# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread June 2010



## GAP (1 Jun 2010)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread June 2010 *               

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

*Articles found June 1, 2010*

 Laid low by basic instinct
Don Martin, National Post  Published: Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Article Link

An attractive 20-something female working the Kandahar Airfield travel office, which books Canadian soldier getaways to Anywhere Outside Afghanistan for personal leave, compared walking around the military base to having 100 pairs of eyes peeling off her clothes.

It's not that she feared for her personal safety. But it was, she told me during my embedding there in mid-2007, uncomfortable to be under such intense sexual scrutiny every time she ventured outside her office or tent. Mind you, she added, it was plenty good for the ego.

Mix thousands of testosterone-enhanced males with perhaps a couple hundred women confined for six months inside a potentially deadly theatre of war and someone needs to discourage, if not disconnect, those natural instincts.

The rules of sexual engagement for last call in a Calgary Stampede bar cannot apply on the Kandahar base or else a new front in the Afghan war would erupt internally with outbreaks of fist-to-face combat to score or settle scores.

The "no-entry" rule was made crystal clear to visiting media, complete with warnings that any deviation from monk-like abstinence would earn you the morning-after reward of a ticket back to Canada, never to be allowed back on base.

The concrete bomb shelters scattered around the base were always rumoured to be canoodling hotspots, although my curious peak inside them late at night never found any such encounters.
More on link

 General toppled by a corporal’s revelation
Article Link
Bruce Campion-Smith Ottawa Bureau Chief

The extraordinary confession of a corporal set in motion the bombshell revelation that ended the tenure and possibly the military career of Canada’s top soldier in Afghanistan, the Star has learned.

The unidentified solider told a trusted confidant at the Kandahar Airfield about her relationship with Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard, sparking a chain of events that reached the top echelons of the military and the government.

Within 24 hours, both Ménard and the soldier, a member of his staff, were on the same military transport plane, headed back to Canada, one defence source told the Star.

In the course of a day, Ménard had gone from commanding 5,000 American and Canadian troops getting ready to launch a major offensive in southern Afghanistan to a humiliating return to Canada to face a possible court martial.
More on link

 The Battle for Kandahar
Article Link
National Post Staff,  National Post   Published: Friday, May 28, 2010

The Post looks at the ins and outs of the situation in Kandahar City before what may be the most important battle of the Afghan conflict.

Success or failure of Obama's troop surge lies in Kandahar City

By Peter Goodspeed

As thousands of Canadian, U.S., British and Afghan troops prepare for a summer offensive in Kandahar -- expected to be the most decisive battle in the Afghan war -- the Taliban are already preparing their battleground, planting mines, hiding weapons and terrifying the local population

After three decades of turmoil, Kandaharis are resilient

By Brian Hutchinson

I worried when he didn't return my calls and email messages. After a month without correspondence, I tried to not fear the worst. A whole year passed and there still was no word from my friend Aman

Ahmed Wali Karzai -- From waiter to ‘King of Kandahar'

By Peter Goodspeed

Today, Ahmed Wali Karzai, half-brother of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, is the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan
More on link

 Gunmen open fire at Pakistan hospital, 12 killed
Mubasher Bukhari, Reuters  Published: Monday, May 31, 2010
  Article Link

LAHORE, Pakistan - At least four gunmen attacked a hospital in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore on Monday afternoon, killing up to a dozen people and holding several hostage before escaping, a senior doctor told Reuters.

"They barged into the hospital building and opened indiscriminate fire," said Javed Ikram, Chief Executive of Jinnah hospital.

He said at least 12 people were killed in the firing while some had been held hostage. However, other accounts put the number dead at five.

Senior city government official Sajjad Bhutta told Reuters, "They were four gunmen clad in elite police uniform, and entered the hospital building and opened fire. Then they ran towards the intensive care unit where their companion was being treated."

Police guards fired back, he said, and they fled. One of them was wounded.

The five dead included three policemen, a woman and a private security guard, he said.

Dozens of people wounded in Friday's attacks on two mosques of a minority religious community in the city were being treated in the hospital, which is a major institution in the city. More than 80 people were killed in those attacks.

The attackers were either trying to rescue or kill a wounded attacker from Friday's assault who was being treated in the Intensive Care Unit of Jinnah Hospital, said Punjab police chief Tariq Saleem Dogar.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (1 Jun 2010)

American general to take command of British troops in Helmand province
_The Times_, June 1
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7141383.ece



> An American general will today take over command of all British forces in Helmand province in a symbolic move that underlines Britain’s diminished role in southern Afghanistan.
> 
> The handover may also signal the beginning of the end of the British mission in Helmand — where the majority of the 289 British deaths in Afghanistan have occurred — as 20,000 US Marines exercise increasing authority across the south. A Royal Marine became the latest casualty on Saturday night when he was killed in an explosion while on a foot patrol near Sangin, the scene of some of the deadliest fighting in the north of the province.
> 
> ...



Australian defence chiefs say taking over Dutch role in Afghanistan could overstretch military
CP, June 1
http://news.sympatico.ca/world/contentposting?newsitemid=3510195&feedname=cp-world&show=false&number=0&showbyline=false&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=false&paginationenabled=false



> CANBERRA, Australia - Australia will not take over the leadership role in restive southern Afghanistan from departing Dutch forces because the Australian military could become overstretched, national defence chiefs said Monday.
> 
> Most of Australia's 1,550 troops in Afghanistan are based in Uruzgan province where the Dutch lead the International Security Assistance Force.
> 
> ...



Australia to take greater Afghan training role 
_The Age_, June 1
http://www.theage.com.au/national/australia-to-take-greater-afghan-training-role-20100531-wrcd.html



> AUSTRALIA will dramatically increase its training role in Afghanistan in the coming months but will not take over from the Dutch as the lead nation in Oruzgan province because it would leave the nation exposed closer to home, defence chiefs have told a Senate committee.
> 
> The chief of the Australian Defence Force, Angus Houston, revealed that Australian troops would take over the training of the entire 4th Brigade of the Afghan National Army, as the occupying coalition strives to build an Afghan defence force that can stand on its own when foreign troops eventually leave.
> 
> More than 700 Australian troops have been mentoring two battalions - known as kandaks - from the 4th Brigade, but by the end of the year, they will have responsibility for training all six kandaks, some of which are expected to take part in the intensifying offensive against insurgents in Kandahar province...



Diggers braced for push into Taliban heartland 
_The Australian_, June 1
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/diggers-braced-for-push-into-taliban-heartland/story-e6frg8yo-1225873752078



> A COALITION victory in a key operation to secure Afghanistan's Taliban heartland of southern Kandahar would "suck the life out of the insurgency", defence chief Angus Houston told a Senate estimates hearing yesterday.
> 
> In one of his most upbeat assessments of the war so far, Air Chief Marshal Houston indicated there would be a major role for Australian forces as the Kandahar operation gathered momentum.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (4 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 4, 2010*

 Rocket attack on NATO hub in southern Afghanistan
 Agence France-Presse June 4, 2010
Article Link

Militants fired rockets at NATO's main base in southern Afghanistan for the second time in less than two weeks and caused minor injuries, a U.S. military official said Friday.

Four rockets were fired at Kandahar Air Field on Thursday — two at around 3:00 pm, one at 8:00 pm and another two hours later, the official told AFP.

"The one at 8:00 pm caused some minor injuries to multiple forces," the official said on condition of anonymity and without revealing nationalities of the troops involved.

A rocket and ground attack on the Kandahar base wounded a number of people and forced a security lockdown on May 22.
More on link

 Training role in Afghanistan possible: MPs
 Liberals could be open to idea but PM may balk
 By MATTHEW FISHER, Canwest News Service June 4, 2010
Article Link

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae has provided the strongest indication yet that a deal may be possible between his party and the minority Harper government to keep some Canadian troops in Afghanistan after the combat mission in Kandahar ends next summer.

"The door is open to serious discussion in Canada and between Canada and NATO about what the future looks like," Rae said during a five-day fact-finding mission to Kandahar and Kabul by 10 members of Parliament from all the parties, who sit on the Commons' special committee on the mission in Afghanistan.

One possibility being closely examined is whether to dispatch Canadian military trainers to help "increase the capacity of both the Afghan police and Afghan military," the former premier of Ontario said.

"There is no deal done, but there are elements that could be brought together to make a deal," Bryon Wilfert, the Liberal vice-chair of the committee, said after the delegation met yesterday in Kabul with U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commands more than 100,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, and another American, Lt.-Gen. William Caldwell, whose purpose is to train Afghan forces to a level that would permit alliance forces to leave the country.

At a meeting with the MPs yesterday, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rasoul also requested that if Canada's combat troops were leaving, that some of them be replaced by military trainers.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper may represent the biggest stumbling block to such a deal. He has repeatedly stated that all Canadian soldiers would leave Afghanistan next year.
More on link

 Afghan loya jirga peace talks enter final day
Article Link

Tribal leaders in Afghanistan are holding the final day of a national peace meeting in the capital, Kabul.

The gathering has been marked by fierce debate on the government's plan to end the country's nine-year civil war.

It is expected to endorse an amnesty and job incentives to induce Taliban fighters to give up arms.

But correspondents say there are few signs that the Taliban is ready to agree to any deal.

Its main demand is that all foreign forces withdraw from the country before any negotiations can begin.

The Taliban have been waging a battle to overthrow the US-backed government and expel the 130,000 foreign troops there.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is aiming to use the three-day "peace jirga" to enlist support for his plan to offer economic incentives to reformed Taliban militants.

Security is tight at the venue after Taliban militants tried to attack the meeting after it opened on Wednesday.

Three rockets landed close to the meeting place. Officials said two attackers were killed and one captured.

Up to 1,600 delegates - including tribal elders, religious leaders and members of parliament from all over the country - have convened for the meeting.

But they are far outnumbered by the 12,000 security personnel guarding against attacks. 
More on link

New Canadian commander arrives in Kandahar
Last Updated: Friday, June 4, 2010 CBC 
Article Link

Canada's new military commander in Afghanistan arrived Friday in Kandahar, a week after his predecessor was relieved of command following allegations he was involved in an inappropriate personal relationship while in theatre.

Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance will lead Canada's 2,800 military personnel in the country until the fall.

Vance was given the task after Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard was accused of engaging in an intimate relationship, contrary to military policy.

Military police investigators are still examining the allegations and have not said when their investigation might be complete.
More on link

 Afghan IED sweepers face cunning Taliban enemy
Article Link

 By Michael Georgy

South Asia

KANDAHAR Afghanistan (Reuters) - An Afghan soldier with a metal detector scans a road for the biggest killer they face in the war against the Taliban -- an improvised explosive device (IED).

"Don't look around you, look down," his commander barks during a training session.

After a two-week course lasting five hours a day, he and other Afghan army engineers will be sent out to the battlefield, where Taliban militants are becoming more cunning by the day.

"IEDs are constantly a threat out there...," said Canadian Captain Peter Davidson, one of the mentors of the Afghan-led training programme. "It's a cat and mouse game."

The problem is novice Afghan army engineers, arguably doing the most vital job in the nine-year war, will soon face an enemy that has mastered the art of bomb-making and becoming more creative.

Last month General George Casey, U.S. Army chief of staff, said more than 60 percent of the roughly 400 attacks in one week in Afghanistan were the result of roadside bombs.
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Direct attacks ebb, IEDs on rise in Afghan east: US general

Article Link
(AFP) – 21 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A "degraded" Taliban is conducting fewer direct assaults in eastern Afghanistan, turning instead to more roadside bombs and suicide attacks, the US commander there said Thursday.

"We realize that Afghanistan and Regional Command East are at a critical moment," US Army Major General Curtis Scaparrotti said, as the United States scrambles to boost Afghan Security Forces (ASF) capability and local government competence ahead of a planned foreign troop pullout beginning in July 2011.

"In terms of strength within RC East, I don't believe that they're any stronger now than they were a year ago," the commander said of the Taliban, speaking to reporters in the US capital via live video-link from eastern Afghanistan.

"I would say it is degraded," he said of the militant group's capacity, but noted that attacks with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are on the rise in the east.

"They have conducted less direct fire attacks from the winter into this spring, and they're using more IEDs, suicide vests and potentially a car bomb," he said.

As an example he cited last week's attack against the US-operated Bagram airbase outside Kabul, in which the Taliban has said it dispatched 20 suicide bombers, and a suicide car bombing by the Taliban the next day, which killed at least 18 people, including six NATO troops -- five US and one Canadian.

The Bagram attack "was really not one that I think could have achieved success in terms of penetrating the base itself," Scaparrotti said.
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Cdn Parliamentarians Surprised at Success of Canadian Troops in Afghanistan
Article Link

A group of Canadian Parliamentarians belonging to the Committee that overseas the Afghanistan mission is surprised at the level of success of the Canadian military, both militarily and developmentally.

The Canadian Military in Afghanistan, while working out of Forward Operation Bases to provide security for the Afghan population, is also instrumental in construction and some governing issues.

While this news very seldom reaches Canada, this parliamentary committee has now seen the full range of the Canadian mission. After almost eight years in country, it is about time.

Surprisingly, after their five day secret mission this all party committee now says that there is a role for Canada's military beyond 2011.

High profile Liberal MP Bob Rae said that most of the committee members believe that we (Canada) have to see this thing through and that it was time for intense discussion. The door seems to be open for an all party parliamentary discussion.

The group toured Afghanistan earlier this week, but had to be kept secret for security reasons. While touring Canadian projects, they talked with soldiers and civilian facilitators, as well as with Afghan leaders. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (4 Jun 2010)

Afghanistan and the Turkish Flotilla Incident
Start of Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, June 4:



> ...
> Peter Goodspeed for The National Post writes that ISAF’s approaching campaign in Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency, will be a decisive battle in the mission.
> http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=3084975
> 
> ...



Markl
Ottawa


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## GAP (6 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 6, 2010*

 Taliban’s Kandahar leader killed
Article Link
NATO reports insurgent’s death
Friday, June 4, 2010 

On the very day that a new Canadian commander arrived in Kandahar, news comes that the top Taliban fighter in the southern Afghan city has been killed in battle. NATO said today that Mullah Zergay was killed by the coalition’s troops in a firefight with insurgents who were shooting back with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. This event took place in Kandahar’s Zhari district last week, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said. Zergay was said to have been responsible for many bombing deaths, along with kidnappings and killings of government employees and village elders. Also today in Kandahar, Canada’s new military commander in Afghanistan, Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance, landed at Kandahar Airfield, where he will lead Canada’s 2,800 military personnel in the country until the fall. 
More on link

  Even reduced Afghan role remains a risky venture
Posted By MICHAEL DEN TANDT Posted 1 day ago
Article Link 

For many months now, since before the last election, all parties in the House of Commons have insisted that no Canadian soldiers will remain in Afghanistan after July 2011.

Each time Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been asked about this (most famously in March, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a public pitch for a continuing mission during a state visit) the answer has been a flat no. No combat, no humanitarian component, no nothing. We're done.

Harper took this position because, though an early supporter of the mission, he wasn't willing to expend politicalcapitaltokeepitgoing. W iththe opposition Liberals and New Democrats clamouring at every turn for a speedy withdrawal and Canadians increasingly weary of casualties, Harper made a simple political calculation and took the issue off the table.

A recent all-party Commons committee trip to Afghanistan may change all that. After five days in Kabul and Kandahar, Liberal Bob Rae, New Democrat Jack Harris and Conservative Laurie Hawn apparently now agree that Canada should carry on post-2011, if only in a training capacity, and with a much smaller contingent of troops.

This would involve "inside the wire" work only, proponents of this option stipulate. In simple terms it means no more overland missions in LAV II armoured vehicles, which leave troops vulnerable to suicide bombers and IED ambushes. And it means, obviously, no combat missions. 
More on link

 What next in Afghanistan?
Article Link

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is suddenly faced with something he probably never expected to see: a growing consensus in Parliament that some of Canada’s 2,800 troops should remain in Afghanistan to train local forces after their combat tour ends next summer.

The Commons special committee on Afghanistan returned from a fact-finding mission last week proposing that Canadian military trainers could help bolster the country’s democratic government and prevent a resurgence of Al Qaeda there. The committee’s views give Harper political cover to revisit Ottawa’s options.

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae came home saying that Canada has “an obligation to see this thing through,” and should consider training local police and troops. That squares with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s musings about a “continued mission.” Committee chair Kevin Sorenson, a Conservative, agrees that “Canada may have a role” training allies. And the NDP’s Jack Harris believes that Canada should be in the business of building key Afghan institutions.

Reacting to all this on Friday, Harper said he found the committee’s ideas “interesting,” but insisted that he is still eyeing a full pullout. That caution reflects Parliament’s firm decision in 2008 that “Canada will end its presence in Kandahar as of July 2011” and that our troops will be out by year’s end. Given that, Harper would need Parliament’s approval to maintain troops beyond that point.
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 Afghanistan: Police officers complete management and good governance training in Kandahar
Article Link
Source: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)

Date: 05 Jun 2010


Nineteen police officers have just graduated from a six-week training in management and good governance in Kandahar.

The Canadian Civilian Police in Kandahar provided the technical and financial support for the course which saw the officers receiving training in the fields of management, good governance, tackling problems in crisis situations, handling criminals, and respect for the Afghan Constitution.

Speaking during the ceremony on Wednesday, Kandahar Police Chief Sardar Mohammad Zazai said "such courses/trainings are very useful for the police officers," adding that "those who didn't participate in this round will get the opportunity to participate in the next round." 
More on link


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## GAP (7 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 7, 2010*

 Suicide bombers attack Afghan police compound
Article Link
By MIRWAIS KHAN and MATTHEW PENNINGTON (AP) – 2 hours ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — At least three suicide bombers attacked a police training center Monday in southern Afghanistan's largest city, but the assailants were killed before they could inflict any casualties, officials said.

One of the attackers drove an explosives-laden car up to the gate of the center and detonated the bomb, blowing a hole in the compound wall, the Interior Ministry said. Two other bombers tried to storm through the hole, engaging in a gunbattle with police before blowing themselves up outside.

Gen. Gul Nabi Ahmadzai, head of police training programs for Afghanistan, gave a slightly different account, saying the two gunmen were killed in firing by police. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack and said four bombers were sent.

The different accounts could not be immediately reconciled.

No police were wounded in the brazen midday attack, which could be heard throughout the city of Kandahar. NATO and Afghan forces swarmed the training center, but it appeared to be secure about an hour after the explosion.
More on link

 Rethinking Afghanistan
Article Link
June 07, 2010 Howard Elliott The Hamilton Spectator

When Canada's mandate in Afghanistan expires in 2011, it will and should signal the end of a combat role for Canadian personnel. We have argued repeatedly, and do so again, that there is no public will for an extension of the combat mission. Canadian forces have done more than their share, and paid the price in blood, to support and bolster the NATO mission to stabilize Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban insurgency.

But, increasingly, it looks as if there is an appetite, at least among parliamentarians, for Canada to play some noncombat support role to extend support until the Afghan government and security forces are ready to become self-sufficient.

What does that look like? Last week members of an all-party committee touring the war-ravaged nation gave us a glimpse. Liberal MP Bob Rae said: "We have an obligation to see this thing through ... I just want to say on behalf of the Liberal party that we are very committed to a role post 2011." Conservative MPs and even the NDP, which has demanded an immediate pullout in past, offer similar observations and sentiments. The committee will develop a position on the subject, and make a recommendation to the Harper government.
More on link

 Instead of warriors, let’s send teachers
Article Link
By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target Mon. Jun 7 

As we steadily inch closer to the announced July 2011 pullout date for our combat forces in Afghanistan, the pressure is mounting for Canada to revisit that decision.

Our NATO allies — in particular the United States — are anxious to keep as many flags as possible on their coalition organization charts. With the Conservative government adamant that it will withdraw the battle group in Kandahar as per the terms of the bipartisan agreement with the Liberals, which allowed them to extend the original mission deadline beyond February 2009, the talk now is once again focused on the provision of military trainers.

The argument for this is the fact that the Afghan army and Afghan police forces are still woefully inept and long-term coaching and mentoring by international military personnel will be required for the foreseeable future. The current strategy being carried out by the Pentagon calls for an increase in the quantity and quality of the Afghan security forces to the point where they can be self-sufficient in the battle against the insurgents.

The U.S. brain trust responsible for this Afghanistan blueprint wants to grow the combined strength of the police and army units to a total of 400,000 personnel. The cost to field such a massive force — approximately US$7 billion annually — will be borne indefinitely by the U.S.A. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (7 Jun 2010)

With U.S. Aid, Warlord Builds Afghan Empire
_NY Times_, June 5
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/world/asia/06warlords.html



> TIRIN KOT, Afghanistan — The most powerful man in this arid stretch of southern Afghanistan  is not the provincial governor, nor the police chief, nor even the commander of the Afghan Army.
> 
> It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces.
> 
> ...



Karzai removes Afghan interior minister and spy chief
_Washington Post_, June 7
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/06/AR2010060600714.html



> KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday forced out his spy chief and his interior minister, a surprise move that eliminates two key American allies as the United States deepens its engagement here.
> 
> The departures of Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and National Directorate of Security chief Amrullah Saleh are likely to become an additional irritant in the already rocky relationship between Karzai and Washington.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (7 Jun 2010)

Convoy Guards in Afghanistan Face an Inquiry
_NY Times_, June 6
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/world/asia/07convoys.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world



> MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — For months, reports have abounded here that the Afghan mercenaries who escort American and other NATO convoys through the badlands have been bribing Taliban insurgents to let them pass.
> 
> Then came a series of events last month that suggested all-out collusion with the insurgents.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (8 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 8, 2010*

The Torch Goes Silent
Article Link
 Tuesday, June 8, 2010

This is terrible news. Don't have much to say that  Adrian didn't:

    Anyone who at all follows military blogging in Canada knows that the premier blog is “The Torch”, as in “to you with failing hands we throw.” But alas, the blog has shut down suddenly and unexpectedly. I contacted the authors, but they would prefer not to share the reasons publicly. Sufficed to say that this is a huge loss to the Canadian blogging community.

    The blog owner, Damian Books, became the first Canadian blogger to be invited by the Canadian military to do embedded blogging in Afghanistan. His reports offered a rare and insightful look into Canada’s mission. Sadly, those reports are also now gone.

    I hope this is only a hiatus. Such a loss to the Canadian blogging community will be deeply felt by all, and in particular those who support the mission in Afghanistan. There was no better source of information about Canada’s military out there, and that includes information directly from the government military web site.
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 Allies Make Way for U.S. Troop Influx in Afghanistan
Article Link
BY YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

KABUL—The influx of American forces into southern Afghanistan is redrawing the coalition's command structure there, giving Washington a decisive say in the unfolding campaign at the expense of allies such as Canada and Britain.

Under a division of labor implemented in 2006, the U.S. military had concentrated on eastern Afghanistan while Britain was responsible for the southern province of Helmand and Canada for neighboring Kandahar. These allies, however, lacked the strength to check the insurgency's spread in the south, the Taliban's historic cradle.
Not Much More on link

Afghanistan Reaches New Milestone: Now The Longest Military Action In US History
By Nicole Belle Monday Jun 07, 2010 6:00pm 
Article Link

Frankly, I refuse to call this a "war". This is and always has been an occupation. Terminology aside, this is not exactly something worth celebrating, but I do think it's time to re-think Afghanistan:

    Three months after 9/11, every major Taliban city in Afghanistan had fallen — first Mazar-i-Sharif, then Kabul, finally Kandahar. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were on the run. It looked as if the war was over, and the Americans and their Afghan allies had won.

    Butch Ivie, then a school administrator in Winfield, Ala., remembers, "We thought we'd soon have it tied up in a neat little bag."

    But bin Laden and Omar eluded capture. The Taliban regrouped. Today, Kandahar again is up for grabs. And soon, Afghanistan will pass Vietnam as America's longest war.
More on link

A look at reality in Afghanistan: Worthington
Article Link
By Peter Worthington Last Updated: June 7, 2010

There’s nothing quite like seeing reality for oneself.

And that was the case with an all-party delegation of MPs who visited Canadians in Afghanistan to have a five-day look at what our 2,800 troops are doing and, more important, what Canadian soldiers mean to both our allies and Afghans.

Bob Rae, Liberal MP and perennial challenger to lead the party (now that’s he’s apparently abandoned the NDP) and the likely successor to Michael Ignatieff, spoke for the group when he opined: “We have an obligation to see this through.”

That’s basically how our soldiers feel, though the generals can’t say so.

And it’s certainly how the Americans feel, as reflected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she hinted a while back the U.S. would dearly appreciate it if Canada could find a way to keep its troops in Afghanistan past the summer of 2011.

Clinton is one of the few bright spots in the administration of President Barack Obama — a surprise to some (including me) — who resented her when she was campaigning for the nomination of the Democratic Party.

Another bright spot is Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, who occupied that post under President George Bush. That’s about it. The rest seem a collection of duds and pals of Obama who are contributing to make his administration mindful of Jimmy Carter’s.

Rae went further and pledged the Liberal party to back serious discussions between Canada and NATO and alliance allies about a future role for our troops in Afghanistan.

Regardless of his personal feelings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minster Peter MacKay are committed to withdrawing fighting forces by next summer.

So far, they show no inclination to change their minds.
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US trainers shape new 'face' for Kandahar police
Article Link
By Daphne Benoit (AFP) – 11 hours ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Sandwiched between an orchard and a collection of decrepit homes, Afghan police post number six is a familiar haunt of US trainers trying to gain the upper hand in the battle for Kandahar.

Driving up in heavily armoured MRAP trucks built to withstand the lethal bombs planted by the Taliban across this provincial capital, American military police head inside the modest one-storey building.

"We are here to make sure that they are engaging the people, that they are proactive," said US Sergeant Gary Woodruff, whose tour of Afghanistan is his fourth overseas deployment, after Kosovo and two missions in Iraq.

"We want to put a nice face on them, make them stop acting tough, like a lawless organisation," he said.

The US-led NATO force in Afghanistan is undertaking one of its most ambitious counter-insurgency operations in the nine-year Afghan war.

Many of the 30,000 troops President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan late last year are heading to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement and a hotbed of bombings, assassinations and lawlessness.

The objective is to help Afghan forces restore government authority in Kandahar, a province of more than a million inhabitants according to the Central Statistics Organisation of Afghanistan.

This is terrain where insurgents and criminals have gained ground since a US-led invasion in 2001 brought down the Taliban regime. Any stain on the reputation of the police plays right into the insurgents' hands.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (8 Jun 2010)

Time is running out, top general says 
Game changer needed International community must enable an Afghan solution to insurgency, Natynczyk tells Senate
Canwest News, June 8
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Time+running+general+says/3125223/story.html



> Gen. Walt Natynczyk says that time is running out for the international community in Afghanistan and that there must be a "game changer" that will allow the Afghan people to get on with their own reconciliation.
> 
> "At the end of the day, the solution to this counter insurgency has to be an Afghan solution and I think all of us on the bleachers watching this, I think we have to be very patient to see how all of this unfolds," he told a Senate committee yesterday.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (9 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 9, 2010*

 Canada's Withdrawal Plans Clear - Chief of Defence Staff
Article Link
By Karl Gotthardt Ottawa : Canada | Jun 08, 2010

Canada's Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk, says that withdrawal plans from Afghanistan are clear and he has the mandate from the Canadian government to withdraw. The military has been given "very clear" instructions on the planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan next year.
Canada's Parliament passed a motion to withdraw Canada's military and cease all combat operations by July 2011. A Parliamentary committee, that secretly toured Afghanistan last week, has commented that it sees a role for Canada's military beyond that date. The Committee, which includes members of all political parties, was surprised at the success of the Canadian military in a all aspects of the mission, including development, governance and military operations.

Canada's Conservative Government continues to move toward military withdrawal, while it maintains that there is a role in training the Afghan police.

The media being what they are, tried to press General Natynczyk to provide a new answer to the same question. Walter Natynczyk was not moved of his previous comments and said his job is to focus on fulfilling the missions "as given" to the Canadian Forces.

"It's not even worth from my standpoint speculating about future operations on those kinds of things," Natynczyk told reporters during a joint news conference with the new NORAD commander, U.S. Admiral James Winnefeld, at National Defence headquarters.
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 Attack downs chopper, kills 4 U.S. troops in Afghanistan
Article Link

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Wednesday Jun. 9, 2010 8:27 AM ET

Four American soldiers are dead after their helicopter was brought down Wednesday by enemy fire in southern Afghanistan.

NATO said the helicopter crashed in Helmand province, which borders Kandahar province. It gave no further details.

U.S. military spokesperson Lt. Col. Joseph T. Breasseale confirmed that the four dead soldiers were Americans.

Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesperson for the Helmand provincial government, said the attack happened in the Sangin district.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, with a spokesperson saying the militants fired two rockets at the chopper.

U.S. and British soldiers are active in Helmand, part of a region in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban are known to reside. 
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 British troops 'unlikely' to move to Kandahar, says Fox
Article Link
By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent Wednesday, 9 June 2010

Britain will almost certainly turn down proposals to move troops in Afghanistan from their centre of operation in Helmand to the Taliban heartland of Kandahar and neighbouring Uruzgan.

The planned deployment was part of the strategy of General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, to turn the tide of war against the Taliban. The Independent has learned that the Americans were so keen for British forces to make the switch that Washington offered to underwrite a sizeable part of the substantial costs involved.

But Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, declared yesterday it was "highly unlikely" that a transfer would take place, stressing: "It is certainly not something that we will be proposing."

The two most senior British commanders in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General Nick Parker, the British deputy Nato commander based in Kabul, and Major-General Nick Carter, were said to be in favour of the proposed transfer – while the head of the military, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, felt it would be a mistake.

General Sir David Richards, the head of the Army, was said to have been "keeping an open mind" on the matter. He and a number of commanders would have liked a feasibility study to be undertaken so that various options could be considered.

The plan to move the 9,500-strong British contingency has been necessitated by the refusal of the Canadian government to extend the mandate of its 3,000 troops in Afghanistan when it runs out next year. 
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How Canada’s Politicians Abandoned the Troops
Article Link
 08 June 2010

When Stephen Harper came to power one of his first big stunts was to visit Afghanistan and give a “We don’t cut and run” speech. At the time the speech warmed the hearts of all Canadians who support the forces and especially those who support the mission in Afghanistan. Stephen Harper was our hero. In the early days of his governance he even went as far as to say he’d lose an election rather than abandon the fight.

But then, a handful of events tipped over the apple cart. The House of Commons voted to terminate the mission in 2011, an election provided no majority, charges of prisoner abuse ran amuck ... and the Prime Minister and his party went missing in action. As days turned to months no overt show of support for the mission could be glimpsed from the Harper Conservatives. It was bizarre, almost surreal, but for us who had felt such a stirring of pride when our leader had spoken at KAF, we were soon forced to believe our lying eyes.

Since then, evidence has emerged which suggests that the Harper government is obsessed with “messaging”. CTV has detailed how the PMO is fanatical about even the most trite announcement. Not a word, not an utterance out of any MP, or any government department, comes without detailed vetting.

So it is, that the PMOs silence on Afghanistan is clearly prescribed and comes as no accident. The question is of course, why?
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 Greening of Kandahar a stain on Canada’s honour, insiders say
Article Link
By Mitch Potter Washington Bureau

A Canadian drive to transform Kandahar’s water supply is sputtering toward disaster despite Ottawa’s assurances to the contrary, the Toronto Star has learned.

The $50-million Dahla Dam irrigation project, touted as Canada’s best chance for a lasting legacy in Afghanistan, has all but stalled as its lead contractor, a partnership involving the Canadian engineering giant SNC Lavalin, battles for control against a sometimes violent Afghan security firm widely believed to be loyal to Afghanistan’s ruling Karzai family, insiders close to the project say.

For the record, Ottawa says progress on its “signature project” is proceeding on time and budget, with shovels finally in the ground after a careful two-year planning phase involving thousands of hours of engineering and design work.

Canada’s International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda went so far last month as to wave panoramically during a helicopter press tour and proclaim the green expanse of the fertile Arghandab River valley below as the early signs of Canadian success.
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 NATO supply convoy hit in Pakistan
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 9, 2010
  Article Link

A group of gunmen attacked a cluster of supply vehicles in Pakistan overnight, sparking a battle that killed at least seven people.

At least a dozen gunmen attacked the vehicles, which were reportedly carrying food, supplies and military vehicles to NATO troops in Afghanistan.

"According to police, they strolled into a truck depot on the main road between Islamabad and the frontier city of Peshawar and simply opened fire in all directions," said BBC reporter Ola Guerin.

The gunmen attacked the drivers and vehicles, then set several vehicles on fire.
A firefighter tries to extinguish a blaze after suspected militants attacked trucks carrying military vehicles and goods. A firefighter tries to extinguish a blaze after suspected militants attacked trucks carrying military vehicles and goods. (B.K.Bangash/Associated Press)

Police official Shah Nawaz said Wednesday afternoon that seven people died. The victims' identities were not known, but they were believed to be Pakistanis employed as drivers or assistants. Seven people were also wounded.

Earlier reports suggested that dozens of people were killed and wounded in the attack. Information from the region is difficult to verify independently because Orakzai is remote, dangerous and access to it is severely restricted.
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## MarkOttawa (9 Jun 2010)

Afghanistan Strategy Shifts to Focus on Civilian Effort
_NY Times_, June 8
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/world/asia/09kandahar.html?ref=todayspaper



> KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The prospect of a robust military push in Kandahar Province, which had been widely expected to begin this month, has evolved into a strategy that puts civilian reconstruction efforts first and relegates military action to a supportive role.
> 
> The strategy, Afghan, American and NATO civilian and military officials said in interviews, was adopted because of opposition to military action from an unsympathetic local population and Afghan officials here and in Kabul.
> 
> ...



Afghan attempts to forge peace deal with Taliban 'a disgrace'
Afghanistan's effort to forge a peace deal with the Taliban was branded "a disgrace" by the sacked head of the country's spy service.
_Daily Telegraph_, June 8
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7811440/Afghan-attempts-to-forge-peace-deal-with-Taliban-a-disgrace.html



> President Hamid Karzai's dismissal of Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan's National Directorate for Security (NDS) - the equivalent of MI5 - and Hanif Atmar, the head of the Interior Ministry, on Sunday exposed deep divisions within the Afghan government and Nato members over an emerging peace talks process.
> 
> The move has been hailed as a boost for negotiations on reconciliation with insurgents by those in favour of the talks, including some British officials and Pakistan, but criticised by their American counterparts.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (9 Jun 2010)

Taliban Reportedly Adding HIV-Infected Needles to Explosive Devices
Published June 09, 2010 The Sun
Article Link

TALIBAN fighters are burying dirty needles with their bombs in a bid to infect British troops with HIV, The Sun can reveal.
Hypodermic syringes are hidden below the surface pointing upwards to prick bomb squad experts as they hunt for devices.

The heroin needles are feared to be contaminated with hepatitis and HIV. And if the bomb goes off, the needles become deadly flying shrapnel.

The tactic, used in the Afghan badlands of Helmand, was exposed by Tory MP and ex-Army officer Patrick Mercer.

Senior backbencher Mr Mercer said yesterday: "Are there no depths to which these people will stoop? This is the definition of a dirty war."

Razor blades are also being used. All Royal Engineer and Royal Logistic Corps bomb search teams have been issued with protective Kevlar gloves.
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Afghans burn effigy of pope to protest alleged proselytizing by foreign charities
Published June 08, 2010
Article Link

Afghans have burned an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI out of anger over claims charities preached Christianity in the Muslim country.

U.S.-based Church World Service and Norwegian Church Aid deny spreading Christianity. The government suspended them last week while investigating allegations in an Afghan television report.

More than 1,000 people marched Tuesday in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, demanding organizations that proselytized in Afghanistan be banned.

The crowd roared approval as protesters doused the effigy of the pope in kerosene and lit it.

They shouted: "Death to America! Long Live Islam!"

Aid workers say the allegations increase the threat to staff already at risk for insurgent attack.
end


 US defense chief nudges Karzai to name replacements of 'equal caliber' for top security posts
Published June 07, 2010
Article Link

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday to replace two top security officials with ministers of "equal caliber," and said the sacking of the pair does not signal trouble in Karzai's government over efforts to seek a peace deal with the Taliban.

Gates stepped gingerly in answering questions about the significance of the abrupt resignations Sunday of the two men whom U.S. officials had often singled out by name as examples of competent leadership in a government riven by corruption and patronage.

"It's obviously an internal matter for the Afghans," Gates said.

He spoke to reporters en route to London, where the stepped-up military campaign in southern Afghanistan are a major topic of talks with the new British government.

The United States is trying to shore up the international coalition fighting in Afghanistan, and Gates has said he will keep "going around with my hand out" to ask NATO nations and others to send additional forces to serve as trainers for Afghan security forces. Gates said he will not make that request of Britain, which he said has done all that he could have asked.
More on link


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## GAP (10 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 10, 2010*

 Photos: On patrol with Canadian troops in Afghanistan
  Article Link
Photographers Ed Jones of Agence France-Presse and Denis Sinyakov of Reuters, went on patrol with Canadian troops from the Royal Canadian Regiment in Afghanistan. Their photos document life in the war-torn country.

June 9, 2010
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Brigadier Ed Butler considered resigning over Helmand mission
Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor  June 10, 2010
Article Link

The man sent to command the first British deployment in Helmand considered resigning even before he arrived.

Brigadier Ed Butler was frustrated by “crazily” inadequate planning and a command structure that would leave him unable to control his battle group.

“In October 2005, I was close to handing my chips in,” the former SAS commander, who eventually left the Army two years ago, told The Times. “Some people said: ‘Ed, don’t be a dog in the manger about it.’ I responded that I was giving a purely professional view that what you are doing here was crazy.”

Asked why he did not resign, he said: “You feel your professional and personal obligations. This is an extraordinarily bad set of cards we have dealt ourselves ... you just make the best of a bad job.” 
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  Deaths bring to light the enduring search for the enemy
DAN OAKES June 10, 2010
Article Link

WHEN Kevin Rudd reacted to the deaths of sappers Darren Smith and Jacob Moerland by vowing that terrorists would never use Afghanistan as a staging ground again, he reached back through history to the dark days after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

Almost a decade ago, the then prime minister, John Howard, announced Australian troops would join the invasion of Afghanistan, and defined their mission thus: ''The immediate goal is to seek out al-Qaeda and ensure that Afghanistan can never again be used as a base from which terrorists can operate.''

Even as Australia's commitment waxed and waned - for three years it consisted of a lone mine clearance expert - this fixation on the elusive Osama bin Laden and his cohorts endured.
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 Good times don't come easy at Canadian Afghan outpost
Michael Georgy KALACHE Wed Jun 9, 2010 12:43pm EDT
Article Link

KALACHE Afghanistan (Reuters) - One of the most frequently attacked Canadian outposts in Afghanistan seemed relaxed Wednesday.

Soldiers joked around. Some listened to music. Others were building a makeshift television lounge.

Then suspected Taliban militants disguised as farmers opened fire on Ballpeen from a vineyard, leaving holes in laundry hanging near a machinegun nest.

Fighting here offers a glimpse into how the conflict in Afghanistan is being played out ahead of a gradual U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011.

Militants know they have little chance of capturing Ballpeen: Canadian troops suppressed them with machinegun fire after the initial volley; helicopters with rockets were quickly on hand, and there was the option of calling in an artillery barrage.

Instead, the Taliban are waging a war of psychological attrition against their NATO foe. They are waiting it out.

Western forces are scrambling to stabilize Afghanistan ahead of the American pullout, at a time when the insurgency is at its strongest in the nine-year war. Seventeen foreign military personnel have died this week alone.

Masters of the terrain, the Taliban hope to wear down and outfox NATO troops who possess far superior firepower.

Militants know every field and alleyway in Kalache, where Ballpeen outpost is located. Canadian patrols must move extra slowly in surrounding villages, especially with the risk of triggering crude roadside bombs known as Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

"They bury an IED on a path and just wait for us to step on it," said platoon leader Captain Ashley Collette.

"It could take months, or years. It doesn't matter to them. They are patient," she said.
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Military gathers Afghan detainee papers
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 9, 2010 | 4:31 PM ET Comments24Recommend15
The Canadian Press
  Article Link

The Canadian military has started collecting paperwork at Kandahar Airfield that could shed light on whether commanders turned over detainees to Afghan authorities without weighing the risk of torture.

A military team of four has arrived from Canada to retrieve thousands of highly sensitive documents stashed in metal shipping containers that detail the transfer of detainees from Canadian custody.

"It's not a document hunt," Lt.-Col. Shane Gifford, who is responsible for detainee files at the base, told The Canadian Press. "We know where all the documents are. It's not looking for something that fell behind the chairs or something."

The files are the subject of intense controversy in Canada. The Military Police Complaints Commission, an independent federal body, has asked the Defence Department to disclose all documents on detainees, including detainee transfer orders in Kandahar.

But the government says those files are beyond the commission's mandate and is trying to prevent their release. Two weeks ago, lawyers for the Justice Department filed an application with the Federal Court that seeks to overrule the commission's request.

The existence of the documents bec
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (10 Jun 2010)

Britain ignored Pentagon advice that Helmand force was too small
_The Times_, June 10
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7147041.ece



> When senior Pentagon officials paid a visit to London not long before the British deployment to Helmand, they came with a recommendation that the planned force might not be strong enough. Their words went unheeded.
> 
> The American view was that a brigade of only 3,300 soldiers would not be sufficient to take on the Taleban and that the British were being complacent about the capability of the enemy, The Times can reveal.
> 
> ...



The Whitehall mandarins who set up the bloodiest mission since Korea
_The Times_, June 10
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7147160.ece



> It was January 26, 2006, when Britain’s Defence Secretary announced the decision to send 3,300 troops to southern Afghanistan on a stabilisation mission. Two months later, John Reid uttered the fateful hope that the task force would return home after three years “without a shot being fired”.
> 
> Until now, the subsequent woes in Helmand, where almost 300 British servicemen and women have been killed and hundreds more injured, have largely been blamed on underfunding by the previous Government. Alleged misjudgments by Brigadier Ed Butler, the first commander on the ground, are also cited as a reason why what was billed as a development operation — admittedly backed by attack helicopters and manned by paratroopers — rapidly unravelled into the bloodiest fighting mission since the Korean War.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (10 Jun 2010)

General McChrystal: Kandahar operation will take longer
_Washington Post_, June 10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061000781.html?hpid=topnews



> BRUSSELS -- The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is finding himself squeezed between a ticking clock and an enemy that won't go away.
> 
> On Thursday, during a visit to NATO headquarters here, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal admitted that preparations for perhaps the most critical operation of the war -- the campaign to take control of Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace -- weren't going as planned. He said winning support from local leaders, some of whom see the Taliban fighters not as oppressors but as their Muslim brothers, was proving tougher than expected. The military side of the campaign, originally scheduled to surge in June and finish by August, is now likely to extend into the fall.
> 
> ...



'Still a long way to go' for U.S. operation in Marja, Afghanistan
_Washington Post_, June 10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/09/AR2010060906214.html



> MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- Residents of this onetime Taliban sanctuary see signs that the insurgents have regained momentum in recent weeks, despite early claims of success by U.S. Marines. The longer-than-expected effort to secure Marja is prompting alarm among top American commanders that they will not be able to change the course of the war in the time President Obama has given them.
> 
> Firefights between insurgents and security forces occur daily, resulting in more Marine fatalities and casualties over the past month than in the first month of the operation, which began in mid-February.
> 
> ...



Will Afghanistan's Military Ever Be Fit to Fight?
_Time_, June 14 (long article)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993886-1,00.html



> ...the success of the Obama Administration's full-throttle assault against the Taliban in its spiritual heartland of Kandahar hinges on getting the Afghan army on its feet and marching. And so does the likelihood of getting U.S. and NATO troops home anytime soon. (See pictures of life in the Afghan national army.)
> 
> It is a nearly impossible mission. Nine out of 10 Afghan enlisted recruits can't read a rifle-instruction manual or drive a car, according to NATO trainers. The officers' corps is fractured by rivalries: Soviet-era veterans vs. the former mujahedin rebels who fought them in the 1980s, Tajiks vs. Uzbeks, Hazaras and Pashtuns. Commanders routinely steal their enlisted men's salaries. Soldiers shake down civilians at road checkpoints and sell off their own American-supplied boots, blankets and guns at the bazaar — sometimes to the Taliban. Afghans, not surprisingly, run when they see the army coming.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (11 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 11

NATO chief urges nations to send more troops to Afghanistan training mission
AP, June 10
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/10/nato-chief-urges-nations-send-troops-afghanistan-training-mission/



> NATO's secretary-general urged members of the alliance Thursday to step up efforts to train the rapidly expanding Afghan security services to help the nation defeat the Taliban.
> 
> Anders Fogh Rasmussen told NATO's defense ministers that trainers are needed to help Afghanistan to "stand on its feet as a sovereign country and defend itself from terrorism."
> 
> ...



France will keep fighting the Taliban: Sarkozy
AFP, June 10
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100610/world/france_afghanistan_military_1



> ON BOARD THE CHARLES DE GAULLE (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Thursday that France will keep up the fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda after a 43rd French soldier was killed in Afghanistan this week.
> 
> "France cannot give up the struggle against terrorism and terrorists," Sarkozy said after touring France's flagship Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, which was moored off Toulon, southern France.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (11 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 11, 2010*

 NATO battles divided by Afghan river
Article Link
By Claire Truscott (AFP) – 14 hours ago

NAKHONAY, Afghanistan — Wading across a shallow Afghan river, American soldiers suddenly hear a burst of gunfire coming from behind, where they just met their Canadian comrades near a mud-brick village.

An Afghan soldier had shot dead a suspected insurgent near a hill where the Western allies sat huddled from a dust storm to coordinate their war effort against the Taliban outside southern Afghanistan's capital city Kandahar.

As the United States rolls out 30,000 more troops across Afghanistan and builds a campaign to secure Kandahar, billed the most decisive operation of the nine-year war, the nature of the fight differs from district to district.

While Americans say they are mostly "kissing babies and shaking hands" under General Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy to win hearts and minds, Canadians talk of daily firefights, ambushes and weapons caches.

The stark contrast was exposed when US soldiers of 1st squadron, 71st cavalry regiment trekked two kilometres (a mile) across wheat fields and the narrow Tarnak river, to confer with the Canadians.

"It's been pretty hectic, we've had a few shootouts," said one Canadian soldier. "We've been led into a couple of ambushes... we're getting hit every day," said another.

Until the Americans arrived in April under President Barack Obama's "surge", two districts bordering Kandahar city to the south -- Panjwayi and Dand -- were under the mandate alone of Canada's more than 2,800-strong force.

But Americans took on Dand and Canadians moved westwards to concentrate on Panjwayi, where tribal elders are aligned to senior Taliban, resistance has proved tenacious and NATO's deployment has been over-stretched for years.
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  The Pashtun Silent Suffering in Northwest Pakistan
By Shahrzad Noorbaloochi Epoch Times Staff Created: Jun 10, 2010
Article Link

Caught in-between the Taliban’s brutal force and the Pakistani government’s violent but inadequate response, the 3 million Pashtun people of northwestern Pakistan are caught in a serious, but seldom mentioned, human rights crisis.

Northwestern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and North West Frontier Province (NWFP) are nestled in the heart of both an international and domestic conflict.

A report released Wednesday by Amnesty International, based on 300 interviews with civilians, government officials, teachers, aid workers, and others, sheds light on the northwest Pakistani situation.

The Pakistani government has historically marginalized the people in the FATA and NWFP regions, who are mostly of the Pashtun ethnic group.

According to the AI report, the Pashtun people suffer from some of the lowest living standards in Asia. With an overall adult literacy rate of 17 percent, and as low as 7 percent for women and girls over 10 years old, the region is developmentally far behind the rest of Pakistan, which has an overall literacy rate of 43 percent. 
More on link

 Deadly clashes in Kyrgyzstan's southern city of Osh
Article Link

At least 26 people have been killed in clashes in Kyrgyzstan's second-largest city of Osh, officials say.

More than 400 people were wounded in the fighting, which is reportedly between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbek groups.

The cause of the clashes was not immediately clear. A state of emergency has been declared in the southern city.

Osh is home to a large ethnic Uzbek community and was the power base of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was overthrown in April.

According to local reports, fighting broke out between rival gangs and developed into gun battles late on Thursday. 

Gangs of young men armed with metal bars and stones attacked shops and set cars alight.

Firefighters tried to put out the flames, but angry youths reportedly threw stones at them.

Local journalists say a group of young men attacked soldiers and took their weapons.

Residents say the shooting continued into Friday morning.

A number of buildings, including cafes, a local TV channel and a theatre, were also said to be on fire. 
More on link

David Cameron tells troops they are on a noble mission in Afghanistan
Article Link
The prime minister managed to put into simple language a message Gordon Brown always tried, but struggled, to deliver

It wasn't quite Churchill. But neither was it Brown.

David Cameron stood up in a sandstorm at Camp Bastion shortly before 8am local time this morning (4.30am in Britain) to hail Britain's "inspiring" armed forces. The prime minister was on lively form, because he was up early for a 15-minute run at 6am round the base with a group of soldiers.

In his speech Cameron paraphrased Albert Pine to advise the troops on how to pick themselves up when they feel miserable:

    Think of that soldier who said: those things we do for ourselves, they die with us, those things we do for others and for our world are immortal, they never die, they are never forgotten.

    What you are doing here will never be forgotten. It is great and important work. You are incredibly brave and professional in what you do. I stand here as your prime minister wanting to tell you from the bottom of my heart that you should be proud of yourselves and what you do because your country is incredibly proud of you.

Cameron managed to put into simple language a message that Gordon Brown always tried, but struggled, to deliver on his numerous trips to Afghanistan. This is that British troops are engaged in what he regards as a noble mission – to protect streets back home by ensuring that Afghanistan never again becomes a training ground for al-Qaida – and they should be revered for it.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (11 Jun 2010)

“A War of Necessity,”says David Cameron
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, June 11
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1276275403/0#0



> --- AFGHANISTAN ---
> 
> Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies has written a report entitled The Afghan War: A Campaign Overview assessing the strengths and obstacles facing the Afghan mission now that it has a clear strategy and proper resourcing.
> http://csis.org/publication/afghan-war-campaign-overview
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## 57Chevy (12 Jun 2010)

Air force choppers out of Afghanistan by August 2011: General

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/force+choppers+Afghanistan+August+2011/3143024/story.html#ixzz0qbYcfsXG


KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — The Canadian air force is planning to withdraw all of its helicopters from Afghanistan within a few weeks of the end of Canada's combat mission next July, the air force general responsible for generating aircraft and crews for the war in South Asia said Friday.

The helicopters would be used until early August 2011 to help transport troops and equipment back from forward bases after the combat mission ends, said Maj.-Gen. Yvan Blondin, commander of 1 Air Division in Winnipeg.
                  ___________________________________________
More on link


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## GAP (13 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 13, 2010*

 Pakistani agents 'funding and training Afghan Taliban'
Article Link

Pakistani intelligence gives funding, training and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban on a scale much larger than previously thought, a report says.

Taliban field commanders interviewed for the report suggested that ISI intelligence agents even attend Taliban supreme council meetings.

Support for the Afghan Taliban was "official ISI policy", the London School of Economics (LSE) authors suggest.

Pakistan's military denied the claims.

A spokesman said the allegations were "rubbish" and part of a malicious campaign against the country's military and security agencies.

The LSE report comes at the end of one of the deadliest weeks for Nato troops in Afghanistan, with more than 30 soldiers killed.
'Double game'

Links between the Taliban and Pakistan's intelligence service have long been suspected, but the report's author - Harvard analyst Matt Waldman - says there is real evidence of extensive co-operation between the two. 

"This goes far beyond just limited, or occasional support," he said. "This is very significant levels of support being provided by the ISI.

"We're also saying this is official policy of that agency, and we're saying that it is very extensive. It is both at an operational level, and at a strategic level, right at the senior leadership of the Taliban movement."

Mr Waldman spoke to nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan earlier this year.

Some alleged that ISI agents had even attended meetings of the Taliban's top leadership council, the so-called Quetta shura. They claim that by backing the insurgents Pakistan's security service is trying to undermine Indian influence in Afghanistan. 
More on link

 Head of British military to leave job early as new government reassesses Afghan strategy
By: The Associated Press 13/06/2010 
Article Link

LONDON - The British government said Sunday it is shuffling its top military team as it grapples with the unpopular conflict in Afghanistan.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the head of the armed forces, Air Chief Marshall Jock Stirrup, will leave his job in the autumn, about six months early. His term had not been due to end until April 2011. The top civilian defence official will leave at the same time.

Fox told the Sunday Times newspaper that the two men had been in their jobs "longer than they needed to be."

Stirrup was appointed in 2006 by the Labour government, which lost power in May to a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday the two men were not being punished for the rising death toll in Afghanistan. He told the BBC they were leaving at "a natural time to have a change of personnel."

Some officers and defence officials have accused the previous government of underfunding front-line troops.

Hague said some aspects of defence policy "hadn't been run as well as it might have been," but that responsibility lay with politicians, not civil servants.
More on link

 Canadian troops tread fine line on village patrols
Article Link
 By Michael Georgy South Asia

KANDAHAR PROVINCE Afghanistan (Reuters) - Canadian soldiers with night vision goggles slowly navigate through grape fields, wary of triggering booby traps planted by Taliban insurgents.

The Taliban, who have fought NATO forces for nine years, are masters of the terrain, so they could have the advantage. Militants may be hiding a few feet away in irrigation ditches as deep as eight feet.

After hours of heavy hiking, the Canadians reach a hamlet of mud-brick huts they have never previously visited, seeking intelligence that is becoming more critical by the day as NATO troops push to stabilise Afghanistan before a gradual U.S. pullout in 2011.

A cell phone battery is discovered on a young man, immediately raising suspicions. Batteries are often used to trigger improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have killed more NATO soldiers than any other weapon in the conflict with insurgents.

Questioned through a translator about why he is carrying a battery and no cell phone, the Afghan responds: The Taliban don’t allow us to have them. They would arrest me and hold me for 15 days.

The Taliban frequently ban cell phones in areas where they operate to prevent being informed on.
More on link

 Fighting for basic rights in Afghanistan with laws and books
 By Terry Glavin, Calgary Herald June 13, 2010 2:02 AM
  Article Link 

Mohammed Ishaq Faizi is a courageous, tightly-wound, bantamweight human rights' activist from the small village of Dara, just north of Kabul.

Faizi grew up fatherless and desperately poor. He worked his own way through university, and he's still only 29, but he's already a key figure in Afghanistan's agonizing constitutional experiment in reconciling sharia law with international human rights law.

Faizi is the Afghanistan program director for the Washington, D.C.-based Global Rights organization, a network of human rights activists and jurists in 17 countries from Brazil to Bosnia-Herzegovina. He's also a lawyer and a teacher.

In the struggle for the rights of Afghan women, Faizi is not for flinching. He takes on controversial domestic-violence prosecutions and has helped women gain divorces from violent husbands. In 2008, he helped lead a Global Rights report on violence against women in 16 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

He made enemies. But that hasn't slowed him down.
More on link

 World Cup rivalry on Afghan frontline
By Daphne Benoit (AFP) – 5 hours ago
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — They are brothers in arms on the Afghan front line, but US and British troops were in opposing camps as they gathered under the stars to see their teams draw a tense World Cup clash.

Far from the packed bars flowing with beer back home, these fans in their camouflage fatigues, popcorn and mineral water bottles in hand, watched the game on a giant screen in the middle of their NATO camp in Kandahar.

"On Facebook I said I wish I had a nice lager tonight. But this isn't bad, at least they play the game here," said British sergeant Steven McNally, watching with three compatriots and surrounded by about 50 Americans.

Football is far from the main sporting interest in Camp Nathan Smith, principally because the mainly Canadian contingency, huge hockey fans, do not have a team to follow in the World Cup.

Americans are generally not referring to the sport beloved of the rest of the world when they talk about "football".

"I didn't know there was a World Cup of football" one US soldier said, evidently confusing his domestic sport of gridiron with the festival of soccer watched by billions across the globe every four years.

Just before kick-off, a message on the American Forces Network TV channel for US military deployed abroad rallied the troops with the call: "Whether you're English or American, your country needs you now."

England scored just a few minutes into the match and the British soldiers whooped jubilantly, remonstrating in front of their largely silent US comrades.

"That hurts," said one GI.

Others could not pick sides.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (13 Jun 2010)

Karzai seeks support for Kandahar operation
AP, June 13
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD9GA82M02



> KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought support Sunday for the NATO campaign to ramp up security in the key southern city of Kandahar and increase his government's influence in a Taliban stronghold rife with violence, crime and corruption.
> 
> Karzai flew to Kandahar for only his second trip in recent years to the city — the biggest in the south and spiritual birthplace of the Taliban.
> 
> ...



Poland wants NATO to plan an end to Afghan mission
Ap, June 12
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4tHHi0gqZ1hw5eGeRZQXyYf9PnwD9G9SJL00



> WARSAW, Poland — Poland's prime minister says he wants NATO to develop a timetable to end its mission in Afghanistan.
> 
> Donald Tusk said Saturday that he plans to raise the issue at the alliance's next summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in November.
> 
> His comments came after a Polish soldier was killed earlier in the day by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Poland has some 2,600 troops there, making it the seventh largest troop contributor to NATO's mission...



Michael Yon's War
_The Atlantic_, June 1 (usual copyright disclaimer)
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/michael-yons-war/57483/



> It began with a bridge. On the morning of March 1, a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated on Tarnak River Bridge near Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing multiple civilians and one American soldier. While the destruction of a single bridge might ordinarily pose a mere inconvenience to the U.S. war machine, in the oppressive terrain of Afghanistan it became a logistical chokepoint, halting ground-based operations for days.
> 
> War correspondent Michael Yon sought the answer to an uncomfortable question: who was responsible for the security of that bridge?
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## MarkOttawa (13 Jun 2010)

Canada's role shrinking in Kandahar; U.S. to take over command of the city
CP, June 13, by Murray Brewster
http://news.sympatico.ca/canada/canadas_role_shrinking_in_kandahar_us_to_take_over_command_of_the_city/3e3d68db



> OTTAWA - The influx of thousands of fresh U.S. troops into Kandahar is prompting a major reorganization of NATO's southern command in Afghanistan this summer, The Canadian Press has learned.
> 
> The biggest change is expected to see Canada give up authority for Kandahar city and be reduced to commanding a brigade-sized unit south and west of the provincial capital. It's another sign of Canada's shrinking role in the Afghan province that it has defended for four years.
> 
> ...



See earlier at this thread:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/49908/post-943567.html#msg943567

Allies Make Way for U.S. Troop Influx in Afghanistan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703302604575293880767637918.html 

Mark
Ottawa


----------



## MarkOttawa (14 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 14

Afghan insurgency will dissolve rather than be broken: new Canadian commander
CP, June 13
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/afghan-insurgency-will-dissolve-rather-than-be-broken-new-canadian-commander-96246939.html



> KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The insurgency in Afghanistan may remain for years to come but it will wither away into irrelevancy if NATO's counterinsurgency operations this summer are successful, Canada's new top soldier in the war-torn country says.
> 
> Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance said Afghanistan could find itself co-existing with a small, ineffective insurgent element as other countries do while still being able to deliver public services and security to its people.
> 
> ...



U.S. Backs Karzai on Security
Afghan President Urges Local Leaders to Support Allied Operation in Kandahar
_WSJ_, June 14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704067504575305002887026426.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news



> WASHINGTON—Senior U.S. officials continued to publicly back Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, despite his ousting last week of two top Afghan security officials who had the backing of U.S. military leaders.
> 
> People familiar with U.S. policy making, however, said the dismissals, coupled with remarks from one of the ousted officials asserting that Mr. Karzai has lost confidence in the American-led war effort, again raised questions about the kinds of deals that the Afghan leader might strike to try to consolidate his own political power ahead of U.S. troop withdrawals next summer.
> 
> ...



Afghanistan: beginning of the end
David Cameron will today set out a hard-headed new approach to Afghanistan that will raise hopes that British troop numbers in the country will be reduced in little more than a year.
_Telegraph_, June 13
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7825581/Afghanistan-beginning-of-the-end.html



> The Prime Minister will tell MPs that the Government was trying to accelerate the process that will allow forces to start coming home.
> 
> Government insiders said Mr Cameron was keen to start winding down a war he inherited from Labour.
> 
> ...



U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
_NY Times_, June 13
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?ref=todayspaper



> WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
> 
> The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (15 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 15, 2010*

 COP Tombstone: an outpost in the Wild West of Kandahar province
Article Link

Janis Mackey Frayer, South Asia bureau chief, CTV News

Date: Wednesday Feb. 24, 2010 1:51 PM ET

HAJI BABA, Afghanistan — The patrol set out along a graveled road and changed course to the lumpy paths worn into the fields. As they did most days, the soldiers of Delta Company headed toward the tree line to the southeast. The tree line is where they fall from sight and beyond it is where trouble begins.

"Everything here is IEDs," said Warrant Officer Bill Grady as he watched the patrol grow more distant. "Nobody is really shooting at us here but we're playing IED dodgeball."

What Grady calls "here" appears on most Canadian military maps as Combat Outpost (or COP for short) Shakir in the village of Haji Baba. It is a mud and grass-walled compound that belonged to a drug lord before the Taliban acquired its coveted view of a coalition operating base down the road.

When the soldiers of 1PPCLI took over the compound in November they instead dubbed it ‘COP Tombstone'. That the front lawn is the village's sprawling graveyard is only part of it. This district, Nakhonay, is shaping up to be the Wild West of Kandahar province. Only hundreds of metres from the Canadian post is where Taliban territory begins.

"This is where I'm planning to fight the insurgents during fighting season," said Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, the commander of Canadian Forces. "It will be at my time, my place."

That Menard plans to rout insurgents from known sanctuaries in Kandahar province is no secret. The new NATO strategy of openly advertising its battle plans was tested with Operation Mushtarak, the offensive to reclaim the Taliban bastion of Marja in central Helmand. Long before some 10,000 troops launched the assault, fliers warned residents of what was to come and military officials did not hesitate to telegraph that its forces were idling.

Marja, in a way, is a trial run for an offensive in Kandahar that promises to be similar in size and scale. More troops may actually be required to accomplish the same task of clearing Taliban safe havens and holding ground as insurgents are more spread out and enjoy better integration among Kandahar's farming villages and hard-scrabble towns.

As a war prize, Kandahar City, of nearly a million people, is deeply symbolic. Long a seat of political power, it is home to the family of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. It is also the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban and served as its cradle under founder Mullah Omar during its reign. 
More on link

Rural outreach to Afghans snags on technology and fear
Article Link

Afghanistan (Reuters) - Mortally wounded after setting off an improvised bomb, the boy might have survived. But rather than use the hotline provided them by Canadian troops, fellow villagers carried him out for treatment.

World

By the time they reached the Canadian outpost, using a wheelbarrow as a gurney, the 5-year-old was dead. A couple of days later, the soldiers were back in the Afghan hamlet of mud-brick huts to try to persuade its residents to be more forthcoming.

"While there is a system in place, it has deficiencies," said Major Austin Douglas, the company commander.

He was referring mainly to a telephone line set up to allow local Afghans to summon help or provide tip-offs about Taliban insurgents, with six translators on hand to pass on the calls.

The initiative has been stymied by logistics, and fear.

Cellphones are relatively rare in Afghanistan, especially in rural areas like Kandahar province, where the Taliban insurgency against U.S.-led foreign troops is at its most potent.

The Taliban regard cellphone users as potential spies, and Afghan service-providers have been known to turn off antennas at night -- when insurgents prefer to operate -- out of concern their own facilities could come under attack.

"They will just kill us if we speak to Western forces," said Abdul Wahab, a 25-year-old farmer.

Another man recalled an ugly encounter with the insurgents.

"They took me once for a long time and beat me and said if I talk with the Canadians they will behead me," he said with a throat-cutting gesture.
More on link

Britain must prepare for casualty spike in Afghanistan, Cameron warns
Article Link
 June 15, 2010

Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor

David Cameron warned yesterday that there would be more British deaths in Afghanistan this summer but said that the threat to Britain of an al-Qaeda attack from the region had dropped.

Delivering his first statement to Parliament on the war since taking office as Prime Minister, he pledged that British troops would not remain in Afghanistan a moment longer than was necessary.

“This is the vital year,” said the Prime Minister, who visited Afghanistan last week to speak to President Karzai and elements of Britain’s contingent of more than 10,000 troops, largely based in the southern province of Helmand.

“We have the Forces needed on the ground. We have our very best people, not just military but leading on the diplomatic and development front as well, but I do not pretend that it will be easy. 
More on link

 Insurgency will dissolve rather than be broken: Vance
Article Link

Updated: Mon Jun. 14 2010 04:39:46

The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The insurgency in Afghanistan may remain for years to come but it will wither away into irrelevancy if NATO's counterinsurgency operations this summer are successful, Canada's new top soldier in the war-torn country says.

Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance said Afghanistan could find itself co-existing with a small, ineffective insurgent element as other countries do while still being able to deliver public services and security to its people.

"It is absolutely not an effort that will have a cataclysmic effect on the insurgency," Vance said of NATO's operations.

"The insurgency will succumb to this over time. Insurgencies are rarely broken. They dissolve."

Vance spoke to several Canadian journalists Sunday at Kandahar Airfield in his first interviews since returning to resume command of Canada's 2,800 military personnel in Afghanistan.

He was deployed when his predecessor, Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, was relieved of duties and recalled from the base two weeks ago over an alleged affair with a female subordinate.

"My reaction was, 'OK, let's get on with this,' and I got here as quickly as I could," Vance said. "I wasn't happy about the circumstances, but it's an honour to serve here." 
More on link


----------



## MarkOttawa (15 Jun 2010)

Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance steps back into the battlefield
Will lead Canadian troops in a make-or-break moment after sex scandal took down predecessor
_Toronto Star_, June 15, by Paul Watson, Arctic-Aboriginal Affairs

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/823333



> KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, AFGHANISTAN—Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance likes to finish what he started. He feels good to be back in the fight...
> 
> During his first stint as commander in 2009, Vance won high praise from U.S. and other NATO commanders for an effort to weaken the insurgency by strengthening security and development aid for Afghans caught in the middle.
> 
> ...



NATO Struggles to Train Afghan Army, But Officials Cite Progress
VOA, June 14
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/news-analysis/Training-Building-Afghan-Army-Key-to-NATO-Exit-Strategy--96283978.html



> The sound of gunfire and yelling punctures the air as Afghan soldiers run through a recent exercise at the Kabul military training center. Firing blanks from their rifles, they advance on an identified enemy position as their NATO trainers watch.  While thousands of young Afghans are being run through their paces, this class may be one of the most important, because it is training the new leaders of the Afghan army.
> 
> Building a credible Afghan army is one of NATO's main tasks in Afghanistan and a pillar of its exit strategy. It is a massive undertaking, and the current lack of mid-level leadership experience leaves a big gap in the force.  But Afghans will have to learn more how to fight. They need the skills to maintain a functioning and effedtive military - everything from engineering to logistics, a task made more complicated by widespread illiteracy.
> 
> ...



Setbacks Cloud U.S. Plans to Get Out of Afghanistan
_NY Times_, June 14
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/world/asia/15military.html



> WASHINGTON — Six months after President Obama decided to send more forces to Afghanistan, the halting progress in the war has crystallized longstanding tensions within the government over the viability of his plan to turn around the country and begin pulling out by July 2011.
> 
> Within the administration, the troubles in clearing out the Taliban from a second-tier region and the elusive loyalties of the Afghan president have prompted anxious discussions about whether the policy can work on the timetable the president has set. Even before the recent setbacks, the military was highly skeptical of setting a date to start withdrawing, but Mr. Obama insisted on it as a way to bring to conclusion a war now in its ninth year.
> 
> ...



Concern on Capitol Hill about Afghanistan war grows
_Washington Post_, June 15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/14/AR2010061405553.html



> A series of political and military setbacks in Afghanistan has fed anxiety over the war effort in the past few weeks, shaking supporters of President Obama's counterinsurgency strategy and confirming the pessimism of those who had doubts about it from the start.
> 
> The concerns, fed largely by unease over military operations in southern Afghanistan that are progressing slower than anticipated, spurred lawmakers to schedule last-minute hearings this week to assess progress on the battlefield and within the Afghan government.
> 
> ...



Pakistan rejects report saying nation's intelligence agency aids Afghan Taliban
_Washington Post_, June 15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/14/AR2010061405056.html



> ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Pakistani officials on Monday angrily dismissed a report published this weekend alleging that the nation's primary intelligence agency finances, trains and at least partially controls the Afghan Taliban insurgency.
> 
> The report, issued by the London School of Economics and based on interviews with Taliban commanders and former Taliban officials, concludes that it is official Pakistani policy to support the rebellion as a bulwark against Indian influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan is an ally of the United States, which leads coalition forces fighting the Taliban.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (15 Jun 2010)

Helmand: anatomy of a disaster
_Foreign Policy_, June 15
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/15/helmand_anatomy_of_a_disaster



> As U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Mills takes over command of Helmand - Afghanistan's most violent province -- from the British this week, Britain's Conservative-led government of David Cameron is busy in London wrestling with the question: just what has been going wrong?
> 
> The shake-up of NATO command structures in Afghanistan -- which spins off a new divisional headquarters, Regional Command South West -- from the British-led Regional Command South in Kandahar, now places almost all of Britain's combat troops in Afghanistan rather uneasily under the leadership of an American.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (15 Jun 2010)

Afghanistan's woeful water management delights neighbors
Article Link
Any effort by Afghanistan to improve water management could ruffle neighbors, who benefit from the country's losing two-thirds of its water due to lack of infrastructure.
 By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / June 15, 2010 Herat, Afghanistan

For three springs now Zobair Ahrar has watched helplessly as annual flooding washed away 1,500 square meters of his land – about five percent of his property. A former dam designer turned farmer, Mr. Ahrar estimates it would cost $1 million to build a dam that could control the floods eroding the land in his and a hundred other villages. 

Mr. Ahrar approached the provincial Ministry of Irrigation for help. Officials told him they were investing in other places and he needed to fix the problem himself. Unable to afford the dam, he and his neighbors will either get outside help or eventually have to move.

Thirty years of war have left Afghanistan’s irrigation canals clogged and pitted, and farmers are beginning to feel the weight of decades of neglect. Aside from erosion, farmers lack the resources to build the canals capable of irrigating large swathes of land – and this in a country where agriculture employs more than three quarters of workers.

In order to develop, Afghanistan must revamp its water infrastructure, but doing so could spark tension with neighbors who’ve come to rely on excess water flowing from Afghanistan.

“Agriculture is really the economic driver at this stage,” says Allan Kelly, deputy country director of the Asian Development Bank, which has committed $400 million in grant money to irrigation in Afghanistan. “Improving irrigation is critical to agricultural sector growth … [otherwise] we’ll have the continuation of widespread poverty and declining irrigation.”
Most water flows abroad

Afghanistan doesn’t face a water shortage – it’s unable to get water to where it’s needed. The nation loses about two thirds of its water to Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and other neighbors because doesn't harness its rivers. The government estimates that more than $2 billion is needed to rehabilitate the country’s most important irrigation systems.

“The farmers are poor people. They cannot buy some machines to dig the canals,” says Khalil Entezari, head of irrigation in Herat for the Department of Agriculture. “If we don’t solve this problem it will continue to get bigger and bigger and farmers will continue to leave their land.”

One of the biggest attempts to address the problem is under way in Herat Province along the border with Iran, where India is funding the construction of a $180 million dam. The project, called the Salma Dam, will regulate river flow during flood season and reduce the amount of water that flows from the Hari Rud River to Iran and Turkmenistan from 300 million cubic meters per year to 87 million cubic meters. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (16 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 16

Taliban attacks on Canadians increasing
_Toronto Star_, June 15



> KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, AFGHANISTAN—Struggling to make major progress before pulling out in a year, Canadian troops are coming under increasing attack from insurgents bolstered by fresh fighters.
> 
> “It’s going to be a tough summer,” Lt-Gen. Marc Lessard, commander of Canadian forces abroad, told reporters here Tuesday. “Insurgent activity is high. What will it be a month or two from now? I don’t know.
> 
> ...



We played vital role, general says 
Holding Kandahar will be legacy left by Canadian Forces
Canwest News, June 16
http://www.canada.com/news/Somnia/3160053/story.html



> ...
> Canada still runs the war in Kandahar, directing a large number of American forces, but "everybody knows," that the Canadian footprint will narrow considerably in the near future, Lessard said, referring to a number of published reports about this recently by Canwest News Service and the Wall Street Journal.
> 
> A brigade of the U.S. army's 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is to take over leadership responsibility from Canada for Zhari and Arghandab in the very near future. Kandahar, where U.S. military policemen are to remain under Canadian command this summer, is about to become *home to a much larger U.S. MP force that will eventually report to a brigade of the 4th Infantry Division coming from Texas.*
> ...



Security boss leaves Canadian project in Afghanistan
_Toronto Star_, June 15
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/824115



> WASHINGTON—Another senior security boss has left Canada’s troubled signature project in Afghanistan — and this time the departing sentry is a former British commando with a storied resume that includes bodyguard duty for Michael Jackson, the Beckhams and the Saudi royal family.
> 
> Lee McNamara confirmed Tuesday he is no longer involved in the $50-million effort to restore Kandahar’s vital Dahla Dam irrigation project, telling the Toronto Star, “I’m done.”
> 
> ...



U.S. Bolsters Afghan Police to Secure Kandahar
_NY Times_, June 15
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/world/asia/16kandahar.html?ref=asia



> KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The American paratroopers climbed down from armored vehicles and spread out along Highway 1, Afghanistan’s main road. An Army engineering team moved behind.
> 
> This was a military patrol with an unusual touch. The paratroopers were not hunting the Taliban. The engineers were not looking for roadside bombs. They were taking measurements for a checkpoint to be built for the Afghan National Police.
> 
> ...



Militant Group Expands Attacks in Afghanistan
_NY Times_, June 15
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/world/asia/16lashkar.html?ref=world



> KABUL, Afghanistan — A Pakistani-based militant group identified with attacks on Indian targets has expanded its operations in Afghanistan, inflicting casualties on Afghans and Indians alike, setting up training camps, and adding new volatility to relations between India  and Pakistan.
> 
> The group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is believed to have planned or executed three major attacks against Indian government employees and private workers in Afghanistan in recent months, according to Afghan and international intelligence officers and diplomats here. It continues to track Indian development workers and others for possible attack, they said.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (16 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 16, 2010*

UK drug addict tells of Taliban recruitment
Article Link

BBC Asian Network's   Sanjiv Buttoo explains how a Muslim man went from being a drug addict in the UK to a militant fighting for the Taliban.

"They just gave me an AK47 assault rifle and I was taught how to strip the weapon, clean it and fire it as well as how to carry out guerrilla activities - I could not believe this was happening."

Irfan, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, recalls his experience of going to Pakistan and inadvertently being recruited by the Taliban.

His story arose because some Muslim parents in the UK send their children to Pakistan for them to beat an addiction to drugs.

In Irfan's case, throughout his late teens and early 20s he had found himself in and out of trouble with the police, while also being hooked on heroin. 

In an attempt to combat his drug addiction, his father took him to Pakistan for help.

"I was taken to a village called Tangir and left in a madrassa [religious school in Pakistan] where they said I would get help to come off the drugs," said Irfan.

"During the first few weeks I was given methadone which helped me withdraw from the heroin.

''After that I started receiving Koranic lessons and was eventually taught how to use weapons and fight.''

Irfan spent 40 days at the madrassa before he was recruited by Taliban militants to go to Afghanistan.

"They chose me because I could speak English and that was useful for them.

''I'm not the only person to be recruited. I'm sure many young Muslims like myself who go to Pakistan for rehab are also being targeted.'' 
More on link

 Afghanistan’s Civic War
Article Link
By JAMES TRAUB Published: June 15, 2010

POSTSCRIPT: On June 15, after this article went to press, Hajji Abdul Jabbar, district governor of Arghandab, was killed in a bombing, according to Afghan and United States officials.

Lt. Col. Guy Jones, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Second Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry, is on his fourth tour of Afghanistan. The first time around, in June 2002, when he was a 31-year-old company commander, his job was to find Osama bin Laden. He still has happy memories of working alongside Gul Agha Shirzai, the local strongman in Kandahar, who may have been loathed by the people but could be counted on to deliver American war materiel to anywhere in the region for only $5,000 a truckload. 

Now Colonel Jones has returned to the region to fight a very different war. Based in the Arghandab District, just north of Kandahar, he and his troops are at the epicenter of the looming American showdown with the Taliban. This time, he cannot win by making common cause with warlords. He can’t even win by shooting people. “I almost never do kinetic operations,” he said to me one night in April, using military talk for classic operations. We were sitting in an office in the Arghandab District Center — the seat of local government rather than of military operations. Just then his troops were seeking to clear insurgents from some villages to the north. “How do you separate the enemy from the people?” asked Jones, a natural-born pedagogue much given to the rhetorical question. “Well, one way is I can go out and just hang out there. Eventually they’ll get so frustrated that they’ll just leave. And then I know who to look for.” 
More on link

 Malicious Propaganda of the Western Media
Article Link
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 

While Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence agencies have broken the backbone of the Taliban militants, but still malicious propaganda of the Western media continues against Islamabad in one or the other form.

In this connection, on June 13, this year, a report, of the London School of Economics (LSE) alleged, “the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) not only funds and trains Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but is officially represented on the Quetta Shura, giving it significant influence over operations.” The report also accused President Asif Ali Zardari of visiting “senior Taliban prisoners in Pakistan earlier this year, where he is believed to have promised their release and help in militant operations…support for the Taliban is approved at the highest level of Pakistan’s civilian government”.

The ISPR spokesman Maj-General Athar Abbas has strongly rejected the report of the LSE as baseless. Presidential spokeswoman Farah Ispahani dismissed the allegations in the report as “absolutely spurious”. And Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, “When the entire world is recognising our efforts against terrorism, allegations against the ISI published in this controversial report are deeply hurting.”

However, Western malevolent propaganda against Pakistan army and ISI continues unabated. In this regard, on May 24, 2010, The Long War Journal, while quoting US military intelligence officials wrote, “The Pakistan-based Haqqani Network carried out suicide attack in Kabul on May 18 that killed a Canadian colonel, two lieutenant colonels, two US soldiers, and twelve Afghan civilians.” The Journal further elaborated, “The US officials disclosed the information that the attack was organized in Pakistan with the help of ISI.” On the same date, The New York Times also reported same allegation in one or the other way. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (17 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 17

Taliban Can Keep Weapons Under New Peace Initiative 
_WSJ_, June 17
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703513604575310982874634608.html?mod=fox_australian



> KABUL—A new coalition initiative to lure Afghan insurgents away from the battlefield allows the Taliban and other militants to keep their weapons if they sign on to a government peace plan, a senior coalition official said.
> 
> Instead of disarming insurgents who agree to stop fighting, the new program would let them keep weapons to provide security for their own communities, said British Maj. Gen. Philip Jones, who directs the reintegration effort for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization...
> 
> ...



Lawmakers hear different take on year-end review of Afghanistan war effort
_Washington Post_, June 17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/16/AR2010061602860.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead



> Senior defense and military officials Wednesday played down the importance of an end-of-year review that President Obama has described as crucial to assessing whether his Afghanistan war strategy is working, saying that it would have little bearing on decisions about troop withdrawals scheduled to begin in July 2011.
> 
> "I would not want to overplay the significance of this review," Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, told lawmakers. The military, he said, "would not make too much out of that."
> 
> ...



The Afghan roller coaster
_Washington Post_, June 17, editorial



> ...
> 
> Gen. Petraeus, who said "we have to be very careful with timelines," carefully described the July 2011 withdrawal date as "the point at which a process begins to transition security tasks to Afghan forces at a rate to be determined by conditions at the time." As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pointed out, that contrasts with the considerably less cautious statement of Vice President Biden, who told Newsweek's Jonathan Alter that "in July of 2011, you are going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it."
> 
> Mr. Karzai, who last week fired two cabinet ministers with close ties to the United States, seems to be betting on Mr. Biden rather than on Gen. Petraeus. His former intelligence minister told the New York Times that the Afghan president has written off the possibility of U.S. success and is positioning himself to make a deal with Pakistan and the Taliban. Whether or not that is true, it's clear that the confusion in U.S. policy is damaging the mission. Only one person can fix it -- and that is President Obama. It's time for him to make clear whether the United States is prepared to stay long enough to ensure a stable and peaceful Afghanistan.



Obama's mixed Afghanistan messages
Choices are stark: Stick to the timetable and drawdown, or stick it out until the job is done. And so far, he has signaled intent to do both. 
_LA Times_, June 17, by Doyle McManus
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe--mcmanus-column-20100617,0,6252488.story



> The news from Afghanistan has been bad lately. The military campaign to win control of Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, has slowed to a crawl. Taliban insurgents have filtered back into parts of southern Afghanistan that U.S. Marines had cleared in the spring. President Hamid Karzai, the erratic leader of Afghanistan's civilian government, has given only halfhearted support to the U.S.-led military effort — and has done little to clean up the corruption that undermines public support for his regime.
> 
> Yet when Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. military commander in Kabul, delivered an assessment of the state of the war last week, he said — very cautiously — that he is succeeding at his initial goal: interrupting the Taliban's momentum.
> 
> ...



In Afghanistan, a waiting game to outlast the Obama administration
_Washington Post_, June 17, by George Will
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/16/AR2010061604171.html?hpid=opinionsbox1



> ...
> The administration will review Afghanistan strategy in December, but last week Defense Secretary Robert Gates, defining success down, expressed the minimalist hope of "making some headway" by then. While the administration boasts of having a "boot on the neck" of BP, Britain wonders whether its severe budget crisis, which is aggravated by the evaporating value of its once largest corporation, should be ameliorated by withdrawing the 9,500 British troops in Afghanistan. *Canadian and Dutch combat troops begin withdrawing this summer* [emphasis added, I sent Mr Will an e-mail - MC]...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (17 Jun 2010)

Afghanistan: “Mixed Signal Surge”
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, June 17
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1276794628/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (18 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 18, 2010*

 Army Preps ‘Unblinking Eye’ Airship for Afghanistan
 Noah Shachtman June 17, 2010 
Article Link

God smiles when the Army spends a half-billion dollars on spy blimps the size of a football field.

I believe that’s the message Northrop Grumman is trying to convey in this illustration accompanying the company’s announcement of a $517 million, five-year contract to build three combat airships for the military.

The military already employs a fleet of blimps to look for enemies and relay communications. But none of them are as big, as high-flying, or as far-seeing as this Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV. It’s supposed to float at 20,000 feet for up to three weeks at a time, snooping on absolutely everything below with a variety of sensors.

“Basically what we see it as is an unblinking eye,” LEMV project manager Marty Sargent tells Inside Defense.

Sargent figures it would take as many as 12 of the military’s advanced Reaper surveillance drones “to do the same mission that the LEMV would do.”

The first airship is supposed to be inflated around 10 months from now. Eight months later, the Army hopes to have the first LEMV flying over Afghanistan. On that day, the clouds will part, the sun will shine, and the cherubs will sing as the unblinking eye begins looking for Taliban.
end

 Jonathon Narvey: The prospect of wealth in Afghanistan
Article Link

I’ve often attempted to remind readers of the importance of holding the line in Afghanistan for progressive reasons and firm principles: support for the universality of human rights, defense of women and children targeted by the thugs in the Taliban, support for democracy, the institutions of modernity and a better life for people who deserve something more than tyranny.

I’ve noted that this mission is something both in the finer tradition of Canadian interventions on behalf of freedom abroad. It is also a shining example of a United Nations-supported mission that has brought together the brave soldiers, aid workers and resources of dozens of nations in the fight against fascism and darkness.

On this note, the signs coming from Canadian politicians like Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff as well as a growing number of Conservative politicians and commentators about a renewed role for Canada in Afghanistan are very encouraging. Their brave words calling for a public debate on this important issue ought to be heeded by the Prime Minister, and quickly.

But the confirmation of perhaps $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan changes the equation for some people. With reptilian logic, they will point to a conspiracy of international neo-cons and their shadowy corporate masters being the real reason for international intervention — as though 9/11 never happened and Afghanistan had never served as a safe haven for some of the worst examples of thuggery and terror that this planet has to offer.

As any rational thinking person would, I dismiss these conspiracists out of hand. But their cynical response does certainly beg the question: what precisely is wrong about foreign mining companies making a decent profit and employing thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Afghans in good, high-paying jobs that don’t involve the heroin trade or freelance work for the insurgency? And if keeping the insurgency down permanently and avoiding a return of terror bases to Afghanistan also provides some insurance that our trade routes and economies will not be sabotaged into recession, resulting in more financial hardship for both Wall Street and Main Street, what’s wrong with that, either?
More on link


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## The Bread Guy (18 Jun 2010)

Insurgents Plant Bomb Disguised As Candy in Afghan Neighborhood
1st Lt. Brian MacKey, DVIDS, 06.06.2010 11:12
Article link

Last week U.S. Army combat engineers with the 20th Engineer Battalion took part in the clearance of a shrapnel-laden IED disguised as a bag of candy, located in a neighborhood crowded with children.

The Task Force LUMBERJACK Route Clearance Patrol investigated the device, reported by a U.S. Stryker Unit already on the scene. Using loudspeakers, the platoon was able to keep the villagers clear while they neutralized the device with the support of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team.

In Afghanistan's Kandahar Province, insurgents are using despicable desperation tactics such as these. Task Force LUMBERJACK Route Clearance Patrols are finding and clearing an increased number of IEDs before they can be detonated on civilians or coalition forces. In the past 14 days, insurgents have planted three IEDs in this neighborhood alone packed with shrapnel to target people on foot. They have disguised them as household items; in addition to the candy, they have been found planted in a blanket and a basket ....



Afghan Civilians Help Police Repel Taliban Attack
defense.gov, 16 Jun 10
Article link

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2010 – Afghan civilians helped police to repel an attack by an estimated 50 Taliban fighters against a police checkpoint in Afghanistan’s Daykundi province June 14, military officials reported.

Ten national police officers manning a checkpoint in Kajran came under heavy small-arms and rocket fire just after noon and called for support.

About 250 civilians gathered with personal assault rifles and, along with police reinforcements and International Security Assistance Force aircraft, forced the Taliban fighters to retreat.

U.S. Special Forces soldiers responded and provided medical aid to injured Afghan policemen at the request of the Kajran district security manager. Two of the policemen died of their wounds.

This is the second time this year that residents of Daykundi province have fought the Taliban, officials said. On April 21, residents of Gizab captured several Taliban fighters, and when nearly a dozen insurgents retaliated by attacking the town, the town's local defense force, supported by coalition aircraft, repelled the attack ....

_More on links_


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## MarkOttawa (18 Jun 2010)

Gates Concerned About Pessimism on Afghanistan
American Forces Press Service, June 17
http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=59687



> Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is concerned about emerging public pessimism and cynicism regarding the outcome of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said here today.
> 
> Gates says Americans need to remember what was happening in Afghanistan a year ago to appreciate how far the country has progressed since then, Morrell said.
> 
> ...



Germany's Mission in Afghanistan
Ex-Defense Officials Skeptical of Success
_Spiegel Online_, June 18
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,700745,00.html#ref=nlint



> The belief that things will end well in Afghanistan is dwindling in Germany. An increasing number of security experts recommend an orderly withdrawal and even those who were involved in sending the Bundeswehr on the mission are now voicing doubts about ultimate success.
> 
> Former Defense Minister Peter Struck, the man who once declared that Germany's security would be "defended in the Hindu Kush" drives his own car again -- the days of his chauffeur-driven armored government vehicle are over. He also needs a ticket for the parking garage in order to drive his car back out Struck tells the waiter at the Hotel Berlin restaurant on Lützowplatz, where the interior still seems to date from the deepest days of West Berlin behind the Wall, the days when Germany still settled its contributions to international military missions with a checkbook.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (19 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 19, 2010*

 Child Brides Escape Marriage, but Not Lashes
Article Link

video

The two Afghan girls had every reason to expect the law would be on their side when a policeman at a checkpoint stopped the bus they were in. Disguised in boys’ clothes, the girls, ages 13 and 14, had been fleeing for two days along rutted roads and over mountain passes to escape their illegal, forced marriages to much older men, and now they had made it to relatively liberal Herat Province. 

Instead, the police officer spotted them as girls, ignored their pleas and promptly sent them back to their remote village in Ghor Province. There they were publicly and viciously flogged for daring to run away from their husbands.

Their tormentors, who videotaped the abuse, were not the Taliban, but local mullahs and the former warlord, now a pro-government figure who largely rules the district where the girls live.

Neither girl flinched visibly at the beatings, and afterward both walked away with their heads unbowed. Sympathizers of the victims smuggled out two video recordings of the floggings to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which released them on Saturday after unsuccessfully lobbying for government action.

The ordeal of Afghanistan’s child brides illustrates an uncomfortable truth. What in most countries would be considered a criminal offense is in many parts of Afghanistan a cultural norm, one which the government has been either unable or unwilling to challenge effectively.

According to a Unicef study, from 2000 to 2008, the brides in 43 percent of Afghan marriages were under 18. Although the Afghan Constitution forbids the marriage of girls under the age of 16, tribal customs often condone marriage once puberty is reached, or even earlier.

Flogging is also illegal.

The case of Khadija Rasoul, 13, and Basgol Sakhi, 14, from the village of Gardan-i-Top, in the Dulina district of Ghor Province, central Afghanistan, was notable for the failure of the authorities to do anything to protect the girls, despite opportunities to do so. 
More on link

In Camouflage or Veil, a Fragile Bond
Article Link

Video

Two young female Marines  trudged along with an infantry patrol in the 102-degree heat, soaked through their camouflage uniforms under 60 pounds of gear. But only when they reached this speck of a village in the Taliban heartland on a recent afternoon did their hard work begin. 

For two hours inside a mud-walled compound, the Marines, Cpl. Diana Amaya, 23, and Cpl. Lisa Gardner, 28, set aside their rifles and body armor and tried to connect with four nervous Afghan women wearing veils. Over multiple cups of tea, the Americans made small talk through a military interpreter or in their own beginner’s Pashtu. Then they encouraged the Afghans, who by now had shyly uncovered their faces, to sew handicrafts that could be sold at a local bazaar.

“We just need a couple of strong women,” Corporal Amaya said, in hopes of enlisting them to bring a measure of local commerce to the perilous world outside their door.

Corporal Amaya’s words could also describe her own daunting mission, part of a program intended to help improve the prospects for the United States in Afghanistan — and also, perhaps, to redefine gender roles in combat. 
More on link

 Thirsty Pakistan gasps for water solutions
Article Link
Experts say country is facing a water crisis that could see it run dry in several decades

Sahar Ahmed

Karachi — Reuters Published on Friday, Jun. 18, 2010 10:15AM EDT

Pakistan is facing a “raging“ water crisis that if managed poorly could mean Pakistan would run out of water in several decades, experts say, leading to mass starvation and possibly war.

The reliance on a single river basin, one of the most inefficient agricultural systems in world, climate change and a lack of a coherent water policy means that as Pakistan’s population expands, its ability to feed it is shrinking.

“Pakistan faces a raging water crisis,” said Michael Kugelman, program associate for South and Southeast Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

“It has some of the lowest per capita water availability in Asia, and in the world as a whole.”

The vast majority - between 90 and 95 per cent - of Pakistan’s water is used for agriculture, the U.S. undersecretary for democracy and global affairs, Maria Otero, told Reuters. The average use in developing countries is between 70 and 75 per cent.

The remaining trickle is used for drinking water and sanitation for Pakistan’s 180 million people.

According to Mr. Kugelman, more than 55 million Pakistanis lack access to clean water and 30,000 die each year just in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, from unsafe water.

“Of the available water today, 40 percent of it gets used,” Ms. Otero said. “The rest is wasted through seepage and other means.”
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (19 Jun 2010)

NATO asks for Dutch troops in Afghanistan--report 
Reuters, June 17
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE65G1VN.htm



> NATO renewed a call on the Netherlands on Thursday to keep troops in Afghanistan after a Dutch parliamentary election last week held to replace a government that collapsed over the troop mission.
> 
> The Dutch Labour party left the Dutch cabinet in February because it did not want the mission in the Afghan province of Uruzgan to continue beyond August. A new government is being formed after a parliamentary election held last week.
> 
> ...



Pakistan, Afghanistan begin talks about dealing with insurgents
_Washington Post_, June 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061805638.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead&sid=ST2010061805889



> ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Afghanistan and Pakistan are talking about how to make peace with insurgents fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including one faction considered the coalition forces' most lethal foe, according to Pakistani and U.S. officials.
> 
> The discussions reflect the beginnings of a thaw in relations between Kabul and Islamabad, which are increasingly focused on shaping the aftermath of what they fear could be a more abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops than is now anticipated. But one element of the effort -- outreach by Pakistan to the militia headed by the young commander Sirajuddin Haqqani -- faces opposition from U.S. officials, who consider the al-Qaeda-linked group too brutal to be tolerated.
> 
> ...


   

U.S. military criticized for purchase of Russian copters for Afghan air corps
_Washington Post_, June 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061805630.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead



> The U.S. government is snapping up Russian-made helicopters to form the core of Afghanistan's fledgling air force, a strategy that is drawing flak from members of Congress who want to force the Afghans to fly American choppers instead.
> 
> In a turnabout from the Cold War, when the CIA gave Stinger missiles to Afghan rebels to shoot down Soviet helicopters, the Pentagon has spent $648 million to buy or refurbish 31 Russian Mi-17 transport helicopters for the Afghan National Army Air Corps. The Defense Department is seeking to buy 10 more of the Mi-17s next year, and had planned to buy dozens more over the next decade.
> 
> ...


  

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (19 Jun 2010)

Visiting Kandahar doctors hope to return with medical gear
 By Katie DeRosa, Victoria Times Colonist June 18, 2010
Article Link

VICTORIA — It's difficult to see the victim of a bomb blast rushed into your emergency room, only to realize the hospital doesn't have the tools or staff to save the person's life, says Dr. Mohammad Dawod.

"If you don't have (the right equipment), you're leaving the patient to die."

Dawod, director of Mirwais Hospital in Afghanistan's war-ravaged Kandahar district, and colleague Dr. Mohammad Azid Zahim, are in Victoria this week to share the challenges that hospital is facing, while learning about the medical equipment Canadian doctors have at their disposal.

The doctors toured the Canadian Forces Health Services Centre Pacific at CFB Esquimalt, looking enviously at the state-of-the-art X-ray equipment, physiotherapy room and triage area.

Zahim and Dawod met medical staff who have served in Afghanistan and shared a sombre moment as they passed a memorial for six health-care workers who died during their tours.

Hosted by the Langford fire department, Colwood Rotary Club, University of B.C. and Vancouver General Hospital, the doctors arrived in Canada June 5 and will be here until July 6. They have toured Vancouver General and Langford Fire Department and spoken to Rotarians and local students to raise awareness about their desperate need for better equipment.

Mirwais Hospital lacks a portable digital X-ray machine, ventilator and cardiac monitor, all of which can mean the difference between life and death for patients with severe trauma or in intensive care, Dawod said.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (20 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 20

Afghanistan Not Improving, U.N. Says 
AP, June 19
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704365204575316152350276886.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_world



> KABUL, Afghanistan — A United Nations report released Saturday painted a grim picture of the security situation in Afghanistan, saying roadside bombings and assassinations have soared the first four months of the year amid ramped up military operations in the Taliban-dominated south.
> 
> The United Nations' findings appeared at odds with Pentagon assertions this week claiming slow-but-steady progress in Afghanistan — an assessment challenged by U.S. lawmakers during hearings on Capitol Hill.
> 
> ...



Afghan forces' apathy starts to wear on U.S. platoon in Kandahar
_Washington Post_, June 20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/19/AR2010061902815.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead&sid=ST2010061902995



> KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- First Lt. James Rathmann was in a hurry. Five 40-foot containers full of U.S. military gear had been ransacked. There could be Taliban fighters sifting through American uniforms, gear and weapons.
> 
> Before he could find what was missing, though, Rathmann would need to battle with an ally, a burden that has become all too common in the country's second-largest city, the latest focus of U.S. military officials struggling to turn the tide on a worsening conflict.
> 
> ...



U.S. Hopes Afghan Councils Will Weaken Taliban
_NY Times_, June 19
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/world/asia/20nadali.html?ref=global-home



> NADALI, Afghanistan — More than 600 men, most of them farmers with weathered faces and rough hands, sat on the ground under an awning, waiting all day to deposit their ballots in plastic boxes. They had braved Taliban threats and road mines to come here to select a district council, part of a plan to strengthen local government in the most unstable parts of Afghanistan.
> 
> “The important thing is we are trying to build trust between the people and the government,” said Qari Mukhtar Ahmad, a senior cleric attending the election last month. “This district was under fighting for a long time, but now there is peace and we have to listen to the people and bring them together.”
> 
> ...



An NCO recognizes a flawed Afghanistan strategy
_Washington Post_, June 20, by George Will
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061803760.html



> Torrents of uninteresting mail inundate members of Congress, but occasionally there are riveting communications, such as a recent e-mail from a noncommissioned officer (NCO) serving in Afghanistan. He explains why the rules of engagement for U.S. troops are "too prohibitive for coalition forces to achieve sustained tactical successes."
> 
> Receiving mortar fire during an overnight mission, his unit called for a 155mm howitzer illumination round to be fired to reveal the enemy's location. The request was rejected "on the grounds that it may cause collateral damage." The NCO says that the only thing that comes down from an illumination round is a canister, and the likelihood of it hitting someone or something was akin to that of being struck by lightning.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (20 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 20, 2010*

 Asset list reveals Afghan president earns $525 a month
By DAYED SALAHUDDIN, Reuters  June 20, 2010
Article Link

Afghan president Hamid Karzai earns just US$525 a month, has less than $20,000 in the bank and owns no land or property, according to a declaration of his assets on Sunday by an anti-graft body.

Although his modest remuneration is five times the national average, it contrasts sharply with salaries of leaders in the West, where U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron rake in around $400,000 a year.

Karzai's assets were published by the High Office for Oversight and anti-Corruption Commission as part of a decree aimed at providing greater transparency among officials.

Although the Taliban insurgency remains the greatest threat to Afghanistan's stability, graft at almost every level of society remains a major complaint of ordinary Afghans and anyone doing business with the country.

The anti-graft body is registering the assets of at least 2,000 officials - including ministers, members of parliament, senior military and police officers and provincial leaders - and will start publishing them this week.

"This covers assets held by officials, their wives and children below the age of 18," Mohammad Yasin Usmani, the commission's chief, told Reuters on Sunday.

Any official found to have withheld information risked prosecution, he said.

Senior current and former Afghan officials - including two of Karzai's deputies - are believed to own buildings and assets worth tens of millions of dollars - at home and abroad.

Some have also been involved in major contracts awarded by foreign forces, and police have been questioning 17 current and ex-ministers on suspicions of graft.

While Karzai has acknowledged a corruption problem, he says it is exaggerated by Western media and insists the biggest source of graft is poor oversight of billions of dollars in aid contracts that dwarf Afghanistan's budget.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates conceded in March that Washington needed to do more to clean up its contracting procedures.
More on link

 Former Blackwater firm gets Afghan security contract
Associated Press June 19, 2010
Article Link

Part of the company once known as Blackwater Worldwide has been awarded a more than $120 million contract to protect new U.S. consulates in the Afghan cities of Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, the U.S. Embassy said Saturday.

The United States Training Center, a business unit of the former Blackwater, now called Xe Services, was awarded the contract Friday, embassy spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

The company won the contract over two other American firms — Triple Canopy and DynCorps International, she said. The one-year contract can be extended twice for three months each for a maximum of 18 months.

Under the name Blackwater, the Moyock, North Carolina-based company provided guards and services to the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere but came under sharp criticism for its heavy-handed tactics in those missions.

It has been trying to rehabilitate its image since a 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square that killed 17 people, outraged the Iraqi government and led to federal charges against several Blackwater guards.

The accusations later were thrown out of court after a judge found prosecutors mishandled evidence. The Justice Department has appealed that ruling.
More on link

 Afghans go AWOL from U.S. base
17 went missing while training in Texas; some have returned
NBC News and news services Fri., June 18, 2010
Article Link

SAN ANTONIO - U.S. military investigators are asking law enforcement nationwide to be on the lookout for some of the 17 Afghan military members who went AWOL while training in Texas over the past 18 months.

Air Force spokesman Gary Emery said Friday the Afghanis disappeared from Lackland Air Force Base one-by-one. The men were vetted by the military and aren't believed to be connected to one another or to any terrorist group, Emery said. All had been studying English at the Defense Language Institute as a precursor to training sponsored by the U.S. and Afghan militaries.

The disappearances were reported to immigration and federal law enforcement when they occurred, but a nationwide alert was issued Wednesday. It wasn't immediately clear what prompted the alert.
end

 Next for Afghanistan, the Curse of Plenty?
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Published: June 18, 2010
Let’s suppose there is $1 trillion worth of minerals under Afghanistan, as senior American officials and a confidential Pentagon memo said last week.
Article Link

Is that a good thing — for either Afghanistan or the United States?

Some experts in mining and in Third World resource politics argue that it is not.

Because it takes up to 20 years for a mine to start earning profits and Afghanistan has been a battleground for 31 years, “no mining company in its right mind would go into Afghanistan now,” said Murray W. Hitzman, a professor of economic geology at the Colorado School of Mines.

The country’s underground treasure “will be good for the warlords and good for China, but not good for Afghans or the United States,” predicted Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and the author of “Resource Wars” and “Blood and Oil.”

History tends to second such skepticism. The great empires of the world were built thanks to gold mines, not atop them. It’s the little mercantile nations with their cohesive political systems and fierce navies that have looted the big feudal ones paved with rubies. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (21 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 21

U.S. eager to replicate Afghan villagers' successful revolt against Taliban
_Washington Post_, June 21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/20/AR2010062003479.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead



> GIZAB, AFGHANISTAN -- The revolt of the Gizab Good Guys began with a clandestine 2 a.m. meeting. By sunrise, 15 angry villagers had set up checkpoints on the main road and captured their first prisoners. In the following hours, their ranks swelled with dozens of rifle-toting neighbors eager to join.
> 
> Gunfights erupted and a panicked request for help was sent to the nearest U.S. troops, but the residents of this mountain-ringed hamlet in southern Afghanistan held their ground. By sundown, they managed to pull off a most unusual feat: They kicked out the Taliban.
> 
> ...



Diggers die in Afghan chopper crash
Three Australian Commandos and a US soldier have been killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. 
ABC (Australia), June 21
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/21/2932888.htm



> The diggers were among 10 Australians from the Special Operations Task Group on the coalition forces helicopter when it went down in rugged terrain in Northern Kandahar.
> 
> The chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said the crash at 3:39am (Afghanistan time) was not the result of enemy action.
> 
> ...



ADF says Diggers inflicted 'substantial' losses to insurgents in Shah Wali Kot district 
_The Australian_, June 16
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/adf-says-diggers-inflicted-substantial-losses-to-insurgents-in-shah-wali-kot-district/story-e6frg8yo-1225880528346



> *AUSTRALIAN special forces troops say they inflicted "substantial" losses* [emphasis added] in battles against the Taliban during a joint operation with Afghan forces in northern Kandahar province.
> 
> The five-day offensive in the Shah Wali Kot district involved heavy fighting in which a significant number of insurgents died, said the Australian Defence Force, which released new photos from the clashes.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (22 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 22

White House summons top Afghanistan general McChrystal
Reuters, June 22
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100622/pl_nm/us_usa_afghanistan_mcchrystal



> The White House has summoned the top U.S. general in Afghanistan to Washington to explain controversial remarks critical of the Obama administration, U.S. military and Obama administration officials said on Tuesday.
> 
> The move comes a day after General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, apologized for comments by his aides insulting some of President Barack Obama's closest advisers in an article to be published in Rolling Stone magazine...
> 
> ...



U.S. indirectly paying Afghan warlords as part of security contract
_Washington Post_, June 22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062104628.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead



> The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional investigators.
> 
> The security arrangements, part of a $2.16 billion transport contract, violate laws on the use of private contractors, as well as Defense Department regulations, and "dramatically undermine" larger U.S. objectives of curtailing corruption and strengthening effective governance in Afghanistan, a report released late Monday said.
> 
> ...



U.S. Said to Fund Afghan Warlords to Protect Convoys
_NY Times_, June 21
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/world/asia/22contractors.html



> American taxpayers have inadvertently created a network of warlords across Afghanistan  who are making millions of dollars escorting NATO convoys and operating outside the control of either the Afghan government or the American and NATO militaries, according to the results of a Congressional investigation released Monday.
> 
> The investigation, begun last year by the House Subcommittee for National Security, found that money given to these Afghan warlords often amounts to little more than mafia-style protection payments, with some NATO convoys that refused to pay the warlords coming under attack.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## MarkOttawa (23 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 23

Australia may start Afghanistan pullout in 2 years
AP, June 23
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_on_re_as/as_australia_us_afghanistan;_ylt=AjbUpECky5Dsdya0Y6vKKWCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTN2bW03MmtwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNjIzL2FzX2F1c3RyYWxpYV91c19hZmdoYW5pc3RhbgRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzEEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNhdXN0cmFsaWFtYXk-



> CANBERRA, Australia – Australia  may start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in two years if its mission to train Afghan soldiers goes as planned, the defense minister said Wednesday.
> 
> The timetable, while loose, was the most detailed yet given by Canberra for bringing troops home from an almost nine-year-old war that is increasingly unpopular among Australians. And it added pressure on a U.S. administration struggling to show progress against a stubborn insurgency, while losing key allies along the way.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (24 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 24, 2010*

General Faces Unease Among His Own Troops, Too
By C. J. CHIVERS Published: June 22, 2010
Article Link

iding shotgun in an armored vehicle as it passed through the heat and confusion of southern Afghanistan  this month, an Army sergeant spoke into his headset, summarizing a sentiment often heard in the field this year. 

“I wish we had generals who remembered what it was like when they were down in a platoon,” he said to a reporter in the back. “Either they never have been in real fighting, or they forgot what it’s like.”

The sergeant was speaking of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and the circle of counterinsurgents who since last year have been running the Afghan war, and who have, as a matter of both policy and practice, made it much more difficult for troops to use airstrikes and artillery in the fight against the Taliban.

No matter the outcome of his meeting on Wednesday in Washington over caustic comments he and his staff made about President Obama and his national security team, the general, or his successor, faces problems from a constituency as important as his bosses and that no commander wants to lose: his own troops.

As levels of violence in Afghanistan climb, there is a palpable and building sense of unease among troops surrounding one of the most confounding questions about how to wage the war: when and how lethal force should be used.

Since last year, the counterinsurgency doctrine championed by those now leading the campaign has assumed an almost unchallenged supremacy in the ranks of the American military’s career officers. The doctrine, which has been supported by both the Bush and Obama administrations, rests on core assumptions, including that using lethal force against an insurgency intermingled with a civilian population is often counterproductive.

Since General McChrystal assumed command, he has been a central face and salesman of this idea, and he has applied it to warfare in a tangible way: by further tightening rules guiding the use of Western firepower — airstrikes and guided rocket attacks, artillery barrages and even mortar fire — to support troops on the ground.

“Winning hearts and minds in COIN is a coldblooded thing,” General McChrystal was quoted as telling an upset American soldier in the Rolling Stone profile that has landed him in trouble. “The Russians killed 1 million Afghans, and that didn’t work.” COIN is the often used abbreviation for counterinsurgency.

The rules have shifted risks from Afghan civilians to Western combatants. They have earned praise in many circles, hailed as a much needed corrective to looser practices that since 2001 killed or maimed many Afghan civilians and undermined support for the American-led war. 
More on link


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## GAP (25 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 25, 2010*

 Measuring success and failure in Afghanistan
By Michael A Innes
Article Link

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) launched Operation Moshtarak in the Nad Ali and Lashkar Gah districts of Afghanistan's Helmand province in mid-February.

The intent was to wrest it from Taliban control and create a "bubble of security" for local governance, described in an ISAF press release as "an Afghan-led initiative to assert government authority in the center of Helmand province". [1] The operation involved the deployment of 15,000 allied and Afghan troops, among them American, British, Danish, Estonian and Canadian elements from ISAF's Regional Command South, as well as five
More on link

 Afghanistan's only golf course: Bring your clubs and AK-47
Article Link

The nine-hole Kabul golf course is the only one in Afghanistan. The greens are petroleum black. The fairways filled with rocks and scrub. But that doesn't stop golf aficionados who play with a ball finder and armed security guards. 

After war, a time for golf.

There is nary a blade of grass at the Kabul Golf Club, just outside Afghanistan’s capital. The greens are not green; they are hard-packed brown sand, laced with oil and swept clean to keep the putting surface smooth. The fairways are rock-strewn and scrub-filled.

Ball finders – required, according to course rules – accompany golfers and their caddies, who carry a swatch of artificial turf and tee up each new shot. Without the ball finders to search in all the brush and undergrowth, a round of golf would likely be much shorter here at Afghanistan’s only course. Why? Because most golfers would give up before finishing.

Michael Alexander, a Londoner who has played his way across some of Britain’s best courses, notes that golf at the nine-hole Kabul Golf Club provides moments that playing at St. Andrews can’t.

“The Army checkpoint,” for example, he says. “The free [ball] drop at the Army checkpoint – that was the real difference with St. Andrews,” says Mr. Alexander, tongue in cheek.

A recent charity tournament here brought out 44 golfers, paying $100 each, for the privilege of playing the hard-scrabble course west of Kabul.

The tournament netted $4,000 last year for two local charities, said tournament director Richard Day, a Canadian working in Afghanistan since November 2006. This year’s outing, the third in three years, is expected to donate a like amount to two local nongovernmental groups, the Women of Project Hope and PARSA, which work to assist disadvantaged members of Afghan’s society such as the disabled, widowed, or orphaned.
More on link

 War buddies: Petraeus and Natyncyzk face Afghanistan
by John Geddes on Thursday, June 24, 2010 
Article Link

It’s no surprise that Gen. Walt Natynczyk, the Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, is praising his old friend Gen. David Petraeus as a grand choice to replace Gen. Stanley “Runaway” McChrystal as the new American commander in Afghanistan.

Both Natynczyk and Petraeus hit their strides as soldiers  in Iraq after the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne Division out of Baghdad in those days, while Natynczyk, on loan to the U.S. military, served in Baghdad as deputy commanding general of the multi-national corps—even though Canada, as you might recall, officially stayed out of that war.

How much the two generals’ shared understanding of Iraq can be applied directly to the situation in Afghanistan, though, is wide open to debate. Petraeus is the famous strategist who oversaw the U.S. reversal of fortune in Iraq, orchestrating the troop surge and fostering the so-called “Sunni Awakening” partly by paying local Sunni leaders to ally themselves with the Americans and fight Al-Qaeda.

But Petraeus has rightly voiced skepticism about drawing comparisons between Iraq and Afghanistan. History teaches that Kabul has only occasionally exerted much control over the country, whereas strong regimes have traditionally ruled from Baghdad. Restoring a central government tradition is surely easier than inventing one.

Petraeus’s counter-insurgency doctrine, which McChrystal had been struggling to implement, calls for winning over the locals, rather than just winning battles. It demands lots of troops and plenty of patience. Yet U.S. President Obama has promised to begin drawing down American forces from Afghanistan next summer, when a complete Canadian withdrawal is also slated to start.
More on link


 Police find 11 beheaded bodies in Afghanistan
By REUTERS 
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The bodies of 11 men, their heads cut off and placed next to them, have been found in a violent southern province of Afghanistan, a senior police official said on Friday.

A police patrol discovered the bodies on Thursday in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province, north of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, said police official Mohammad Gulab Wardak.

“This was the work of the Taliban. They beheaded these men because they were ethnic Hazaras and Shi’ite Muslims,” he said.

The Taliban were not immediately available for comment about the incident. The militants usually dispute claims by Afghan and foreign security forces.

Hazaras, who make up roughly 15 percent of Afghanistan’s population of around 30 million, largely follow the Shi’ite sect of Islam, a minority in Afghanistan, rather than the Sunni Muslim Taliban, who are also primarily ethnic Pashtuns.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (25 Jun 2010)

Afghanistan: Change of Personnel But Not of Strategy
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, June 25
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1277484709/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (26 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 26, 2010*

Inside a crumbling Afghan coal mine
 Friday, 25 June 2010 13:02 UK  By Quentin Sommerville BBC News, Pul-e Khumri, northern Afghanistan 
Article Link

The coal wagon rattles along, descending sharply under the hills of Pul-e Khumri, deep into the mine.

At about 100m (328ft) down, the tunnel narrows and it is striking how primitive it all looks.

The roof is held up by bent and twisted wooden stakes which look like they were put in many hundreds of years ago rather than 60 years ago, when the mine was first dug.

It was the Soviets who first discovered Afghanistan's huge mineral wealth: coal, gold, silver, iron and copper ore, and more besides.
Little safety

More recent surveys say it could be worth trillions of dollars.
Mine at Pul-e Khumri Afghanistan has vast mineral resources

But decades of war mean that these vast natural resources have hardly been touched.

And in the Pul-e Khumri coal mine, nothing much has changed since the Soviets left.

Down inside the mine, at 300m below the hills, the miners scrape the coal from the rock, and fill the wagons.

Except for a ventilation fan there is no mechanical or electrical equipment. And there's little safety gear either - everybody is absolutely filthy.

The air is cool, until the shaft takes a turn, then the heat becomes intense.

It is very hard, physical, work but there is no shortage of coal. It glistens in the wall, at times it pours from the rock face.
'Dig by hand'

But Afghanistan has neither the means nor the money to get it out of the ground.
More on link

 US airstrike kills 2 in North Waziristan
By Bill RoggioJune 26, 2010
Article Link

Unmanned US strike aircraft killed two "militants" in an attack on a compound in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan in Pakistan.

A Predator or the more deadly Reaper fired a missile at a Taliban safe house in the Mir Ali area, killing 2 terrorists and wounding three more.

"It was a US drone strike," a local intelligence official in nearby Miramshah told Geo News. "The drone fired one missile on a house and the house was completely destroyed."

The town of Mir Ali is a known stronghold of al Qaeda leader Abu Kasha al Iraqi, an Iraqi national who is also known as Abu Akash. He has close links to the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. The Haqqani Network and Hafiz Gul Bahadar also have influence in the Mir Ali region.

Abu Kasha serves as the key link between al Qaeda's Shura Majlis, or executive council, and the Taliban. His responsibilities have expanded to assisting in facilitating al Qaeda's external operations against the West.
More on link

 Afghan minister vows no corruption over mineral riches
Article Link
(AFP) – 3 hours ago

LONDON — Afghanistan's mines minister has vowed total transparency in the awarding of contracts to exploit vast mineral wealth that could net the war-torn country 3.5 billion dollars a year by 2015.

Wahidullah Shahrani, in London to woo foreign investment in the Hajigak iron ore deposit in the mountains west of Kabul, told reporters Friday the government had taken steps to clean up its reputation for corruption.

It was committed to global mining standards and any revenue would be verified by independent international auditors "to help the government to achieve and to attain the highest degree of transparency", he said.

Shahrani estimated that revenues from mineral, oil and gas reserves -- including 1.6 billion barrels of oil in the Afghan-Tajik Basin -- could wean Afghanistan off aid by 2015.

"After 15 years, the revenue to the government treasury should be 3.5 billion dollars each year," he said.

The minister added: "That will be the time when Afghanistan will be declared a self-sufficient country in meeting all of its expenditure."

President Hamid Karzai said in January that the deposits could help one of the world's most impoverished nations become one of the richest, based on preliminary findings of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

A recent study by US geologists found Afghanistan had reserves of valuable minerals, including lithium, iron, gold, niobium, mercury and cobalt, on a larger scale than previously believed, worth about a trillion dollars.
More on link

 Joint Canadian-Afghan operation leads to 10 arrests 
  Article Link

The Canadian Press

Date: Friday Jun. 25, 2010 12:40 PM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canadian and Afghan troops have wrapped up a successful military operation in the Panjwaii district without firing a single shot.

The operation, which ran from June 20-25 involved the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment Battlegroup along with Afghan security forces near the village of Chalghowr.

The mission was to push the Taliban out of the area and to keep the region under government control.

Maj. Mike Blanchette says the village of Chalghowr, about nine kilometres from Kandahar city, had recently seen a rise in insurgent activity which was targeting and terrorizing the local villagers.

He says 10 insurgents were arrested and caches of IEDs and related materials were found and disabled. 
More on link

 Afghanistan: The 7/11 problem
Article Link
By Charles Krauthammer  Friday, June 25, 2010

President Obama was fully justified in dismissing Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The firing offense did not rise to the level of insubordination -- this was no MacArthur undermining the commander in chief's war strategy -- but it was a serious enough show of disrespect for the president and for the entire civilian leadership to justify relief from his post. 

Moreover, choosing David Petraeus to succeed McChrystal was the best possible means of minimizing the disruption that comes with every change of command, and of reaffirming that the current strategy will be pursued with equal vigor.

The administration is hoping that Petraeus can replicate his Iraq miracle. This includes Democrats who, when Petraeus testified to Congress about the Iraq surge in September 2007, accused him of requiring "the willing suspension of disbelief" (Sen. Hillary Clinton) or refused to vote for the Senate resolution condemning that shameful "General Betray Us" newspaper ad (Sen. Barack Obama).

However, two major factors distinguish the Afghan from the Iraqi surge. First is the alarming weakness and ineptness -- to say nothing of the corruption -- of the Afghan central government. One of the reasons the U.S. offensive in Marja has faltered is that there is no Afghan "government in a box" to provide authority for territory that the U.S. military clears. 
More on link

 Kyrgyzstan failure could boost Afghan drug trade, Islamist radicals
Article Link
The recent wave of ethnic violence is Kyrgyzstan's second violent upheaval in five years. A June 27 referendum could bolster the weak government, but lingering security problems may hamper the vote.

A wave of brutal ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, which officials now admit killed as many as 2,000 people, threatens to turn the mountainous Central Asian nation of 5 million into a failed state. A failed Kyrgyztan could destabilize its neighborhood, offer a target for the region's Islamist radicals, and provide a haven for narcotraffickers working the opium pipeline from Afghanistan, experts warn.

The crisis has also pointed up the limitations of the international community – especially Russia – when responding to civic emergencies in that volatile part of the world. While the Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalalabad burned, sending almost 100,000 ethnic Uzbeks fleeing into Uzbekistan, Moscow dithered and then sent a few planeloads of humanitarian aid.

"People often frame the discussion about Central Asia in terms of competition between the big powers, but at this point it's not about geopolitical struggle: It's about who will take responsibility for providing regional security," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading Moscow foreign-policy journal. "I think just about everyone now hopes Russia will do it, but it is not at all clear that Russia has the capacity or the will to do much."
More on link


 Taliban kill 10 Pakistani troops, capture 40 more in northwest
By Bill Roggio June 16, 2010
Article Link

The Pakistani military was hit hard this week by the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban operating in Pakistan’s lawless northwest. Ten Frontier Corps troops were killed and 40 more were captured during fighting in Bajaur and Mohmand, two regions where the military has declared victory in the recent past.

The Afghan Taliban captured 40 paramilitary Frontier Corps troops yesterday after clashes along the border between the Pakistani tribal agencies of Bajaur and Mohmand. Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistan's top military spokesman, confirmed the attack and said the Afghan Taliban captured the troops after overrunning a Pakistani military outpost, Reuters reported. The Afghan Taliban released five of the troops at the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, while the 35 other troops are still thought to be in the custody of the Taliban.

The report of the Afghan Taliban capturing Pakistani troops took place just one day after the terror group denied receiving support from Pakistan's government and intelligence services. Interestingly, the Afghan Taliban have not harmed the Pakistani troops despite claiming that Pakistan supports the US in Afghanistan.

Several major Taliban groups, including the Haqqani Network and the Tora Bora Military Front, operate in Nangarhar and are known to shelter and train across the border in Mohmand and Bajaur. Anwarul Haq Mujahid, the commander of the Tora Bora Military Front, and Maulvi Abdul Kabir, the former leader of the Peshawar Regional Military Council, are both said to be in Pakistani custody.
More on link

 Pakistan Is Said to Pursue Foothold in Afghanistan
By JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and CARLOTTA GALL. Published: June 24, 2010
Article Link

Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests, Pakistani and American officials said.

The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis in their plan as they detect increasing American uncertainty, Pakistani officials said. The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, preferred General McChrystal to his successor, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom he considers more of a politician than a military strategist, said people who had spoken recently with General Kayani.

Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.

In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership. 
More on link

 Gates, Mullen Comment on McChrystal Situation
Article Link
By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2010 – Judgment and civilian control of the military were at the heart of President Barack Obama’s decision to accept Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s resignation as the NATO and U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today.Video

Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both said they “fully support” Obama’s decision and his nomination of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus to replace McChrystal.

“Like the president, I deeply regret the circumstances that made this decision necessary,” Gates said during a Pentagon news conference. “General McChrystal is one of the finest officers and warriors of his generation, who has an extraordinary record in leading the fight against some of this country’s most lethal enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Gates and Mullen said McChrystal showed poor judgment with regard to the Rolling Stone profile in which he and members of his staff were critical of administration officials. The situation “has made his continued service in that post and as a member of the national security team untenable,” Gates said. “The statements and attitudes reported in the news media are unacceptable under our form of government, and are inconsistent with the high standards expected of military leaders.”

The chairman said he was stunned when he read the Rolling Stone profile.

“I cannot excuse his lack of judgment with respect to the Rolling Stone article or a command climate he evidently permitted that was at best disrespectful of civilian authority,” Mullen said. “We do not have that luxury, those of us in uniform. We do not have the right, nor should we ever assume the prerogative, to cast doubt upon the ability or mock the motives of our civilian leaders, elected or appointed.”

Military personnel are and must remain a neutral instrument of the government, he said. Servicemembers must be accountable to and respectful of civilian leaders “no matter which party holds sway or which person holds a given office,” Mullen said.
More on link

Afghanistan: Marjah battle not yet won
Thursday, 24 June 2010 21:19 UK
Article Link

Four months ago, foreign forces in Afghanistan launched a major operation to clear insurgents out of the district of Marjah, in Helmand province. It was a test of the US-led counter-insurgency strategy. But as the BBC's Ian Pannell found on his return to Marjah, the outcome has been far from decisive.
Marjah residents - June 2010 Many Marjah residents say jobs and security are still in short supply

They are interviewing for a new baker in Loy Chareh. The last man to do the job was forced to close down, despite reaping handsome profits from the hundreds of soldiers and police recently deployed to Marjah's district capital.

But the Taliban objected to what they saw as his collaboration by serving bread to "the enemy".

When they threatened to kidnap the baker's son, he closed the business and left town.
Force, fear and religion

Hundreds of other families have also been forced to leave because of the appalling security situation. The Afghan Red Crescent says it has processed more than 200 families in the last month.

Their stories vary but the theme is usually the same. Despite the injection of hundreds of millions of dollars, many residents of Marjah say security has deteriorated.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (26 Jun 2010)

Frustrated Canadian soldiers are killing time, more than Taliban
Strict rules of engagement restrict troop tactics: ‘Our mission is not to provide fire support. It is to be prepared to provide fire support’
_Toronto Star_, June 26
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/828977--frustrated-canadian-soldiers-are-killing-time-more-than-taliban



> PANJWAI DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN—Seconds after the command “Guns! Guns! Guns!” crackled over the loudspeakers, Canadian soldiers were swarming around their howitzers, preparing to open fire.
> 
> One shouted coordinates, others cranked hard to get the long barrel up and precisely aimed. Another placed a hand-held computer over the tip of a 155 mm shell to feed blast instructions to a memory chip in the fuse.
> 
> ...



Petraeus to Modify Afghanistan Rules of Engagement, Source Says
Fox News, June 25
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/25/petraeus-modify-afghanistan-rules-engagement-source-says/



> A military source close to Gen. David Petraeus told Fox News that one of the first things the general will do when he takes over in Afghanistan is to modify the rules of engagement to make it easier for U.S. troops to engage in combat with the enemy, though a Petraeus spokesman pushed back on the claim.
> 
> Troops on the ground and some military commanders have said the strict rules -- aimed at preventing civilian casualties -- have effectively forced the troops to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.
> 
> The military source who has talked with Petraeus said the general will make those changes. Other sources were not so sure, but said they wouldn't be surprised to see that happen once Petraeus takes command...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (27 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 27

US to replace Netherlands in Oruzgan
AAP, June 23
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/7446852/us-to-replace-netherlands-in-oruzgan/



> The United States will replace the Netherlands as lead nation in Afghanistan's troubled Oruzgan province, heading up a multinational force that includes Australia.
> 
> The changes, announced by Defence Minister John Faulkner in Canberra on Wednesday, come as the 1800-strong Dutch task group prepares to withdraw from the region where Australian troops have operated since 2006.
> 
> ...



A Year at War
One Battalion’s Wrenching Deployment to Afghanistan
_NY Times_, June 26
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/world/27battalion.html?ref=todayspaper



> ...
> These are the faces of the new American surge in Afghanistan. For the next year, the First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y., will be living, working and fighting in the fertile northern plains of Afghanistan, part of the additional 30,000 troops who will make up the backbone of President Obama’s plan for ending the nine-year war...
> 
> *In the increasingly restive provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan* [emphasis added], the 1-87 will be opening a new front and waging a different kind of war. Its job will be to train the local police, secure a vital highway to Central Asia and expand the shaky writ of President Hamid Karzai’s government in the north.
> ...



Overture to Taliban Jolts Afghan Minorities
_NY Times_, June 26
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/world/asia/27afghan.html?ref=todayspaper



> KABUL, Afghanistan — The drive by President Hamid Karzai  to strike a deal with Taliban leaders and their Pakistani backers is causing deep unease in Afghanistan’s minority communities, who fought the Taliban the longest and suffered the most during their rule.
> 
> The leaders of the country’s Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities, which make up close to half of Afghanistan’s population, are vowing to resist — and if necessary, fight — any deal that involves bringing members of the Taliban insurgency into a power-sharing arrangement with the government.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (28 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 28

Challenges litter path to Afghan victory 
[Local] Diplomacy key to securing Kandahar security
Canwest News, June 28, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Challenges+litter+path+Afghan+victory/3209969/story.html



> "We've got be able to close this city down and trap the Taliban," was Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance's blunt message to half a dozen Canadian and U.S. colonels who were accompanying the commander of Task Force Kandahar on a road journey around the provincial capital last week.
> 
> But building more than a dozen checkpoints and small outposts on a tight timeline has proven hugely problematic in a city where civilians and government officials come out of the woodwork to claim ownership of the land every time military engineers show up to scope out potential sites.
> 
> ...



Britain will not defeat Taliban and should open talks, says head of Army
Britain and its allies will not defeat the Taliban with military force and should soon open peace talks with insurgents in Afghanistan, the head of the Army said yesterday.
_Daily Telegraph_, June 28
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7857889/Britain-will-not-defeat-Taliban-and-should-open-talks-says-head-of-Army.html



> General Sir David Richards said he believed the time had come for negotiations with Nato’s enemies to pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of troops.
> 
> The Chief of the General Staff said that while British forces would continue to “punish” the Taliban battle by battle, he was “less certain” that an overall victory could now be secured.
> 
> ...



Corruption Suspected in Airlift of Billions in Cash From Kabul
_WSJ_, June 25
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704638504575318850772872776.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories



> KABUL—More than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, a sum so large that U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.
> 
> The cash—packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into airplanes—is declared and legal to move. But U.S. and Afghan officials say they are targeting the flows in major anticorruption and drug trafficking investigations because of their size relative to Afghanistan's small economy and the murkiness of their origins.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (29 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 29

German Defence Minister questions role of Nato in Afghanistan war
_Independent_, June 29
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-defence-minister-questions-role-of-nato-in-afghanistan-war-2013056.html



> Germany is arguing for the aims of Nato's operations in Afghanistan to be significantly scaled down and wants the alliance to adopt criteria to ensure that it never commits itself to a similarly open-ended mission in future.
> 
> This was the message conveyed by the German Defence Minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, during a lecture at a London think-tank yesterday.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (30 Jun 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND JUNE 30

Letter from Afghanistan: Timelines and a centralized Afghan govt. both suck
_The Best Defense_, June 29
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/29/letter_from_afghanistan_timelines_and_a_centralized_afghan_govt_both_suck



> A friend of mine on his 6th combat tour in recent years writes:
> 
> "It is violent. More violence than I have seen -- even beyond the 2006-2007 violence in Iraq. It is huge IEDs, serious, complex attacks with weapon systems, etc. We have one INF CO with 10 KIAs and we are into this tour just 3 weeks.
> 
> ...



German minister warns against Afghan 'end-date'
AFP, June 29
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJNQ0zt8haq4wNU2etS5JtNUbl3w



> Setting an end-date for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan would play into the hands of insurgents, Germany's defence minister said Tuesday, warning of a "tough summer."
> 
> "The least helpful thing for us -- both domestically and as an alliance -- is to set an end-date for departure," Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told the Financial Times in an interview.
> 
> ...



Report Criticizes U.S. System for Evaluating Afghan Forces
_NY Times_, June 29
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/world/asia/29training.html?ref=todayspaper



> The system the United States used for the past five years to rate the readiness of Afghanistan’s Army and police force was seriously flawed and there was no reliable way to measure any progress, according to a report by a special inspector general that was released on Monday.
> 
> Despite spending by the United States of $27 billion on the training of Afghan security forces since 2002, the report found that even top-rated Afghan units could not operate independently and that the ratings of many security forces overstated their actual capabilities. In addition, the report said some parts of the country were so dangerous that assessment teams could not rate the security forces in those areas at all.
> 
> ...



NATO retools in a key mission: Building an Afghan police force
_Washington Post_, June 30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/29/AR2010062904791.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead



> When Gen. David H. Petraeus begins his new job as top military commander in Afghanistan, his success will hinge in part on a group of green-uniformed Afghan recruits who recently practiced a mock ambush at the country's main police academy in Kabul.
> 
> As the men battled wooden props with fake weapons, an Italian instructor called out: "Remember, police are always the victims of the ambush, so they have to react to them." A few yards away, other trainees were searching a truck for a hidden bomb, the cause of many of the nearly 1,600 fatalities among Afghan police officers in the past two years.
> 
> ...



The Road to Kabul Runs Through Islamabad
Pakistani leaders are desperate to broker a deal with Karzai and the Haqqani network. Petraeus understands why. (usual copyright disclaimer)
_WSJ_, June 30, by Najam Sethi
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704103904575336551084011556.html



> Lahore, Pakistan
> 
> Last weekend at the G-20 meeting in Toronto, President Barack Obama said that "conversations between the Afghan government and the Pakistan government" that might promote a political settlement in Afghanistan "are a useful step." He added that such conservations should be viewed "with skepticism, but also with openness." So it's official: The road to Kabul likely runs through Islamabad.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (30 Jun 2010)

*Articles found June 30, 2010*

 Military restricts use of vehicles vulnerable to IEDs
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
Article Link

WASHINGTON — Top commanders in Afghanistan have further tightened restrictions on the use of vulnerable vehicles after roadside bomb attacks that have killed eight U.S. soldiers since late May.

The new rules come as attacks from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have spiked to record levels and insurgents create ever more lethal bombs.

One of those bombs killed five soldiers June 7 when it destroyed their Humvee in eastern Afghanistan.

The Humvee's fatal flaw, a 2008 Pentagon inspector general's report found, is that its "flat bottom, low weight, low ground clearance and aluminum body" leave it vulnerable to IEDs buried in roads. Military officials had known of that weakness since 1994, according to the report.

At the time of the attack in June, troops needed at least a lieutenant colonel to approve leaving a protected base in a Humvee, according to Maj. Patrick Seiber, an Army spokesman for forces in eastern Afghanistan.

This month, the commander of coalition forces in the region raised the authorization for Humvee use to the level of colonel, Seiber said in an e-mail.

The change by Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, had been discussed for some time, Seiber said, and was not simply a reaction to the attack June 7.
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 This Week at War: The Afghanistan Vortex
Article Link

Gen. David Petraeus now has the unenviable task of salvaging the campaign in Afghanistan. In his announcement of Petraeus's transfer, U.S. President Barack Obama stated that there will be no change in the campaign's strategy. With the president reaffirming his administration's analysis of the situation and its strategy for solving the problem, the implication is that success will come with continuity in management, better cooperation among the players, and more resources.
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 8 militants killed in gun battle at Afghan airport
Article Link
CTV.ca News Staff  Wed. Jun. 30 2010 

Militants tried in vain to storm an air field used by Afghan and international forces on Wednesday, using a car bomb to created a distraction and then storming the entrance.

A 30-minute gun battle then ensued with NATO forces, with the militants using light weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

When it was over, eight insurgents had been killed. An Afghan solider and one international service member were wounded in the fighting, NATO said.

"They were not able to breach the perimeter. They were fought off by a combination of Afghan and coalition security forces," German Army Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, a spokesman for NATO, told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday.

The incident happened at an airfield on the outskirts of Jalalabad city, in the country's east, near the border with Pakistan.

"This base is guarded by international and Afghan forces," CTV's Janis Mackey Frayer told Canada AM early Wednesday. 
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 UN vehicle shot in Afghan capital, driver hurt
Article Link

The Associated Press

Date: Tuesday Jun. 29, 2010 6:17 AM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan — A UN vehicle was shot up at a busy traffic circle in Afghanistan's capital Tuesday, and at least one person was hurt, witnesses said.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw a white pickup truck with a blue UN logo painted on the side: Its windows were shattered and blood was spattered inside the truck. Police flooded the area around Massoud circle — an intersection near the U.S. Embassy and an American military base.

Two people were in the vehicle, but only the driver was hit, said a man who saw the shooting. He only gave one name — Mirajudin.

Neither UN nor police officials could immediately be reached for comment 
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 Afghan forces woefully unprepared: report
Article Link

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Tue. Jun. 29 2010 3:44 PM ET

A damning new report says the U.S. has vastly overestimated the capability of Afghan military and police units, calling into question NATO's strategy for winning the war and sending international troops home.

The report by U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Arnold Fields, is the first objective look at the military's rating system, which has been used to judge the effectiveness of the Afghan troops.

A mere 23 per cent of Afghan soldiers and 12 per cent of police can work unsupervised, the report says.

The findings of the report are in strict contrast to a number of upbeat statements by senior military personnel on the effectiveness of the Afghan units.

Auditors also found extremely high levels of absenteeism, corruption, drug abuse and illiteracy among Afghan forces. 
More on link

 NATO, civilians give two accounts of fatal operation
Article Link

The Associated Press

Date: Monday Jun. 28, 2010 12:02 PM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — NATO said Monday that a Taliban commander was among several armed people killed during a search operation in Kandahar, but residents claimed the troops killed eight innocent civilians, including two elderly men.

NATO said in a statement that coalition and Afghan troops went to a compound outside Kandahar city where they immediately came under hostile fire. The troops returned fire in self-defense and killed several armed men, including Taliban commander, Shyster Uhstad Khan, who was involved in the purchase and distribution of roadside bombs, NATO said.

The coalition said the combined force also detained an individual who was suspected of having direct contact with senior Taliban leaders in Kabul and facilitated the delivery of explosive devices to the capital.

Residents describe the search operation differently in Kandahar, where Afghan and coalition forces are ramping up security in hopes of driving out insurgents, gaining the loyalty of residents and bolstering the Afghan government's control of the Taliban stronghold.

Mohmodullah, a relative of some of the victims, told The Associated Press at the scene that eight civilians were killed when troops searched two homes around 2 a.m. Monday near Bagh-e-Pul.

"The NATO force climbed over our wall and shot two of my brothers and my father," said Mohmodullah, who uses one name. "They did the search operation and they didn't find anything in our home so who gave them the authority to do it? If they were Taliban, they need to show us proof. Otherwise, they should be punished for it."

Mohammad Shah Farooqi, head of the investigation unit of the Kandahar police, agreed, saying, "We have no records on these people so it seems to me that they are locals or innocent people." But he said he was still working on a final investigative report to send to his superiors.

Also Monday, NATO reported killing a local leader of the Haqqani group, a Taliban faction with close ties to al Qaeda, in an airstrike the night before in Khost province of eastern Afghanistan. The leader, known only as Satar, was responsible for planting roadside bombs in the area, NATO said. 
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 Envoy agrees with Afghanistan plan
  Article Link
Foreign forces must meet obligations before Afghans take control of security

By Jennifer Campbell, The Ottawa Citizen June 30, 2010
Afghan Ambassador Jawed Ludin says the warning issued by G8 leaders last week that Afghan President Hamid Karzai must provide detailed plans on how -- within a five-year period -- Afghans will take responsibility for their own security while also eliminating corruption will not be a problem for his president.

The idea that foreign troops want to withdraw by then is understood, Ludin said. "This is completely consistent with Mr. Karzai's own promise in his inauguration speech after his election last fall, and also with the expectations of the Afghan people who want to take responsibility sooner rather than later," Ludin said.

He stressed, however, that the achievement of this goal would not just depend on Karzai and the people's willingness, but also "to the extent that the international community is prepared to give us the tools whereby we can take this responsibility."
More on link

 Captured: Chris Hondros in Afghanistan
Article Link
Posted Jun 29, 2010

Chris Hondros has been covering international conflicts since the late 1990s. Hondros spent years photographing the Iraq War and its consequences for both U.S. military personnel and Iraqi civilians. In Afghanistan, he has spent years accompanying troops on missions, documenting U.S. military hospitals in Afghanistan and the people who live in the regions of conflict. Below is a collection of Hondros’ photographs from late 2009 to the present.
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## MarkOttawa (30 Jun 2010)

Afghanistan: “A Winnable War”
Conference of Defence Associations' media update, June 30
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1277918625/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (22 Jul 2010)

*Articles found July 22, 2010*

 Canada night watch keeps eye out for Taliban
  Article Link
 By Mike Patterson, AFP July 21, 2010

Silhouettes of jagged, rocky mountains frame the horizon under a moonless Afghan sky as troops from a Canadian reconnaissance squadron begin their nightly watch for militants.

The Milky Way arcs overhead as patrol commander Sergeant Raymond Woodcroft, of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, takes over a surveillance position at a observation post, which keeps an eye on nearby roads and fields stretching across the dusty plain in a corner of restive Kandahar province.

The post is one of a few in Panjwayi district watching out for militant activity ahead of a push further west into the Taliban heartland.

The district, about 35 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of Kandahar city, has been hit by several bombs, one of which killed two Canadian medics on June 26.

Woodcroft scans across the irrigated fields, interspersed with clusters of trees and mudbrick compounds and buildings used to dry grapes into raisins.

A previous patrol found numerous makeshift bombs hidden in walls.

"The main concern for us is to make sure there's no one digging in the roads in the area," said Woodcroft.

"Now they know we're watching everywhere, we've got every area pretty covered up, so they know if they try anything they'll get a flare up in the air to warn them.
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 Canada getting ahead of itself in race to escape Kandahar 
Article Link

Campbell Clark

Ottawa — From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Jul. 21, 2010 10:47PM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Jul. 22, 2010 8:38AM EDT

Everyone wants to leave Afghanistan, starting soon. So the international community, including Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, rushed to endorse an Afghan government plan to take more control of the country and its security. But Canadian policies don’t fit the plan.

The whole theme of Tuesday’s Kabul conference was exit strategy, and its conclusions argued for something to which Canada hasn’t yet committed: a post-2011 role for training Afghan troops. Politicians who want hundreds of Canadian military trainers to stay in Afghanistan after next summer, both Conservatives and Liberals, believe the conference gives that plan new impetus.

The headline-grabber from Tuesday’s Kabul conference was the international seal of approval on a plan for Afghanistan to start taking the lead on security next year, and be in charge of the whole country by 2014.

British Prime Minister David Cameron didn’t wait a day before saying that means his country can probably start drawing down troops next year; his Defence Minister had just announced British troops will be out by 2014.
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