# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread April 2011



## GAP (2 Apr 2011)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread April 2011 *               

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


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## GAP (2 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 2, 2011*

 Soldier badly hurt in Afghanistan recovers with expert local care
  Article Link
Cpl. Jared Gagnon left paralyzed, unable to speak in 2006 convoy attack
 By Nick Lees, Edmonton Journal April 1, 2011

Doctors thought Cpl. Jared Gagnon's wounds were probably fatal after the armoured convoy escort vehicle he was in was rammed by a semi truck in Afghanistan.

He lost pieces of his skull and his scalp hung by a sliver of skin from the back of his head.

From the desert near Spin Boldak, a transportation and communications town on Afghanistan's southern border with Pakistan, Gagnon was helicoptered to the multinational hospital in Kandahar and then airlifted to the American military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

His parents, Dennis and Linda Gagnon, and sisters Jenna and Jillian were rushed to his bedside to say what might be their last goodbyes.

Paralyzed, unable to speak

He woke up in the University of Alberta Hospital three days after arriving there and had no idea what had happened.

"I still have no recollection of being thrown from our vehicle or of spending nine or 10 days in Germany," he said.

"I had been placed in a medically induced coma to prevent my brain from swelling."
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 Canadian police chiefs wrap up Afghan visit
  Article Link
Training mission; Community-based enforcement key concept
 By KEITH GEREIN, Postmedia News April 1, 2011

A group of Canadian police chiefs has just wrapped up a short visit to Afghanistan to help prepare for Canada's upcoming training mission.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said he came to visit some of his officers already in the country, and to learn more about what will be required of police trainers when Canada's combat responsibilities wind down in a few months.

Blair has nine officers in Afghanistan, but said he would be open to the possibility of sending more if required.

"At any given time we have approximately 10 officers on the mission here and right now that's the right number," he told reporters at Kandahar Airfield. "I have to tell you I have no shortage of volunteers. If the RCMP came to us and said we need more from you, I think we can increase our contribution.

"We've got great people who want to come but I think we need to look closely at the mission and figure out what skill sets are required to make the greatest contribution."

On their trip, the group of five officers visited Kabul, the Panjwaii district and Camp Nathan Smith on the outskirts of Kandahar City.

The federal government has called for the country's combat role to end this summer, to be replaced by a mission of about 950 Canadians teaching Afghan forces behind the walls of training centres. The new mission, which will involve both army and police, is to be centred in Kabul but could see Canadian trainers spread around a few different locations such as Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, Herat in the west and Jalalabad in the east.

Blair listed some of the things he believes Canadian police officers will continue to teach.
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## GAP (4 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 4, 2011*

Canada pours money, effort into Afghan irrigation project
By Keith Gerein, Postmedia News April 2, 2011
Article Link

ARGHANDAB DISTRICT, Afghanistan — The Arghandab River is barely a trickle as Claude Desilets scrambles down the bank to inspect recent repairs on the Dahla Dam water network — arguably the most important infrastructure project in southern Afghanistan.

Of particular interest are recently installed gates at the diversion weir, a vital control point for the entire irrigation system Canada is spending $50 million to refurbish.

While the river lapping at the gates is currently more reminiscent of a lazy creek, Desilets knows big changes are coming.

“In a week, all of this will be under water,” he said.

The project field manager notes the traditional agricultural season in Kandahar province is set to begin, at which point the Dahla Dam reservoir 17 kilometres to the north will begin unleashing its contents into the Arghandab.

When the water reaches the diversion weir, the gates will be opened, directing a portion of the flow into a massive web of primary and secondary canals capable of reaching 80 per cent of Kandahar province’s population.
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 Afghanistan: 'Policeman' kills two Nato soldiers
Article Link
 4 April 2011 Last updated at 10:50 ET

Two Nato soldiers have been shot dead by an Afghan border policeman in Afghanistan's northern Faryab province, local officials say.

They say the victims were Americans, adding that the gunman fled the checkpoint where the shooting happened. Nato is now investigating the incident.

But another account says that the shots were fired from a nearby house and the police officer ran away at that point.

Nato is due begin transferring power to local Afghan forces in July.
'Mobile phone recovered'

The Afghan border policeman opened fire on the Americans after a verbal clash during a joint patrol, a senior Afghan official in Faryab told the BBC.

"I was inside [a building] having tea and discussing various issues with my American adviser, when we heard gunshots," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the BBC's Bilal Sarwary.

"The soldier had fired one full magazine of his AK-47. He had fled the compound before we could get to him," the official said, adding that the policeman's mobile phone was recovered later.
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Pakistan blast 'kills seven' at bus station
Article Link
 4 April 2011 Last updated at 08:27 ET

At least seven people have been killed in a suicide-bomb attack at a bus station in north-west Pakistan.

Twenty-two were also injured in the town of Jandool in Lower Dir, where Pakistani troops fought a major offensive against the Taliban in 2009.

A member of a government-backed peace committee, set up to maintain security after the offensive, was reported to have been killed in the blast.

Militants frequently launch attacks in districts close to the Afghan border.

But no group has yet said it carried out the latest attack - the sixth bombing in Pakistan in as many days.
'Toll could rise'

Regional deputy inspector Qazi Jamil ur-Rehman told the AFP news agency: "It was a suicide attack. The bomber was on foot. We're investigating what the target was."

The wounded from the blast were taken to two nearby hospitals and authorities warned that the death toll could rise, Pakistan's APP news agency reported.

On Sunday dozens of people were killed when a Sufi Muslim shrine was attacked in central Punjab province.

Suicide attackers struck near the Sakhi Sarwar shrine in Punjab, as Sufi Muslim devotees gathered for an annual three-day festival. 
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## GAP (6 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 6, 2011*

 In former Taliban stronghold, a school stokes fears of violence
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News April 5, 2011

SALAVAT, Afghanistan — A new Canadian-funded school has sparked a standoff between a Panjwaii leader and local elders, who are reluctant to send their children there for fear it would be a Taliban target.

"What kind of people don't allow a school to open?" asked Panjwaii district governor Haji Fazluddin Agha. "It is not the Canadians who will go to this school. It is your children."

Agha warned the elders in this former Taliban bastion on Tuesday that he would "bring the army and the police to your homes and drag your kids to school" if they did not agree by Saturday to allow the school to reopen.

Several Canadian soldiers, including Task Force Kandahar commander Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, sat among the elders in an open tent, listening closely but not getting involved. The freshly painted school sat metres away, with new swings and slides empty in its playground.

The elders appeared to be split into two camps over the Salavat school, which was completed four months ago with the help of Canadian army engineers. Some have signed a petition asking that the school be opened. Others have refused to open it because they said that would invite attacks by the Taliban.
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 Ottawa aims to limit findings on detainees
Article Link
Kathryn Blaze Carlson, National Post · Apr. 5, 2011 

The Conservative government is looking to limit the findings of an independent report into whether the Canadian Military Police knew that detainees transferred to Afghan custody faced a substantial risk of torture.

The Justice Department went to court last week in a bid to curtail what the Military Police Complaints Commission can include in its final report, requesting the exclusion of evidence gleaned from key witnesses such as former Afghanistan-based diplomat Richard Colvin. He alleged last fall that the government turned a blind eye to warnings that detainees were routinely tortured in Afghan facilities.

“It’s a preemptive strike,” said Paul Champ, the lawyer representing Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Rights Association on the detainee litigation. “They’re trying to put a muzzle on the commission before it provides any independent comment.”

The commission, which has already faced several legal challenges and has not even issued its interim report, held more than 30 days of hearings on the Afghan detainee allegations — a hot-button issue that last fall threatened to the fell the Tory government. Then, the opposition charged that the Conservatives were not forthcoming with thousands of pages of documents that could reveal what the government and top military officials knew of the abuse.
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## GAP (7 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 7, 2011*

 Leaders eerily silent on our two ongoing wars
  Article Link
 By Paul Willcocks, Times Colonist April 6, 2011

It's amazing that we're fighting two wars during an election campaign and nobody is talking about them as issues.

People might just be tired of Afghanistan. Our troops have been fighting for nine years. We're stepping back, sort of, this year.

Still, it's not clear how many Canadians will stay in the conflict, or whether anything lasting has been accomplished. Those should be campaign issues.

Libya is brand new. Canada signed on to a military mission there March 19, just before the election campaign started.

That should be a big decision. As citizens, we bear responsibility for government actions. And going to war should bring the greatest responsibility.
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 Peter Goodspeed: Taliban at Pakistan border gaining strength
Article Link

Goodspeed Analysis

A U.S. progress report on Afghanistan and Pakistan warns the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan’s western border region is gaining in strength, despite the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops.

The 38-page semi-annual report presented to the U.S. Congress Tuesday harshly criticizes Pakistan, saying it has “no clear path toward defeating the insurgency” along its borders with Afghanistan.

The review notes an effort by the Pakistan military to clear rebels from the Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies that began in January is failing — for the third time in two years.

The failure is “a clear indicator of the inability of the Pakistan military and government to render cleared areas resistant to insurgency return,” it says.

“What remains vexing is the lack of any indication of ‘hold’ and ‘build’ planning or staging efforts to complement ongoing clearing operations.

“As such there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan, despite the unprecedented and sustained deployment of over 147,000 forces.”

While praising the country’s military sacrifices — 2,575 dead soldiers since 2001 — the report expresses frustration over its failure to match the success of a U.S.-led “surge” against the Taliban on the Afghanistan side of the border.

The study notes Pakistan’s military have been hampered by resistance from the insurgents, bad weather and a need to resettle thousands of people displaced by fighting.

But it also notes they cannot keep their helicopters flying and still refuse “to accept U.S.-provided helicopter maintenance teams.”
More on link


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## GAP (11 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 11, 2011*

 Canada-led Afghan sweep nets weapons, explosives, drugs
Article Link

Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News · Apr. 10, 2011 | Last Updated: Apr. 10, 2011 12:33 PM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A mostly Canadian-led seven day sweep across Panjwaii district that involved thousands of Canadian, American and Afghan troops ended Sunday, having found a trove of Taliban weaponry and homemade explosives as well as large quantities of drugs often used to fund the insurgency.

The weapons and improvised explosive device caches discovered during Operation Hamaghe Shay II were expected to make it much harder for insurgents to plant homemade bombs during the summer fighting season in Kandahar. Attacks by the Taliban are expected to increase when the annual poppy harvest ends in a few weeks.

“The caches were mostly in the fields, not in the compounds,” said Maj. Martin Larose, operations officer for the Royal 22nd Regiment battle group. “Because we also found a lot of stuff in compounds in January and February, they may have changed their tactics.”

Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, the Canadian task force commander, explained that a series of recent operations were designed so that his troops would be “well prepared for the fighting season. We have the initiative. We have captured or killed a large number of insurgents this winter. They’re off balance. We will continue to be aggressive so that they can’t get settled and find a place to fight from.”
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 Destroying booby-trapped Afghan towns to save them
Article Link
(AP) – 1 day ago

TAROK KOLACHE, Afghanistan (AP) — Two aerial photos tell the story of this tiny village in the southern province of Kandahar. One shows a deceptively bucolic collection of mud huts amid pomegranate orchards. The second shows a field of dirt and shorn tree stumps — the same hamlet after being pulverized by 25 tons of explosives.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. David Flynn, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 1-320th, called in airstrikes to level Tarok Kolache in October after spending 100 days fighting for control of the Arghandab River Valley, a fertile farming area and Taliban bastion.

Seven of his men were killed and dozens wounded in orchards and towns the Taliban laced with improvised bombs. In one small area, Flynn said, his men encountered about 200 bombs — or one every 40 yards.

"We were fighting in a veritable minefield," Flynn said.

While the bombardment in October ended the battle for Tarok Kolache, the battle of perception had just begun.

The village was deserted at the time of the bombing, but criticism of the strikes was intense.
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 The truth about Canada’s Afghan training mission
MICHAEL BYERS and STEWART WEBB Special to Globe and Mail Update Monday, Apr. 11, 2011 
Article Link

Last November, Canada’s mission in Afghanistan was extended by three years without a debate in Parliament when Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that our soldiers would shift to a much safer training role. His explanation was that “when we’re talking simply about technical or training missions, I think that is something the executive can do on its own.”

But remember – the first four Canadian deaths in Afghanistan occurred when a training exercise attracted “friendly fire” from an American F-16 fighter jet in 2002. So just how safe will this new training mission be?

Afghan insurgents have recognized that recruitment and training centres are soft targets. On Dec. 19, five Afghan soldiers were killed when a bus was attacked outside the main army recruitment centre near Kabul. Later that day, five more Afghan soldiers and three policemen were killed when a recruitment centre in the northern city of Kunduz was attacked
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 Afghan military still has lots to learn on long-term planning: Canadians say
Article Link
By: Tara Brautigam, The Canadian Press Posted: 04/10/2011

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - It is a question that gives Maj. Robert Tesselaar pause.

How much have Afghan forces "honestly" planned the latest operation to be conducted in Kandahar's Panjwaii district?

"Not as much as I would've liked as the lead planner," Tesselaar said. "But a fair bit."

With that concise answer, Tesselaar cuts through the generic, sanitized claims of battlefield success and underscores the challenge that will remain once Canadian troops pull out of the war-torn province this summer.

The Afghan National Security Forces have indeed improved their skills and boosted their ranks under the guidance of the Canadian military. They have also recently taken on a greater role in planning operations in an effort to flush the Taliban out of strongholds and reassure locals that communities are becoming safer.

But the ability of Afghan forces to maintain security independently is an open question, despite Canada's five-year stay in Kandahar.

Last week, Canadian, Afghan and American soldiers conducted an operation in Panjwaii aimed at disrupting the insurgency ahead of the summer fighting season. Troops searched compounds and found caches of weapons and drugs.

Under the agreement to embed with the Canadian military, journalists are not allowed to report information about detainees.

In all, about 3,500 were involved in the planning and execution of the operation, which was actually a phase of a larger operation called Operation Tayra Taygh, which means "Sharp Blade" in Pashto, the Canadian military said.

Troops patrolled the areas of Nakhonay, Zangabad and the Horn of Panjwaii — all known Taliban enclaves that have been deadly terrain for Canadian troops.
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 Afghan women key to strong future
Red Cross aid crucial to survival of 1.5 m widows and families, 100,000 injured in conflict
By CLARE MELLOR Staff Reporter Fri, Apr 8 
Article Link

The president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society heard many questions about her country from Nova Scotia students this week.

The majority were about the future women face in Afghanistan, Fatima Gailani said Thursday.

"The questions were mostly about women, women’s situation. They had a lot of interest," said Gailani, who spoke Thursday at Halifax’s Citadel High School and on Wednesday at Truro’s Cobequid Educational Centre.

Since 2005, Gailani has been head of the Afghan Red Crescent, a sister organization to the Canadian Red Cross. Both groups are members of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

"The future for women, I have to confess is fragile," Gailani said in an interview in Halifax on Thursday. "We have to keep our ears and eyes open."

Finn-Jarle Rode, head of the societies’ operations in Afghanistan, accompanied Gailani on her visit to Truro and Halifax. They spoke later Thursday to students at Dalhousie University.

While Afghanistan’s constitution now gives women equal rights to education, political participation, work and the justice system, higher-profile women in the country must help other women understand and realize their rights, Gailani said.

"If you don’t have educated women, no matter what laws and regulations you have, who is going to use it?"
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Route Hyena a Canadian-built 'dagger through the heart of the Taliban'
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News April 8, 2011

MUSHAN, Afghanistan — A dreary makeshift military outpost at the extreme western edge of the Horn of Panjwaii is literally the end of the road for a mammoth, 18-kilometre long, $10-million Canadian-led construction project.

When the last three kilometres are completed later this month, the road — which NATO forces call Route Hyena and Canadian Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner calls "a dagger through the heart of the Taliban" — should benefit generations of hardscrabble farmers in what is arguably the poorest corner of one of the poorest countries on earth.

Until a few months ago the Taliban freely roamed the Horn, protected from ground attack by hundreds of improvised explosive devices. As elsewhere, they terrified the local population, threatening to kill them if they did not co-operate.

The Horn suddenly calmed down after a major winter clearing operation by Afghan, U.S. and Canadian combat forces. This operation was immediately followed by construction of the road.
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## GAP (12 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 12, 2011*

 Afghanistan: Should the Canadian mission continue to 2014?
 April 11, 2011 
Article Link

Canada's plan to extend the Afghanistan mission by three years in a training support role carries high risks and a low chance of success, says a report released Monday.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced last November that Canadian Forces would act in a safer non-combat training role until 2014.

But the report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Rideau Institute says soldiers are likely to be killed or injured attempting a task that will ultimately fail.

According to analysts Michael Byers and Stewart Webb, military training always poses risks, and the Taliban have increasingly targeted training facilities while infiltrating the Afghan army and police.

The report says that widespread illiteracy and high desertion rates among Afghan soldiers and police, and worsening security in the country as a whole, doom the effort to failure
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Pakistan warns US 'to restrict CIA activities' - report
Article Link
 12 April 2011 Last updated at 06:53 ET

Pakistan has asked the US to reduce the number of CIA agents in the country and to limit drone strikes along the Afghan border, US media reports say.

The reports quote unnamed officials and come as US and Pakistani spy chiefs met at the CIA's US headquarters.

An official spokesman described those meetings as "productive".

Relations between the two countries have been frayed since a CIA contractor shot dead two men in the city of Lahore earlier this year.

Last month a Pakistani court freed Raymond Davis after acquitting him of two counts of murder, when relatives of the two men he shot dead pardoned him in court.

Mr Davis maintained the men had been trying to rob him.
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Afghanistan: Drone missile 'killed two US soldiers'
Article Link
 12 April 2011 Last updated at 03:39 ET

A drone missile strike is suspected of killing two US soldiers by mistake in southern Afghanistan last week, US military officials have said.

The apparent case of "friendly fire" is being investigated - if it is confirmed it would be a rare instance of pilotless aircraft killing US forces.

The incident took place in Helmand province where US-led troops are trying to push back Taliban insurgents.

US drones frequently target suspected militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Critics say hundreds of civilians have also been killed in such strikes in recent years.

The two US soldiers who lost their lives - sergeant Jeremy Smith, 26, and seaman Benjamin Rast, 23 - were part of a unit sent to reinforce marines coming under heavy fire from insurgents outside the town of Sangin, US network NBC News, which first reported the incident, said.

The marines, who were watching a video feed from the armed Predator drone overhead, saw infrared images moving towards them on the feed and may have concluded that those were insurgents instead of fellow marines, NBC reported.

The Pentagon has yet to comment on the deaths, saying they are being investigated.
end


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## GAP (14 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 14, 2011*

 Canadian media largely missing from Afghanistan these days
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News April 13, 2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Where have all the embeds gone?

At any one time in 2006, when the Canadian military formally launched its embed program in Kandahar, and throughout 2007 and 2008, between 10 and 15 journalists were always embedded in Kandahar to chronicle Canada's first major combat mission in half a century.

However, for the first time since the formal embed program was established in Kandahar just over five years ago, only two reporters are embedded with the troops today — yours truly from Postmedia News and a journalist from The Canadian Press.

This should be a crucial time for Canadian journalists to be in Kandahar. Having spent billions of taxpayers' dollars in southern Afghanistan, Canada's last fighting season here starts in a few weeks and combat forces will soon begin the complicated handover of security responsibilities for Panjwaii district to a U.S. Army Stryker brigade from Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

You would think that this would be the ideal time for journalists to assess Canada's military and diplomatic triumphs and failures in Kandahar and to provide insights into the Harper government's controversial new training mission, which is soon to begin in northern Afghanistan.

But Canadian editors obviously have different priorities. For them — although certainly not for the soldiers and their kin or Canadian taxpayers, Afghanistan is yesterday's war.
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 Pakistan spooked by CIA's legions
   Article Link
The military has become increasingly suspicious of Washington's improving relations with New Delhi
By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun April 13, 2011

Pakistan's demand that the United States stop drone attacks on militant hideouts and withdraw hundreds of its spies from the country is part of a rapidly-changing regional political geography as Washington and its allies begin withdrawing troops from neighbouring Afghanistan.

At the core of the shifting landscape is the reluctant acceptance by Washington and other countries in the international force that any lasting settlement in Afghanistan will have to include leaders of the Taliban.

The acknowledgment by the international forces that a pure military victory over the six-year Taliban insurgency is not on the cards has prompted all the regional players to start planning their future security.

For Pakistan, the considerations and permutations are particularly tortuous.

They involve not only the survival of the insecure Islamabad administration of President Asif Ali Zardari and his prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, but also Pakistan's alwaysfraught and suspicious relations with regional rival India.
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 Opening of Afghan school a small, but important victory
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News April 13, 2011

 Elders 'tried to stop process'; One of nine schools funded by Canadian military opens in Panjwaii district

Canada and its Afghan allies scored a small but important victory Wednesday when one of nine schools funded by the Canadian military finally opened in Panjwaii district.

Twenty-three boys showed up for morning classes in Salavat, where work to totally refurbish the school had been completed four months ago. The holdup in opening the school - which can accommodate about 250 students - had been caused by elders who said the Taliban had threatened to harm their children if they showed up for classes.

The elders changed their minds after Panjwaii's new district leader, Haji Fazluddin Agha, threatened last week to arrest them and "bring the army and the police to your homes and drag your kids to school."

As well as Agha's dramatic threats, there were more polite entreaties from Brig.-Gen. Hamid Habibi, the top Afghan army commander in Panjwaii. The children of Salavat had personally told him they wanted to go to school, the general told the gathering.

"The fact that they talked with the elders might have helped a lot," said Capt. Nick Paquet, a teacher in civilian life in Quebec's La Beauce region who is a reservist with the Regiment de la Chaudière. "Every patrol we have gone on the kids have told us that they wanted to go to school."
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 Fuzzy borders prove vexing for leader of 'model' district in Kandahar
Article Link
By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press – 16 hours ago

DEH-E BAGH, Afghanistan — The young, energetic leader of Dand district — an Afghan area held up by Canadians as a model of peace and governance potential in the violence-wracked country — has a decidedly vexing problem:

Where exactly is his district?

Theoretically, it's the area that abuts the south end of Kandahar city to the north, the east end of Panjwaii to the west and Daman to the east.

In reality, Dand's borders are elusive, and therein lies Ahamadullah Nazak's headache.

"I don't know what areas I'm responsible for," Nazak told a reconstruction and development meeting Wednesday.

It's a point Nazak, 32, who has won leadership accolades from the Canadian and Americans who work with him, made repeatedly.

When discussing building new health clinics, Nazak noted pointedly: "We really don't know where to put those clinics."

Officially, Dand district barely exists, if at all, despite a decree recognizing it as such handed down in Kabul last year by none other than President Hamid Karzai himself.

For several reasons, Karzai's decree has done little to create any certainties.
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## GAP (16 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 16, 2011*

 Assignment Kandahar: He killed our soldiers, attacked civilians and bombed troops. Now he’s an ally
Article Link

Brian Hutchinson  Apr 15, 2011 

Toor Jan’s job was killing Canadians. It didn’t matter who they were or what they were doing in Kandahar province. Taliban insurgents don’t make such distinctions. In their minds, all Western troops are hostile invaders, infidels. Jan rarely knew the nationalities of those whom he tracked; he never cared to know. He only believed that they had to die.

So he killed them. He directed other Talibs to seek and destroy them as well. Their weapons of choice were improvised explosive devices. Jan was expert at making, planting and detonating IEDs, using materials sourced from Pakistan, just across the Afghan border.

He spent almost seven years as a Taliban fighter and commander in Kandahar, and in that time, 126 Canadian soldiers and one journalist were killed directly by enemy actions.
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 Suicide bomber hugs, then kills Kandahar police chief
Article Link
By Paul Watson Star Columnist

For a man squarely in the Taliban’s crosshairs, Kandahar’s provincial police chief was surprisingly lax about his security.

A suicide bomber penetrated the headquarters of Chief Khan Mohammad Mujaheed and assassinated him around 2:30 Friday afternoon.

The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for taking out a man at the centre of Western-backed efforts to strengthen Afghan security forces in the insurgents’ heartland as Canadian and other allied forces begin withdrawing.

Afghan officials said the killer was dressed in a police uniform, highlighting yet again how easily the Taliban have infiltrated the Afghan security forces force that Canadian troops will be assigned to train after the combat mission ends in July.

The bomber waited for Mujaheed in the yard outside his headquarters building. U.S. troops supporting the Afghan police work in the same compound in Kandahar City, including guards stationed at a checkpoint near the police chief’s office.

As Mujaheed was leaving his headquarters, the suicide bomber hugged the chief, then set off a blast that blew up both men, Afghan officials said. The blast killed two other police and wounded another three.
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## GAP (18 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 18, 2011*

 Military personnel heading to ballot box to cast early election votes
  Article Link
 Postmedia News April 18, 2011

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Cpl. Frederic Roux was likely one of the first of more than 20-million eligible Canadian voters to cast a ballot in the May 2 federal election.

The 47-year-old father of seven girls and two boys, plus three grandchildren, was at the front of the line when the special advance poll for Canadian military personnel opened Monday morning at New Canada House at Kandahar Airfield. The administrator and pay clerk cast his ballot in the riding of St. Jean, where the incumbent is Claude Bachand of the Bloc Quebecois.

"What is important for me is that the person leading my country is thinking of the needs of the population and ways to keep expenses down. The leader should be thinking just as if he is the father of the big Canadian family," Roux said after writing in the name of his preferred candidate on a special blank ballot that was sealed in an unmarked envelope inside a sealed outer envelope that indicated which of the 308 ridings the ballot was to be directed to when it arrives at Elections Canada in Ottawa on April 28.

Military personnel based overseas vote first because it takes time to collect and return their ballots to Canada. Normal advance polls in ridings across Canada open on April 22.
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Afghanistan suicide attacker targets defence minister
Article Link
 18 April 2011 Last updated at 06:21 ET

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary says that this is one of several attacks where gunmen have been wearing military uniforms

Two soldiers have been killed and seven people hurt after a man in army uniform opened fire inside the Afghan defence ministry in Kabul, officials have said.

The attacker, who was also wearing an explosive vest, reached the second floor, where the defence minister and the army chief of staff have offices.

He managed to shoot aides to the minister and the chief-of-staff before being killed by bodyguards.

The Taliban said they had intended to kill the "puppet" defence minister.

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says this is the fourth deadly attack in the last five days, but the first time a gunman has got so close to such a senior official.

On Saturday, five Nato soldiers, four Afghan soldiers and an interpreter were killed when a Taliban suicide bomber wearing a military uniform hit an Afghan army base near the eastern city of Jalalabad.

On Friday, a suicide bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up inside the police headquarters complex in the city of Kandahar, killing the police chief of the southern province, Khan Mohammad Mujahid.
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Can't guarantee safety of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan: Harper
   Article Link
 By Amy Minsky, Postmedia News April 16, 2011

The safety of Canada's men and women serving in Afghanistan — whether on combat or training missions — can never be wholly guaranteed, Conservative leader Stephen Harper said Saturday.

Later this year, Canada's troops are set to end their combat mission and will transition to a new training mission.

Harper has said the new mission will be relatively safe since predominantly, it will take place on NATO bases.

But with violence in the war-torn country not showing any signs of fading — and even highlighted by a brazen suicide attack that killed five foreign soldiers and four Afghan soldiers Saturday — Harper changed is message during a campaign stop in Vancouver.

"Afghanistan is an extremely dangerous country," he said, repeating that the mission Canada is moving toward should pose less risk. "But there are still risks, yes, of course there are still risks."

During the 2008 campaign, Harper committed to a complete withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan by 2011.

And before pulling out of Kandahar, the Conservatives said they'd train as many Afghan police officers and soldiers as possible, help rebuild a dam and several schools, train teachers and foster better governance.
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 Deadly Taliban attacks a sign of strategy shift: General
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News April 17, 2011

TARNAK, Afghanistan — Two hours before Kandahar's provincial police chief was slain Friday by a suicide bomber and 24 hours before another assassin wearing a suicide belt killed five U.S. soldiers and four Afghans in eastern Afghanistan, Brig.-Gen. Ahmed Habibi predicted the Taliban was about to launch a spate of such attacks.

"The enemy has realized that he has no ability to conduct large scale operations anywhere, so he has switched tactics," said Habibi, commander of the Afghan army brigade that is partnered with Canadian and U.S. troops in Panjwaii and Dand districts. "He will try his best to assassinate high government officials and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) soldiers."

Hamdullah Nazak is the charismatic 33-year-old district leader for Dand — which with Canadian help has emerged a model of good local governance in the South.

"Of course. It's the only way for the Taliban now," Nazak, who is reputed to have survived 11 attempts on his life, said during an interview in his office in the village of Deh-e-Bagh.

"The government's strength and control means there is no other way for them to conduct themselves. The last resort for them is to blow themselves attacking officials." 
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## Edward Campbell (23 Apr 2011)

From the _Canadian Press_ and the _Globe and Mail_:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/video/video-canadians-tend-to-afghan-wounded/article1996484/
Canadians tend to Afghan wounded
CP Video
Published Saturday, Apr. 23, 2011 12:15PM EDT
Canadian soldiers tended to badly wounded Afghan men at the Canadian medical station at Forward Operating Base Ma'sum Ghar. The men were injured when their minivan hit a roadside bomb near the base.

Video on link, above.


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## GAP (24 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 24, 2011*

 Military voters ponder what’s in store after Afghanistan
  Article Link
Parties put forth distinct visions of Canada’s role in war and peace
 By Keith Gerein, edmontonjournal.com April 23, 2011

Every Thursday around 11 a.m., John Matthews leaves his north Edmonton home and walks 90 minutes to the Royal Canadian Legion branch in St. Albert.

It’s an eight-kilometre journey, no easy feat for a man of 70, but the Canadian Forces veteran says it’s worth it for the company and conversation of other retired officers at the hall.

Over cold Pils and Buds, they pass the afternoon talking about a variety of things. Recently, much of the discussion has focused on the federal election, including the parties’ stances on the military and treatment of veterans.

“Not all of us have the same views,” Matthews says. “There’s one guy that definitely doesn’t think we should be in Afghanistan at all. I disagree. I think it’s been positive for the forces.”

Among all the topics making headlines during the campaign, from the economy and health care to the environment and potential coalitions, military issues have sometimes struggled for attention. Not so in the ridings of Edmonton-St. Albert and Westlock-St. Paul, areas populated by large numbers of current and former soldiers who live close to CFB Edmonton.

For these voters, there is considerable concern over what will happen to the armed forces now that Canada has begun to disengage from a long and costly campaign in Afghanistan. Matthews says it’s a question frequently on his mind, not only due to his own 36 years of service, but also because all three of his children have spent time in uniform, including two sons who have suffered serious injuries while on duty.
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 Britain's 'donkey' soldiers are losing the war in Afghanistan
A senior Army officer has warned that Britain risks losing the war in Afghanistan because commanders are more concerned with protecting soldiers than defeating the Taliban.
Article Link
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 9:00PM BST 16 Apr 2011

Attacking the British strategy in Helmand, the officer claims that soldiers are now so laden with equipment they are unable to launch effective attacks against insurgents.

The controversial account of situation in Afghanistan appears in the latest issue British Army Review, a restricted military publication designed to provoke debate within the Army.

Writing anonymously, the author reveals that the Taliban have dubbed British soldiers "donkeys" who move in a tactical "waddle" because they now carry an average weight of 110lbs worth of equipment into battle.

The consequences of the strategy, he says, is that "our infantry find it almost impossible to close with the enemy because the bad guys are twice as mobile".

The officer claims that by the end of a routine four hour patrol, soldiers struggle to make basic tactical judgements because they are physically and mentally exhausted. 
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## GAP (26 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 26, 2011*

 Afghanistan Police Payroll System Could Pay Ghosts, Audit Says
By Tony Capaccio - 
Article Link

Afghanistan’s system for paying its police force has a “significant risk of fraud, waste and abuse” and may be paying non-existent personnel, according to a new audit.

About $1.2 billion has been disbursed since 2002 to the Afghanistan Interior Ministry from a United Nations-managed Law and Order Trust Fund. The money for the police comes from Canadian, Japanese and European donations.

The Afghan payroll system, not yet automated, “currently provides little assurance that only police personnel who work are paid,” said the audit by the acting inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, Herbert Richardson.

The audit is a snapshot of the mundane challenges inherent in setting up a viable Afghan police force capable of protecting the population and enforcing the law as the U.S. plans a gradual withdrawal of forces starting in July. The current coalition plan calls for increasing the Afghan police force to 134,000 by October, up from 81,509 in May 2009. 
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 How Sarpoza became Canada’s project
Graeme Smith Quetta, Pakistan AND Ottawa— From Tuesday's Globe and Mail  Apr. 25, 2011
Article Link

Few institutions in Afghanistan have enjoyed as much Canadian largesse as this stone-walled prison in Kandahar city.

In the aftermath of the last jailbreak three years ago, there was a $2-million building program that improved Sarpoza’s gates, walls and towers. And those were only the visible upgrades. In total, Ottawa committed $5-million to a complete overhaul of the facility and its staffing.
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 Aging Hercules aircraft flies out of Afghanistan and toward the sunset
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News April 25, 2011

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — One of Canada's oldest military aircraft flew out of Kandahar for the last time Monday.

The C-130 H Hercules has flown nearly 45,000 hours and nearly 18 million kilometres since it was ordered by the Diefenbaker government.

The H model Hercules has been Canada's workhorse in Afghanistan since the mission began at the same airfield in the spring of 2002, when the runway was still badly cratered by bomb damage caused a few months earlier by U.S. air force bombers.

"We get our money's worth in Canada," said Capt. Neil Prescott, who had "the honour" of commanding the last mission out of Kandahar. "We tend not to replace aircraft very often."

The particular Hercules that's bound for Germany from Kandahar on Monday is to arrive at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Ontario sometime next week.

"It maybe has one or two years left," flying search-and-rescue missions in Canada before it is retired, Prescott said.

The aircraft's last cargo run from Afghanistan consisted of an extra propeller and a very large quantity of soldiers' mail.
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 Images from Afghanistan — April 2011
Continued photo coverage of the U.S., Afghan and NATO military effort in Afghanistan.
Article Link
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 Pressure grows for SAS prisoner inquiry
Article Link
Published: 12:28PM Tuesday April 26, 2011

Labour is adding its support to calls for an inquiry into claims Kiwi troops handed over Afghan prisoners to authorities who tortured them.

Journalist Jon Stephenson claimed on TVNZ's Marae programme that NZ's Special Forces in Afghanistan are "very involved in arresting prisoners and transferring those prisoners to Afghans, who are likely to torture them".

New Zealand Defence Force rules, and international laws, say troops can not hand over prisoners to another country if there is evidence they will be tortured or mistreated.

"I have absolute confidence in the integrity of the SAS people themselves," Labour leader Phil Goff told TV ONE's Breakfast.

"What I have less confidence about is if prisoners are being handed across then what happens when they're given to the Afghan authorities - they're notoriously corrupt and notorious for ill-treatment of their prisoners." 
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## GAP (27 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 27, 2011*

 Afghan official blames local and international forces for allowing prison break
Justice minister says Afghan security forces should have noticed the tunnel when they searched a nearby house 2 1/2 months ago, but he also faults Canadian and U.S. troops. 
Article Link
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Staff Writer April 27, 2011
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan—

The mud house where insurgents began digging a long tunnel that at least 488 inmates used to flee an Afghan prison had been searched about 2 1/2 months before by security forces, who failed to notice anything amiss, authorities said Tuesday.

Afghan Justice Minister Habibullah Ghaleb faulted security forces for overlooking the more than 1,000-foot-long tunnel and failing to prevent the escape Sunday night and Monday morning from Kandahar's Sarposa prison. Authorities estimate that militants spent five months digging the tunnel.

"Earth or soil dug out of the tunnel must have been moved and should not have been missed by the eyes of the security forces," Ghaleb said in a report to President Hamid Karzai.

But Ghaleb also blamed foreign troops, noting that Canadian forces had been stationed at the prison in the past, and that U.S. troops had been building living quarters and judicial offices at the prison for four months as the tunnel took shape beneath them.
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 Afghan pilot kills NATO officers after dispute
Article Link

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Wednesday Apr. 27, 2011 8:09 AM ET

A mass shooting at the Kabul airport has claimed the lives of eight NATO service members and a contractor, who were gunned down by an Afghan military officer on Wednesday morning.

Five Afghan soldiers were wounded in the same incident.

Afghan Defence Ministry spokesperson Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the shooter "opened fire on foreigners after an argument."

Azimi said the full circumstances behind the shooting remain under investigation. He identified the shooter as a veteran pilot with 20 years of military experience.

The pilot died in the shooting.

Another Afghan pilot identified the shooter as Ahmad Gul, a 50-year-old pilot from the Tarakhail district of Kabul province.

NATO has yet to publicly identify the names of the shooting victims.

The Taliban claimed that the shooter was actually a person masquerading as an army officer, though reports from Afghan and coalition appeared to contradict this claim.

The violence at the airport marked the seventh time in 2011 that Afghan soldiers -- or people impersonating them -- have slain NATO and Afghan security forces members
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 Afghan forces recapture some escaped jailbreak inmates
Article Link
The Associated Press Tuesday Apr. 26, 2011 1:19 PM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The massive security breach that allowed the Taliban to spirit more than 480 Afghan inmates out southern Afghanistan's largest prison must have involved inside collaborators, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday, as security forces worked to recapture the escaped convicts.

Prison officials discovered early Monday morning that the inmates -- nearly all of them Taliban militants — were missing from their cells, and then found the tunnel through which they appeared to have made their getaway.

The Taliban said the prison break was five months in the making, with diggers starting the tunnel from under a nearby house while they arranged for inmates to get keys so that they could open their cells on the night of the escape.

Government officials started to piece through the details of the escape Tuesday and place blame. Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib sent a formal letter to President Hamid Karzai acknowledging that prison officials or guards likely acted as accomplices but also saying that Afghan and international security forces should have detected the plot.

"The escape of all the prisoners from one tunnel ... shows that collaborators inside the prison somehow provided an opportunity," Ghalib said in the letter. 
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 Canada will ‘continue to plug away’ despite Afghan jailbreak: Harper
STEVEN CHASE ASBESTOS, QUE. Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Article Link

It’s an embarrassment of sorts for Canada: the Taliban springs more than 470 prisoners from a Kandahar City jail this week – a facility fortified by Canadians against such escapes.

But Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says it’s all part of the learning experience in Afghanistan. 

Canada spent at least $4-million upgrading Sarpoza prison and training its staff after a previous jailbreak by the Taliban in 2008 that freed more than 800 inmates.

But late Sunday night and early Monday morning another 475 prisoners escaped Sarpoza through a secret 300-metre tunnel that the Taliban said it spent five months digging. 
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 Top al-Qaida fighter killed in Afghanistan, Nato reveals
Article Link
Death of Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, in early April is 'significant milestone' for US-led coalition
Jon Boone in Kabul guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 April 2011 

One of the most important al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan was killed this month, the US-led coalition has revealed.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said the killing of Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, in an air strike in eastern Afghanistan was a "significant milestone in the disruption of al-Qaida" in the country.

The veteran Saudi Arabian militant had been on an Isaf hitlist since at least 2007. He was killed on 13 April along with several other insurgents in the Dangam district of Kunar province, a heavily wooded and mountainous area that neighbours Pakistan. Ghani was finally pinpointed after he met another al-Qaida leader, named Waqas, who was also killed.

In recent months fears have grown that the group has staged a comeback after falling into near irrelevance in Afghanistan. For some time intelligence analysts have said the number of al-Qaida fighters in the country had fallen to perhaps fewer than 100, and that what remained of the group that carried out the 9/11 attacks was either killed, captured or restricted to operating across the border in the comparative safe havens of Pakistan.
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## GAP (28 Apr 2011)

*Articles found April 28, 2011*

Kandahar Journal: Baby steps
Richard Johnson  Apr 27, 2011 – 1:41 PM ET | Last Updated: Apr 28, 2011 6:46 AM ET
Article Link

I have just returned from my second patrol in two days.

Did I mention that it is hot in Afghanistan? Brian and I arrived in a Patrol Base near Salavat around 11.00 a.m. on Saturday. I dragged my kit across the base and we got settled into our new bunks – a small tent, with an on-the-fritz AC unit. Our first meeting was with Captain Alexis LeGros, Platoon Commander for Crazy Company. Afterwards, accompanied by Captain LeGros we went to see the ANA Commander, Captain Said Habib on the attached base. Captain Habib invited us to stay for Chai and we did. Then we sat at a small table on the gravel in the blistering midday sun. I could just about feel myself peel. During a lull in conversation I took the opportunity to take some photographs of Captain Habib. I figured I would whip up a quick portrait of him as a gift, in the hopes of greasing the wheels of ‘improved access’ to the ANA base later. I am not beyond a little subterfuge to get ahead.

An hour later I was standing, camelback on, camera strapped and video camera running with the rest of the village patrol. Our patrol had been enhanced by the addition of a dozen or so ANA soldiers, a side effect of our good-will Chai with Captain Habib earlier.

We left — on foot — through a small gap in the razor wire at exactly 2.00 p.m. I could already feel the sweat running down my back. The first portion of the patrol was over hard sun-baked earth — the stuff much of southern Afghanistan specializes in. Within a thousand metres from the base though, we were into high walled grape and poppy fields. At one point we stalled completely till a Canadian took over kicking a gate open from an Afghan soldier. Then we moved forward again. The walls on the fields here were high — up to three meters in places. Good for shade but bad for ambush and visibility. For a half-hour we moved forward single file behind the dog and metal detectors, everyone watched where the person ahead had stepped. Over walls, through ditches, up embankments, over trellises, through gates and doorways. The few people we saw were on the rooftops of the villages around us.
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