

The drugs were reportedly sent to Britain on military planes, the newspaper said.

In a statement, Canadian Forces Provost Marshal Colonel Tim Grubb denied an investigation was even underway.

"Media reports this past weekend suggesting that Canadian Forces personnel have been implicated in a British-led investigation into heroin smuggling by military personnel in Afghanistan are unfounded," Grubb said.
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Want to win in Afghanistan? Then put your soldiers alongside Afghan ones
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Monday, September 13, 2010
 Article Link

One of the most important lessons of Iraq is that nothing improves the quality of local forces like actually having U.S. soldiers work, eat and sleep in the same place as them. Not coincidentally, it also improves the Americans' understanding of the situation.

This was brought home to me by a series of "Company Command" comments that Army magazine carried in its August issue from members of the 25th Infantry Division's 4th Brigade. Here, for example, is Josh Sherer, who as he notes was skeptical of the move:

    We established a joint TOC [tactical operations center] with the ANA [Afghan National Army]. Suddenly, we were both watching the same RAID [Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection] camera feed, hearing each other's intel reports over the radio. Wow, what a difference that made....

    I'm not going to lie; I resisted this idea of a joint TOC initially. I had serious concerns about the Afghans seeing all of our capabilities and SIPR [Secure Internet Protocol Router] computers. The complete trust just wasn't there. But now, joint TOCs partnered with ANA -- what a difference that made. I could just go up to the Afghan S-3 and say, "What do you want to plan this week? I'm doing these things with my platoon leaders. What do you want to plan for your patrols?...."

    That's definitely the way forward. They get so much better tactically -- just basic soldier skills -- by having our guys right next to theirs. Putting their mortar beside our mortar: They're learning from our mortar men, taking care of barrels and personal weapons, drinking chai together. The gains we could not make during our first eight months of random partnering once a month we made in two or three weeks because we were living together. Although I wasn't a fan at first, now I preach it.
end
 
Canadian soldiers' experience living in Afghan village: a lesson in patience
 Article Link
By: Dene Moore, The Canadian Press Posted: 13/09/2010

As he pulled on his frag vest and his helmet, a young Canadian soldier turns to a reporter at the remote operating post.

"Are you coming with us?" he asked. "Why? If I had a choice, I wouldn't."

He said it with a smile but he wasn't really joking.

As they have every day since they arrived in April, the soldiers of Bravo Company, 6 Platoon, will undertake a foot patrol of the village of Nakhonay, in the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province.

Despite the constant presence of Canadian and Afghan forces since last November, every sojourn outside the walls of the base remains risky. The Canadian Forces does not regularly release the locations where soldiers are killed, but at least six of the 14 soldiers who have died in Afghanistan this year have died here.

Villagers smile and some stop to talk to the soldiers as they make their way down a narrow path but making friends in Nakhonay has been a challenge, to say the least.

"We experienced almost daily contact. My platoon experienced seven IED blasts," said Capt. Ashley Collette, platoon commander.

The number of IEDs, enemy contacts and rocket-propelled grenades encountered since the spring are clearly marked on a bulletin board in the base command centre.

In recent weeks, 6 Platoon has swapped a more frequently targeted outpost on the other end of the village for their current home. Ramadan, the grape harvest and an additional outpost of Afghan army and their Canadian mentors in the middle of the village have calmed things.

Collette said there are villagers who have welcomed their presence. She was even invited to several Eid celebrations.
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[GAP]

Articles found September 15, 2010
 
Afghan women tread carefully on campaign trail
  Article Link
 By Brian Hutchinson, National Post September 14, 2010

An astonishing 2,500 candidates will compete Saturday in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, but for the 50 brave souls vying for seats in Kandahar, security threats — especially for women — are making the campaign trail a dangerous choice.

"I can't travel to the districts to (make) the people aware that I am running for election," says Simin Kala, 33, from Kandahar City. "Most of the people who would vote for me are living in the districts. I can't call them to come to the city and arrange a gathering due to security concerns.

"The current security situation really affects my campaign."

Bibi Rangina, 41, is a teacher and mother of seven. She also lives in Kandahar City and, like Kala, she doesn't campaign in the surrounding districts, where Canadian, U.S. and Afghan forces are preparing for an intense combat and counter-insurgency campaign set to launch later this month.

Like most parliamentary candidates, she belongs to no party. She has financed her own campaign.

"I haven't received a penny from anyone," she says. "Believe me, I sold my own gold."

While she hasn't been threatened, she is scared for others over what may come Saturday. "I am really worried," says Rangina. "Especially about security and fraud."
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Drone attack kills 12 in Pakistan's North Waziristan
 Article Link

Twelve people were killed when several missiles were fired by a suspected US drone targeting militants in north-west Pakistan, security officials said.

The pre-dawn attack - the third in less than 24 hours - took place in Dargah Mandi village near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan province.

The attack was directed at Pakistan-based Haqqani group, officials said.

It is the 12th drone strike this month in the region, a stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The attacks have killed hundreds of people since January 2009 and fuelled anti-American sentiment in the country.

'Panic'

Reports said the drones fired at least 10 missiles. Many people were reported injured in the attack.

Residents said there was panic in the village as the drones were heard just before dawn.
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[Dog Walker]

Forces meet little resistance as offensive in Afghanistan’s Zhari district begins
Saeed Shah
Kandahar, Afghanistan — From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Sep. 15, 2010 7:15PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Sep. 15, 2010 7:58PM EDT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/forces-meet-little-resistance-as-offensive-in-afghanistans-zhari-district-begins/article1709235/?cmpid=rss1

U.S.-led forces began one of the most important operations of the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan, meeting surprisingly little resistance as they swooped down on a district in the south that gave birth to the Taliban movement.
The offensive to secure the district of Zhari, just west of Kandahar city, is part of a push to stabilize the politically crucial province by the end of this year.
Three U.S. battalions, from the 101st Airborne Division, plus rangers, special forces and Afghan troops, moved into the insurgent-held “green zone” of Zhari, a strip of farmland that provides perfect cover for guerrilla fighting. Mullah Mohammad Omar founded the Taliban movement in 1994 in Singesar, a village in the west of Zhari that is one of the targets of the operation.
The offensive comes just ahead of Saturday’s parliamentary election in Afghanistan, a day that is likely to be bloody, warned the top International Security Assistance Force commander in the south, Major-General Nick Carter.
“If it is like last year [the presidential elections], it will be a very violent day,” Gen. Carter told reporters in Kandahar. “They [the Taliban] will want to make it violent enough for people to want to stay indoors.”
With the U.S. troop surge now complete, ISAF commanders believe the autumn offers the best chance to take the fight to the insurgents, in an operation named Hamkari, before countries begin to withdraw soldiers next year and the current political unity in the international community dissipates.
Kandahar, a city of up to 700,000 people, is the hometown of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and also the place from which the Taliban ruled Afghanistan until their administration was toppled in 2001. It remains a dangerous city, with daily murders, kidnapping and intimidation by the insurgents.
The forces now assembled in Kandahar represent the greatest firepower that ISAF and Afghan forces have ever been able to deploy.
Their aim is to secure Kandahar province and challenge Taliban control of their strongholds west of Kandahar city, in Zhari and Panjwai. Canadian forces, which previously had responsibility for Zhari, are now consolidated in Panjwai. The United States has assembled about 2,400 combat troops for the Zhari operation, about the same number of fighting soldiers that Canada had for the whole of Kandahar.
U.S. and Afghan soldiers moved in toward the first target villages in Zhari early on Wednesday morning.
Major Antwan Dunmyer, of the 101st Airborne handling the area east of Zhari, said that a single IED, which was found and defused, was the only insurgent activity they came up against in the first few hours of the assault on the village of Makuan.
“I thought we would have seen more resistance than we had,” Major Dunmyer said. “They knew we were coming, or they knew something was coming soon. Either they evacuated the area or became ‘regular’ citizens of Afghanistan.”
The low-key nature of the Zhari operation stands in contrast to the offensive in Marjah, in the adjacent province of Helmand, which began in February in a blaze of publicity. ISAF appeared to have regretted the hype that surrounded the Marjah offensive. ISAF is throwing much greater muscle at Zhari than the district has seen over the past nine years, in the hope of preventing a repeat of the usual cycle of “clearing” an area, vacating it, only to see the Taliban return, Gen. Carter said.
It is unclear whether the Afghan government, led by district governor Karim Jan, is ready to bring services to the people of Zhari, which has only one functioning school – which is protected by an anti-Taliban warlord – and no clinics or hospitals.
ISAF believes that Kandahar city will never be secure unless the districts surrounding it are under control. In last year’s presidential election, the most violent places in the southwere Zhari, Arghandab and Panjwai.
Special to The Globe and Mail

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 16

Afstan: News you won’t see in our media (plus some Great Gaming) (Bunch more stuff)
Unambiguously Ambidextrous, Sept. 16
http://unambig.com/afstan-news-you-wont-see-in-our-media/

But is reported by Chinese Xinhua.  Odd that:

1) Australian troops to stay in Afghanistan till mission done: FM (that’s a Labour coalition government)

2) Spanish PM refuses to put date of Afghanistan withdrawal...

Mark
Ottawa

[GAP]

Articles found September 17, 2010
 
 Afghans ask to cast their ballots despite worsening security situation

By: Dene Moore, The Canadian Press Posted: 16/09/2010
 Article Link

The last time Afghans went to the polls, Taliban insurgents threatened to cut the fingers off anyone who bore the telltale ink stain that identified those who cast a ballot.

In the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province, they followed through.

At least two men had their fingers amputated in the violent Taliban stronghold that is now the focus of Canada's soldiers in Afghanistan, and the one prediction that coalition forces will make for Saturday's follow-up vote is that insurgents will do whatever they can to keep people from the polls.

"If it is like it was last year, it will be a very violent day," said Maj.-Gen. Nick Carter, who heads up Regional Command South for the International Security Assistance Force, the formal name of NATO's military coalition in Afghanistan.

Taliban threats were posted on mosque walls throughout the district last year and insurgents undertook a campaign of assassinations. The sound of bombs intermittently echoed through the city the night before the vote.

Carter said he couldn't predict what would happen Saturday, but suggested that a day that's "slightly less violent than the one we had last year" is about the best anyone can hope for.

Afghans will be voting Saturday for the Wolesi Jirga, their lower house of parliament, in the midst of the worst security situation since the Taliban was overthrown almost a decade ago.

"This time the security situation is much worse than before," Abdul Wasi Alkozai, Kandahar regional director of the Afghan Independent Election Commission, which will preside over the balloting without international oversight for only the second time since its inception.

Nowhere will the challenge be greater than in Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban and the focus of a renewed international effort to finally turn the tide after nearly 10 years of war.
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Canada's Afghan provincial governor ineffective, say critics
  Article Link
 By Brian Hutchinson, Postmedia News September 16, 2010

Two years into his appointment as Kandahar provincial governor, an Afghan-Canadian citizen has yet to achieve local credibility and is proving an ineffective coalition ally, various sources say.

One high-ranking Canadian military officer ventures that "some secret agenda" could explain Tooryalai Wesa's refusal to remove from office a controversial tribal leader in the dangerous Kandahar district of Panjwaii.

Wesa's intransigence may compromise a looming anti-Taliban offensive in the insurgency's heartland, suggested the officer, who did not want his name used.

Wesa is an agronomist by training who left his native Kandahar nearly two decades ago and lived in Coquitlam, B.C., before being appointed to the governorship in 2008 by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The two men are close friends and share tribal roots in Panjwaii, which is a key area of operation for Canadian troops.

Despite his local heritage, Wesa is seen as an outsider by many Kandaharis, thanks to his years spent in the West. Afghan and western observers say he lacks charisma and has failed to connect with the populace.
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Special Forces Night Raids Backfire: Blowback in Kandahar
Contributed by blackandred on Thu, 2010/09/16
 Article Link

During a round of media interviews last month, Gen. David Petraeus released totals for the alleged results of nearly 3,000 "night raids" by Special Operations Forces (SOF) units over the 90 days from May through July: 365 "insurgent leaders" killed or captured, 1,355 Taliban "rank and file" fighters captured, and 1,031 killed.

Those figures were widely reported as highlighting the "successes" of SOF raids in at least hurting the Taliban.

But a direct correlation between the stepped up night raids in Kandahar province and a sharp fall-off in the proportion of IEDs being turned in by the local population indicates that the raids backfired badly, bolstering the Taliban's hold on the population in Kandahar province.

Night raids, which are viewed as a violation of the sanctity of the home and generate large numbers of civilian casualties, are the single biggest factor in generating popular anger at U.S. and NATO forces, as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal conceded in his directive on the issue last March.

Nevertheless, McChrystal had increased the level of SOF raids from the 100 to 125 a month during the command of his predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, to 500 a month during 2009. And the figures released by Petraeus revealed that McChrystal had doubled the number of raids on homes again to 1,000 a month before he was relieved of duty in June.

The step up in night raids has been overwhelmingly concentrated on districts in and around Kandahar City. It began in April as a prelude to what was then being billed as the "make or break" campaign of the war.

The response of the civilian population in those districts can be discerned from data on the Taliban roadside bombs and the proportion turned in by the population. Increasing the ratio of total IEDs planted found as a result of tips from the population has been cited as a key indicator of winning the trust of the local population by Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, head of the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).

But JIEDDO's monthly statistics on IED's turned in by local residents as a percentage of total IEDs planted tell a very different story.
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Foreign Affairs official said finding Afghan detainee abuse was 'a surprise'
  Article Link
 By Juliet O'Neill, Postmedia News September 16, 2010

Foreign Affairs official John Davison told a public hearing Thursday it was "a bit of a surprise" when he and a colleague found evidence of abuse by the Afghan intelligence service of a Canadian-captured detainee in the fall of 2007.

Davison told the Military Police Complaints Commission that he believed members of the National Directorate of Security were "sincerely" doing their best to live up to a May 2007 Canada-Afghanistan prisoner transfer agreement.

Now a Canadian diplomat based in Ankara, Turkey, Davison was the senior Foreign Affairs official at the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar from August 2007 to June 2008.

One of his main duties was to ensure monitoring of detainees who had been captured by Canadian Armed Forces and transferred to a facility run by the NDS.
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[GAP]

Scattered attacks, spotty turnout in Afghan elections
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/scattered-attacks-spotty-turnout-in-afghan-elections/article1713206/
Heidi Vogt

Kabul — The Associated Press Published on Saturday, Sep. 18, 2010 8:49AM EDT Last updated on Saturday, Sep. 18, 2010 10:00PM EDT

Despite Taliban rocket strikes and bombings, Afghans voted for a new parliament, the first election since a fraud-marred presidential ballot last year cast doubt on the legitimacy of the embattled government.

As officials tally votes over the next few days, the real test begins: Afghans will have to decide whether to accept the results as legitimate despite a modest turnout and early evidence of fraud.

The Taliban had pledged to disrupt the vote and launched attacks starting with a rocket fired into the capital before dawn Saturday. The insurgent group followed with a series of morning rocket strikes that hit major cities just as people were going to the polls — or weighing whether to risk it.

At least 11 civilians and three police officers were killed, accoring to the Interior Ministry. The governor of Kandahar province survived a bombing as he drove between voting sites. In all, there were 33 bomb explosions and 63 rocket attacks, said Interior Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi. He said 27 Taliban were killed Saturday.

Yet there appeared to be less violence than during the last election, when more than 30 civilians were killed and a group of insurgents attacked Kabul. Afghan security officials dismissed the attacks as “insignificant” and said they did not hamper voting, adding that 92 per cent of polling stations were open Saturday.

“There are no reports of major incidents,” Afghan election commission chairman Fazel Ahmad Manawi told reporters.

Wounded soldiers to get better benefits
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/863057--wounded-soldiers-to-get-better-benefits
Bruce Campion-Smith and Allan Woods Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA—The federal government will boost the help it provides the most seriously wounded and junior rank soldiers injured in Afghanistan, the Star has learned.

The move comes after the Conservatives, who boast about their support for the military, faced sharp criticism they were short-changing Canada’s newest generation of veterans returning from Afghanistan with grievous injuries.

The government hopes to rebut that criticism starting Sunday, when Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn and Defence Minister Peter MacKay hold a news conference to announce measures to bolster financial support for some of the wounded soldiers.

“It’s for the most seriously injured and those who are most susceptible to the economic challenges they may face,” a government source said Friday.

Those measures are expected to include a bigger allowance to financially assist privates as they recover from their wounds. Because their injuries can limit future promotions, privates risk getting stuck at that rank and pay scale, earning a maximum of about $46,000.

“There have been a lot of privates hurt in Afghanistan,” one source said.

The announcement is also expected to address complaints that the revamped benefits package for injured soldiers—unveiled in the 2006 Veterans Charter—leaves the mostly seriously hurt worse off financially than under the previous system.

In a related move, the military is also tinkering with its programs meant to assist disabled soldiers with the challenges and costs of adapting to life at home.

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 19

U.S.-led troops make a push into rural Kandahar
Washington Post, Sept. 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803744.html

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - U.S. and Afghan troops flowed into rural areas west of this city in the past week in a new push that NATO commanders said would clear out Taliban fighters and allow Afghan security forces to take control of the spaces left behind.

The major thrust into the farming districts of Zhari and Panjwayi represented an escalation in the military's slow-moving operation to secure the surrounding province, Kandahar, and other parts of the Afghan south.

...in a sign of the concern, senior White House officials have begun asking for more data about the war.

"There has been a real sense in the last month that U.S. policy has been somewhat dysfunctional," said a senior defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There is a lively debate among the military guys about whether we are moving in the right direction."

In an interview, the top U.S. military official in southern Afghanistan said the operation, with about 20,000 coalition forces now in place, has boosted security in Kandahar city and government influence in some areas outside it. The Kandahar effort has unfolded gradually, after a rapid offensive into neighboring Helmand province that military officials have said was not well thought out...

A "security ring" of checkpoints and walls around Kandahar has led to increased commerce and movement, he said, and the continuing arrival of U.S. military police is helping build the capability of Afghan police. In the Argandhab Valley, a key entry point into Kandahar city, summer clearing operations and an increase in security forces helped Afghan officials take control of about 85 percent of the territory, up from about 50 percent, Hodges said.

But it is unclear whether military achievements in the south and elsewhere are being outpaced by the gains of the Taliban, whose leader recently declared that his movement was winning. The number of assassinations in the city of Kandahar rose in August, Hodges said, although he could not cite a figure. Insurgents have begun to spread throughout northern areas where their presence was previously marginal. Nationwide, militant attacks have doubled since last summer.

The military push into the Zhari and Panjwayi districts comes after the arrival of .several thousand U.S. and Afghan troops in an area where there was previously one U.S. battalion [emphasis added] Military officials say the battle for the greenbelt, mostly south of Highway 1, is likely to be the most vicious in the province...

Previous NATO efforts to capture the district have failed, but military officials say they now have the manpower to hold it. Special operations forces are capturing Taliban leaders, British engineers are destroying homemade bombs, and troops are setting up checkpoints along the highway and other routes into the city, Hodges said. The idea is to detain as many insurgents as possible, not chase them out, he said...

"Either they're all just going to drop their AK's and melt away, or they're going to fight. And we anticipate that they're going to fight [emphasis added]," Hodges said...

 

All together now: Afghanistan is not Switzerland
Foreign Policy, "AfPak Channel", by Thomas Ruttig, Sept. 17
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/17/all_together_now_afghanistan_is_not_switzerland

...
Did ever anyone say that Afghanistan should or would become Switzerland? Afghans definitely didn't.

Afghans I had spoken to during my stay in the last Taliban years, wanted their country to become ‘a country like all others' again and to elect their leaders themselves. I am not talking about the ‘small circle of urban intellectuals' (the usual counter-arguments when you say something like this). No, I heard it from tailors, bakers and other people in the Kabul bazaar. And if you look carefully into the 2001 Bonn agreement on Afghanistan, the document on which the post-2001 political process is based, it becomes obvious that the maltreated country was supposed to become Afghanistan again.

Since after almost 25 years of war not much was left, Afghans' institutional memory, most of the 1964 constitution, the first with some democratic features in the country's history, was re-installed. Why not, even if it smacked a bit of nostalgia? It included the traditional institution of the Loya Jirga and a parliamentary system with a two houses as it had existed for two decades until it was scrapped after Sardar Daud's coup d'etat. New was after 2001 that the right to form political parties was implemented for the first time...

Switzerland is a confederation, and Afghanistan a unitary state. Most people here say they want a central government. And it should stay like this because this is one of the few ideas on which most Afghans agree. (Yes, there is a minority of federalists, but this is mainly warlord-federalism.) Afghans also do not want their country split into two, as a former U.S. national security advisor just proposed. With all respect, this can only come from people who really don't know Afghanistan. The last time I saw almost all Afghans united was when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, sometime in the late 1980s, proposed a confederation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everyone, communist and mujahed, still entangled in an extremely bloody fight, were up in anger.

But why then is this Switzerland mantra so popular nowadays?

This is because the West (which has replaced the much broader international community that started the Bonn process) is mentally on its way out of Afghanistan already emphasis added].

...The transfer and withdrawal decision has only to do with ‘our,' i.e. mainly the U.S., agenda, not with realities in Afghanistan changing for the better which would allow such a transfer. This hasty withdrawal is very dangerous. Herati MP Ahmad Behzad warns when talking to us: "Many people proclaim themselves opposed to the presence of foreign troops, but in reality most of them see the necessity for those troops to stay. Otherwise, there are high probabilities of a new civil war raging." Or Bawar Hotak, head of the Afghanistan Body Builders Association who also runs as a candidate: "If the foreign forces were absent even for two days, these people [who fought each other earlier] would start again fighting each other."..

I cannot resist using the punchline a friend as recently used -- and I apologize for its unauthorized use:

'Afghanistan also is not Switzerland because it doesn't ban minarets.'
***

*Here a short genealogy of the Switzerland comparison:

It seems as if NATO spokesman James Appathurai used the phrase for the first time in February 2006, a little bit unmotivated, in an answer to a question about an reassessment of security risks in Afghanistan after violent demonstrations when a Norwegian newspaper reprinted the controversial Muhammad caricatures:

‘Afghanistan is not Switzerland, so of course we have to take into account the security environment.'..

Voters brave Taliban attacks
Despite intimidation and fraud claims, parliamentary election draws praise
Ottawa Citizen, Sept. 19, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Voters+brave+Taliban+attacks/3546137/story.html#ixzz0zzGe9ZtU

The bombing of a Canadian-Afghan governor's convoy was among the most dramatic outbursts of violence Saturday as Afghans voted to choose a new parliament -- one critics hope will stand up to President Hamid Karzai, whose regime has been plagued with charges of corruption.

Millions of Afghans took part in what appeared to be a more peaceful election than the country witnessed a year ago, but outbreaks of violence and accusations of ballot fraud showed the challenges that remain for democracy in the war-torn nation.

As many as 11 Afghans, including six members of the security forces, died during voting day violence. About 500 of the 5,861 polls that were to have opened Saturday did not do so, presumably because of Taliban intimidation.

Nonetheless, some called the day another positive step for the country.

"This is a good day for Afghanistan," said engineering student Mosawer Jamshidy, who voted for the first time...

Kandahar's Afghan-Canadian governor, Tooryalai Wesa, was travelling in the Dand district, almost a suburb of Kandahar City, when his convoy struck a homemade landmine.

Nobody in Wesa's party was injured and the governor, a former university professor in British Columbia, continued his trip to visit three polling stations in the war-plagued southern province.

A U.S. army infantry battalion operates there under the command of Canadian Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner.

Although Canadian combat troops were on high alert to roll out and assist, Afghan authorities did not request any help...

Attacks by the Taliban were not nearly as frequent or as deadly as NATO's tally of about 400 attacks that scarred last summer's presidential elections...

Much of the violence that had been promised by the Taliban never really materialized. Scattered election-related violence was reported, particularly in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, which are at the heart of the insurgency...

Afghan turnout low amid violence
Washington Post, Sept. 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803813.html

KABUL - Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, viewed as a bellwether of Afghans' mood after months of Taliban intimidation and disclosures of official corruption, revealed a disenchanted electorate - and a buoyant insurgency - on Saturday.

By day's end, Afghan officials had declared a semi-victory, pointing out that the number of violent incidents (309) and civilian deaths (11) had been held below their own expectations. Yet voter turnout plummeted compared with last year's presidential election. And chief U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura concluded that voters and poll workers alike had engaged in "widespread irregularities" at the ballot box.

"It was a rough day from a security point of view," de Mistura said. "The Afghan security forces did their best and made a major effort, but there were major incidents."

Insurgents launched rocket attacks, detonated bombs and engaged in gun battles with Afghan police and soldiers. "The enemy threw everything at us," Afghan Interior Minister Bismillah Khan said.

More than 3.6 million people cast ballots to elect 249 members of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the Afghan parliament, according to the Independent Election Commission. That represented 27 percent of the country's estimated 13.5 million registered voters, though officials said about 700 of the 5,355 polling centers that opened Saturday had yet to report their tallies.

In the presidential election last year, more than 5.5 million votes were cast, albeit in a contest characterized by widespread reports of fraud. Saturday's elections were viewed as a major test of the ability of Afghan and international forces to prevent violence and fraud and restore the public's faith in the democratic process.

Asked why turnout might have declined this year, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak suggested that "one possibility is that the propaganda of the enemy affected the psyche of the people."..

An unprecedented force of 400,000 police officers and soldiers, supplied by both the Afghan government and NATO coalition, was involved in the security preparations. Guards set up extra checkpoints, and voters were frisked at polling stations.

Still, insurgent groups carried out attacks in 17 of the country's 34 provinces, Afghan security officials said. Of those, insurgents mounted 63 attacks using heavy guns, launched more than a dozen rockets and set off 33 improvised explosive devices, according to the Interior Ministry. One suicide bombing was reported. The attacks killed three police officers, in addition to the 11 civilians, and wounded 45 civilians and 13 officers, the ministry reported.

In 2009, 479 violent attacks killed 31 civilians, 18 Afghan police and eight Afghan soldiers, according to a U.N. report...

Mark
Ottawa

[GAP]

Articles found September 19, 2010
 
US military in Afghanistan uncovers sadistic death squad in ranks
By Ben Farmer in Kabul  19 Sep 2010
 Article Link

A group of American soldiers are facing murder charges for a five-month killing spree in which they randomly targeted Afghan civilians for sport, a US military investigation has reported.
 
In at least one attack, a soldier threw a grenade to pretend they were being ambushed as a pretext to then shoot dead an innocent villager.

The soldiers also dismembered and photographed bodies and kept bones and skulls as trophies in some of the most grisly accusations against US troops since the invasion in 2001
More on link
 
Afghan poll workers' bodies found
Election workers counting ballots in Kabul Election workers were amongst those most at risk
 Article Link
  19 September 2010 Last updated at 07:19 ET

The bodies of three members of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) kidnapped in Balkh province during voting on Saturday have been found.

Taliban militants had vowed to disrupt the vote for the lower houses of parliament.

The discovery of the bodies means at least 17 people were killed on election day in about 445 violent incidents.

It comes as a monitoring group raised serious concerns about electoral fraud.
Ink problems

The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan said it had found "extensive irregularities" and urged the IEC "to ensure the integrity of the rest of the electoral process".
More on link
 

Canadian-Afghan governor’s convoy bombed during Afghan vote
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 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News September 18, 2010

The bombing of a Canadian-Afghan governor’s convoy was among the most dramatic outbursts of violence Saturday as Afghans voted to choose a new parliament — one critics hope will stand up to President Hamid Karzai, whose regime has been plagued with charges of corruption.

Millions of Afghans took part in what appeared to be a more peaceful election than the country witnessed a year ago, but outbreaks of violence and accusations of ballot fraud showed the challenges that remain for democracy in the war-torn nation.

As many as 11 Afghans, including six members of the security forces, died during voting day violence. About 500 of the 5,861 polls that were to have opened Saturday did not do so, presumably because of Taliban intimidation.

Nonetheless, some cast the day as another positive step for the country.

“This is a good day for Afghanistan,” said engineering student Mosawer Jamshidy, who voted for the first time.
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'Serious concern' over fraud at Afghan elections
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  By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writers Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writers   – Sun Sep 19, 12:59 pm ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – The main Afghan election observer group said Sunday it had serious concerns about the legitimacy of this weekend's parliamentary vote because of reported fraud, even as President Hamid Karzai commended the balloting as a solid success.

The conflicting statements underscored the difficulty of determining the credibility of the vote also hit by militant attacks that hurt the turnout. Afghan officials started gathering and tallying results Sunday in a process that could take weeks if not months to complete.

The country's international backers offered praise for those who voted Saturday despite bomb and rocket attacks, and voiced hoped for a democratic result. A repeat of the pervasive fraud that tainted a presidential election a year ago would only erode further the standing of Karzai administration — both at home and abroad — as it struggles against a Taliban insurgency.

While the first vote counts are due to be made public in a few days time, full preliminary results are not expected until early October, and then there will be weeks of fraud investigations before winners are officially announced for the 249 parliamentary seats, which were contested by about 2,500 candidates.

The election commission has said it hopes to release final results by the end of October. But there are likely to be a host of fraud complaints in each province — which could drag the process on even beyond that target date. The resolution of last year's vote took months.
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Articles found September 20, 2010
 
Hamid Karzai abandons plans to visit Kandahar after disappointing election
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Dene Moore and A.R. Khan

Kandahar, Afghanistan — The Canadian Press Published on Sunday, Sep. 19, 2010 12:24PM EDT Last updated on Sunday, Sep. 19, 2010 7:00PM EDT

Afghan President Hamid Karzai abandoned plans to meet with elders during a rare visit to his home province of Kandahar on Sunday, the day after a disappointing parliamentary election that saw millions of Afghans forego their right to cast ballots.

Mr. Karzai was expected at a shura meeting with local elders and pro-government forces in the Arghandab district on the outskirts of Kandahar city — an area that has seen fierce fighting in recent months as a renewed international coalition flush with U.S. troops has tried to wrest control from Taliban insurgents.

But three rockets exploded at the site, followed by a brief firefight, and Mr. Karzai did not appear as announced.

It's the kind of violence that has become a daily fixture in the province where Canadian soldiers have battled insurgents for four years — the kind largely blamed for the low number of voters who showed up at polls Saturday.

At least 11 civilians and three police officers were killed in Afghanistan on election day, according to the Interior Ministry, and the bodies of three kidnapped election workers were found Sunday in Balkh province.
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CSIS interrogated Afghan detainees, insists none mistreated
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The Canadian Press

Date: Sunday Sep. 19, 2010 3:33 PM PT

OTTAWA — Newly obtained documents show Canada's spy service admits interrogating up to 50 Afghan prisoners captured by the Canadian Forces.

But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents insists they were never mistreated.

The CSIS involvement in interviewing suspected Taliban fighters alongside military intelligence officers was revealed by The Canadian Press last March.

But details of the agency's role and actions have remained largely cloaked in secrecy.

Briefing notes prepared for CSIS director Dick Fadden take pains to emphasize the conduct of agents has been above reproach.

University of Ottawa law professor Errol Mendes wonders whether spies travelled along with soldiers in combat, saying that may exceed the legislated mandate of CSIS.

The documents, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, were drawn up to brief Fadden for a June interview with the CBC, but the broadcaster did not ask him about CSIS's role in Afghanistan.
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