# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread November 2010



## GAP (31 Oct 2010)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread November 2010 *               

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


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## MarkOttawa (1 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 1

Canada’s PRT in Afghanistan ‘wildly successful’: U.S. diplomat
Postmedia News, Oct. 31, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.globalnews.ca/story.html?id=3755179



> KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan — Canada has come closer to working out an effective relationship between soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan than any other country in the world, according to a U.S. diplomat.
> 
> Bill Harris, the top U.S. diplomat in southern Afghanistan, believes that “people will write dissertations” one day about a Canadian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team he describes as a “wildly successful … irregular warfare unit.”..
> 
> ...



Analysis: Why the military plays down vital Afghan battle
Reuters, Oct. 31
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69U0EI20101031



> The battle for Kandahar, its importance played down even before it began, has been eclipsed in the media and in Washington by a focus on corruption and peace talks, but its outcome is crucial to the wider Afghan war.
> 
> Operation Dragon Strike is the first major attempt since 2001 to regain control of a city that is the Taliban's spiritual home. This autumn may be the last time that the NATO-led alliance has sufficient boots on the ground to try the push.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (1 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 1, 2010*

Canada In Action: Armoured Overwatch 
Article Link
 31 October 2010

A Canadian Forces Leopard2A6M main battle tank provides combat overwatch in Afghanistan. Canada originally leased 20 Leopard 2A6M mine-protected tanks from Germany as an interim measure to replace its Leopard 1A5/C2 tanks that were deployed to Afghanistan but were found to suffer from a lack of air conditioning and insufficient armour protection. Canada later purchased 100 older-model surplus Leopard 2 tanks from the Dutch. The first of 20 Leopard 2 A4M CAN modernized battle tanks was delivered by the German firm Krauss-Maffei Wegmann to the Canadian Forces on October 7th 2010.
end

 U.S. takeover of Kandahar PRT base harbinger of Canada's withdrawal
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News October 30, 2010

KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan — The troop surge ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama that has swept southern Afghanistan this year has led to dramatic changes at what until recently was an entirely Canadian base in Kandahar's provincial capital.

While Camp Nathan Smith's population has more than tripled recently, Canada's numbers have dwindled to the point where there are now only about 175 Canadian soldiers and civilians left. Every one of the other 1,300 people now shoe-horned into every nook and cranny of the tiny base is American — a visible sign that after eight years Canada's mission is on its way out of Afghanistan.

Canadians used to be responsible for the city's quick reaction force, making safe homemade bombs and manning guard towers at the camp. These days they have a small group of construction engineers working on civil affairs projects, an even smaller number of signallers and an infantry platoon that still runs several convoys every day to escort civilians such as Corrections Canada officers to places such as Sarpoza Prison.
More on link

Afghan counterterror role might fly with war-weary Canadians: Diplomat
Published On Sun Oct 31 2010
Article Link

A former diplomat, once held hostage by al-Qaida, says the West is never going to be able to “develop” Afghanistan and a counter-terrorism mission is one of the options the Canadian public might accept after the army ends its combat role.

Robert Fowler, a former deputy defence minister and UN ambassador, said the government’s objectives throughout nine years of war have become muddied and it’s clear Canada is “not prepared to invest the blood and treasure” needed for a full-blown nation-building exercise.

The Harper government has pledged Canada will stay on with a diplomatic and development role after the military ceases operations next summer, but has not defined exactly how that will take shape.

There is speculation Prime Minister Stephen Harper could lay out the role in advance of the NATO leader’s summit in Lisbon, Portugal later this month.
More on link

Taliban briefly overrun east Afghanistan district
Article Link
The Associated Press Date: Monday Nov. 1, 2010 7:51 AM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan —  The Taliban briefly overran a district seat in eastern Afghanistan, torching government buildings and capturing police officers after an intense gunfight, officials said Monday.

The government was back in control of Ghazni province's Khogyani district headquarters a few hours later, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary, adding that three rooms in the government headquarters had been burned and a vehicle damaged. He did not have any information on casualties.

Local police chief Mohammad Yasin, who wasn't there during the attacks, said government buildings were captured and set on fire.

All the police guarding the district headquarters were either killed or taken prisoner, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, and their weapons and vehicles were confiscated.

He put out a press release later saying the Taliban had left the district after damaging the headquarters.

A NATO spokesman said he did not have any details of the incident.

In recent months, Ghazni has become one of the most unstable provinces in Afghanistan. Insecurity around the country shot up after NATO and Afghan troops began pushing into the Taliban heartland of the south in July. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (2 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 2

Taliban fighters briefly overrun Afghan district, abduct 16 police officers
The insurgents didn't need to fire a shot in the strategic Khogyani district. Government forces regain control after a few hours, but the fate of the abductees is unknown.
_LA Times_, Nov. 2
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-taliban-20101102,0,7213645.story



> Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan —
> 
> The Taliban didn't even need to fire a shot. A band of insurgents overran a small rural district in eastern Afghanistan before dawn Monday, setting government buildings and vehicles ablaze and abducting at least 16 police officers, provincial authorities said.
> 
> ...



U.S. Marines begin to hand over small bases to Afghan army in southwest
_Washington Post_, Nov. 2
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/01/AR2010110106069.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead



> NAWA, AFGHANISTAN - U.S. Marines have begun handing over some of their small bases to the Afghan army in this once-volatile district in the country's southwest, a transition that top military commanders intend to cite as proof that the Obama administration's troop escalation and counterinsurgency strategy are succeeding.
> 
> The transfer, which calls for most Marines to withdraw from populated parts of Nawa and consolidate in a series of desert bases by the spring, would allow the overall number of U.S. troops in the district - now about 1,000 - to be reduced by next summer. Senior Marine officers said that insurgent attacks in Nawa have declined significantly and that the capacity of the Afghan army to operate independently has increased.
> 
> But the Marine plan still envisages a significant U.S. military presence in the desert and in the district's main town to provide emergency backup to Afghan soldiers, mentor the fledgling police force and interdict insurgents seeking to enter the area...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (2 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 2, 2010*

 Canadian-sponsored junior officer staff course in Afghanistan
Graduation ceremony Government of Canada
  Article Link

On August 10, 2010, 47 members of the Afghan National Army (ANA) graduated from the Canadian-sponsored Junior Officer Staff Course (JOSC) in Kabul, Afghanistan alongside two Afghan National Police and two Afghan Border Police officers.

"This fourth graduation ceremony of the Junior Officer Staff Course demonstrates Canada’s continued commitment to building the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces," said the Honourable Minister of National Defence, Peter MacKay.

The 14-week JOSC is the primary component of the multi-national Staff and Language Training Centre - Afghanistan (SLTC-A) announced by the Government of Canada in 2008. The SLTC-A project was established to build the capacity of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and help the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan build a more secure environment throughout Afghanistan.
More on link

 Explosive Detection Dogs invaluable asset to Coalition Forces in Afghanistan
Nov 1, 2010 By Sgt. Richard Andrade, 16th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
Article Link

MA'SUM GHAR, Afghanistan - The sun hasn't risen yet as an Explosive Detector Dog (EDD) team of American K-9 Detection Services (AMK9) prepares to lead a dismounted patrol through Panjwai'i District in Kandahar province Oct. 8. The partnered dismounted patrol leaving Combat Outpost Nejat consists of Afghan National Army soldiers, Afghan National Police and Canadian forces of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group.

To counter the growing Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat in Afghanistan, the increased use of EDDs have become a critical part of daily operations. The EDDs consequently save the lives of both civilian and military personnel.

EDDs patrol military installations, take part in dismounted patrols, work at vehicle checkpoints, assist cordon and search missions and help find buried explosive devices.

Ambar Limbu, a Panchkhal, Nepal, native is part of a four-man team of dog handlers working with Canadian forces in Afghanistan. Limbu has a military background, having served in the Nepalese army for five years.

"We have worked together for almost three years," said Limbu of his German Shepherd, Tinus. This is their first tour together in Afghanistan.
More on link


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## GAP (3 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 3, 2010*

 Canadian police officers walk the Kandahar beat
Published On Tue Nov 02 2010
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN—Midday, not far from a notorious insurgent neighbourhood, and the Afghan police station’s observation tower was empty, except for a swept-up pile of cigarette butts and a thick piece of black cardboard.

It was lying on the concrete floor, roughly shaped like the upper half of an adult human, wearing the slightly soiled grey-blue uniform of the Afghan National Police.

The fallen cardboard cutout cop was the Afghan security force’s version of a scarecrow, meant to give the impression to all that the dummy surveyed, including any Taliban plotters, that the police were watching.
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 NATO troops get new Canadian commander in Kandahar
Published On Tue Nov 02 2010
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN—Canadian soldiers in Kandahar begin answering to a new NATO commander today.

U.S. Maj.-Gen. James Terry has taken control of all NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, including 2,800 Canadian troops.

He takes over from British Maj.-Gen. Nick Carter, who oversaw the launch of a major operation this summer to secure Kandahar province.

Canadians have played a central role in the operation in recent months by moving against insurgents in Kandahar’s Panjwaii district.
More on link

 Afghan vet's new job just the ticket
 Uses overseas skills in parking enforcement
 By Doug Schmidt, The Windsor Star November 3, 2010
  Article Link 

When Ian Carey returned to Windsor a year ago after serving in Afghanistan with the Canadian military, he, like so many others in Canada's unemployment capital, couldn't find a job.

A master corporal reservist with the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment, whose commanding officer praised his work on his first overseas deployment, Carey, 26, was left wondering what to do.

His well-paid, 18-month Canadian Forces immersion included six months in a war zone helping train Afghan military police. Carey's big dream was to become a police officer at home, but "there's a long wait in the recruiting process," he said.

Luckily for him, his EKS commander, Lt.-Col. Morris Brouse, is also the chief executive officer of the Windsor division of the Commissionaires, a private, not-for-profit corporation established 85 years ago to provide employment opportunities for veterans of the military and police. 
More on link

 Afghan combat mission to wind down before deadline
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 2, 2010

Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan is to rapidly begin winding down as much as three months before a July 1, 2011 deadline set by the House of Commons.

Citing the Dutch army's pullout from Uruzgan province this year as a guide, the American general who is the outgoing director of operations for the war in Kandahar said he expects Canada's battle group in Panjwaii to start handing over combat duties some time in April to an as yet unnamed coalition brigade.

"It is in the early spring that they are going to have to start looking inward," said Brig.-Gen. Fred Hodges, who returned Tuesday to Washington at the end of a 14-month tour directing the war for NATO's Regional Command South.

"Our experience with the Dutch was that in order to make their timeline, three months out they had to start doing things. And the Canadians have a lot more infrastructure out than the Dutch did. To either hand over things, pack things up or tear them down."
More on link


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## GAP (4 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 4, 2010*


 Tears flow as Van Doos leave for Afghanistan
  Article Link 
Postmedia News November 4, 2010

At first they were smiling, holding hands or hugging each other.

But as the roll call neared, tears started to flow, turning into uncontrollable sobbing.

Families and friends bade farewell at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier yesterday to 145 Quebec-based soldiers deployed to Afghanistan as part of the last combat rotation before the Canadian mission ends next summer.

During this month, a total of 1,900 soldiers from CFB Valcartier will be deployed to the war-torn country for a seven-month mission.

"It's so hard," said Krystal Siokalo, wiping away tears.

Her husband, Cpl. Adam Siokalo, is taking part in his first mission abroad.
More on link

 NATO Seeks Unity on Kabul 
Article Link

BY YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

KABUL—Coalition commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for a show of unity at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Portugal this month, concerned about the pressure by some European allies to speed up transition to Afghan control and leave.

The U.S. and the NATO headquarters in Kabul oppose naming at the Lisbon summit Nov. 19-20 any Afghan provinces or districts that would move to Afghan security control next year. Releasing location names ahead of time, one senior coalition official said, would "paint a bull's-eye" on these areas, inviting Taliban attacks.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (4 Nov 2010)

The Future in Southern Afghanistan... 
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, Nov.4
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1288898897/0#0



> ...
> On his blog, Matthew Fisher points out that Canadian casualties in Kandahar have fallen nearly 80 percent, and the region is becoming increasingly safe and pacified...
> http://communities.canada.com/shareit/blogs/canada-at-war/archive/2010/11/03/low-casualties-rare-optimism.aspx



Low casualties, rare optimism 
Postmedia News blog,  Nov. 3, by Matthew Fisher
http://communities.canada.com/shareit/blogs/canada-at-war/archive/2010/11/03/low-casualties-rare-optimism.aspx



> ...
> A major factor contributing to the decline in casualties is that the fighting season is just about over. The capital "T" Taliban have gone back to Pakistan to recuperate and decide where they intend to try to blow people up next year. Many of the small "T" Taliban, who are impoverished locals often fighting for a few Pakistani rupees, have undoubtedly cached their weapons and returned to their farms.
> 
> But nobody here believes this is the whole story. From Canadian privates and corporals deep in the field to the most senior commanders and diplomats, everyone that I have spoken to over the past couple of months agrees that the Taliban have never been challenged like they have been since Barack Obama's surge began a couple of months back and never before have they suffered such catastrophic losses and had so many senior and middle-ranking leaders eliminated or captured.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (5 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 5, 2010*

 Tiny NATO ally Estonia says Canadian Afghan retreat is wrong signal
Article Link
By: Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press Posted: 4/11/2010

Canada's military withdrawal from Afghanistan next year will encourage al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents, says Ottawa's NATO ally Estonia.

"My principal opinion is that to speak about final dates is the wrong message. It encourages al-Qaida and Taliban," Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview Thursday.

He said he planned to deliver that message to his counterpart, Lawrence Cannon, and Defence Minister Peter MacKay, during meetings later in the day.

Paet said the 28-country NATO alliance took the decision to enter Afghanistan together and it should decide on withdrawing together.

MacKay didn't dispute Paet's position, but said Canada is bound by a parliamentary decree that combat operations end in July 2011.

"I'm a believer in that to some degree, but the reality is, in order for us to extend as we did, that was part of the arrangement," MacKay said, referring to the vote in the House of Commons that extended the mission by two years.

"The parameters that we have set in the parliamentary motion are firm, and 2011 is the time of transition for us. That doesn't preclude us making further governance, development, reconstruction efforts."

Like Canada, Estonia has soldiers fighting in volatile southern Afghanistan, but in much smaller numbers. The tiny Baltic state will leave behind its 170 troops in Helmand — the most violent province in Afghanistan — after Canada's 2,800 military personnel begin their withdrawal from neighbouring Kandahar this spring.
More on link

 Ottawa will spend $300-million to close Camp Mirage
Jane Taber From Friday's Globe and Mail Thursday, November 4, 2010
Article Link

It is costing the Harper government an estimated $300-million to close Camp Mirage, the secret airbase in the United Arab Emirates that Canada used as a logistics hub for its troops in Afghanistan, a senior Conservative official confirmed Thursday.

The Canadians were forced to close the base – they officially left this week – as a result of a dispute with the UAE over landing rights at Canadian airports. 
More on link

 Military does take PTSD seriously: Worthington
Article Link
More than at any time in the past, Canada’s military today is alert and concerned about PTSD
By Peter Worthington November 4, 2010

A recent Sun Media editorial slammed the Defence Department for not doing enough to help soldiers returning from Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

While well-intentioned, aspects of the editorial were grossly unfair.

For one, the editorial urged Defence Minister Peter MacKay to “force” the military “to face the fact that PTSD within its ranks cannot simply be macho-ed off as mere weakness.” The editorial scolded: “Ignoring PTSD our military’s shame.”

Of all institutions in Canada, the military is arguably the one most aware of the realities of PTSD. To suggest it is viewed as “mere weakness” is not only wrong, but grotesquely unfair.

That may have been a common view back in the First World War, when soldiers who cracked under fire were occasionally executed by firing squads for desertion or cowardice. But those days have long since passed.

The military today needs no reminding that “PTSD is real, and it is destructive.”

Canada’s Mental Health Association reckons 10% of Canadians endure some degree of PTSD. During their lifetime, 90% of Canadians will suffer some form traumatic stress.

The editorial’s view that “upwards of 40%” of soldiers returning from Afghanistan suffer varying degrees of PTSD, seems a stretch. If that were so, it doesn’t leave too many unaffected soldiers to “macho off” PTSD as “mere weakness.”
More on link

 GG in combat fatigues for first foreign visit 
Article Link

By Jonathan Montpetit, The Canadian Press
ADVERTISEMENT

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Canada's new governor general completed his transformation into commander-in-chief with a simple but symbolic sartorial act.

The 69-year-old former academic distanced himself from his old life as he donned combat fatigues for the first time to tour Canada' war zone in Afghanistan.

It was something David Johnston had said he was unlikely to do. But then much changes when you become a symbol of the country.

"This is the first time I've had the uniform on, and I must say I'm very proud to wear it," he said Thursday as he wrapped up a whirlwind tour of the Canadian mission in the southern province of Kandahar.

"We've got remarkable leaders and remarkably able people here, so it gives me a great pleasure to don these clothes and be part of that group for a day at least."

It marks the first foreign visit for Johnston since he was sworn as the Queen's Representative in Canada last month.

As troops gathered at Kandahar Airfield to hear from their new commander-in-chief, Johnston said he made one demand upon accepting the position: "To get to Afghanistan as soon as possible."
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (5 Nov 2010)

Blitzkrieg in Kunduz
_Defense Technology_ "Ares" blog, Nov. 4
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3ab10b437f-bb6e-4f4d-b1a7-1523a1c87b76



> NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have been conducting joint Operation Halmazag (lightning in Dari) in the Chahar Darreh district of Kunduz province since 31 October, the Bundeswehr announced today. The aim of the operation is to protect the population and improve the security situation south of the town of Kunduz for civil reconstruction projects and to put pressure on the Taliban to increase the freedom of movement of ISAF and the local population. This involves gaining control of territory along LOC Little Pluto, a road running southwards, and establishing outposts along the route and in Quatliam, some six kilometres west of the German-led provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Kunduz.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (6 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 6, 2010*

 Afghanistan: Sorry about the mess…
by Andrew Potter on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 4:47pm - 21 Comments
Article Link

Last week, I was in Ottawa appearing on a panel discussion at UofO that was  about Canada’s future role in Afghanistan. Also speaking were Afghanistan’s ambassador to Canada Jawed Ludin, former ambassador to Afghanistan (and current Conservative candidate) Chris Alexander, and Wahid Waissi, director of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.  My brief was supposed to be on the “security situation”, but given that pretty much everyone in the room was more qualified to talk about it than I was, I used up my allotted ten minutes to say, in various ways, that “it’s complicated and uncertain”.

I was gratified then when, during the discussion, a Canadian colonel with extensive experience in RC South stood up to say that the reason it the security situation seems complicated and uncertain is precisely because it is complicated and uncertain. The surge was only completed in early September, the crucial operations in Kandahar have only been underway for about six weeks, and it simply is not clear yet how things are going to turn out. There are plenty of negative signs, a few positive signs, and it won’t be clear which way the wind is really blowing until the “fighting season” resumes in early spring. Which is why Canada’s decision to cease combat operations next July 1 is increasingly turning into a big headache for our allies.

In private, American and British military officers have never hidden their disdain for the way Canada is handling this pullout. In February, a British general I was speaking with in Kabul called it “bad campaign work, and bad coalition work”. When I was back there in late September, I asked an American two-star general working at the IJC what they were going to do when Canada left. He sighed, then shrugged his shoulders. After a bit, he pointed at the map of Kandahar that was laid out in front of us, put his finger on Canada’s area of operations, and said that current thinking is the Canadians will be replaced with an Afghan kandak, assuming one can be found that can operate independently. The look on his face made it clear that he didn’t think that was plausible.
More on link

 US wants New Zealand troops to stay in Afghanistan 
Article Link
Fri Nov 5, 3:53 AM

By Matthew Lee, The Associated Press

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that she hopes New Zealand will extend the mission of its special forces soldiers in Afghanistan. She also said she wants to leverage enhanced U.S.-New Zealand ties to promote human rights, democracy and environmental issues across the Asia-Pacific.

Visiting the South Island city of Christchurch, Clinton praised the work of New Zealand's 40 Special Air Service elite combat troops in Afghanistan and said she would like them to stay beyond the end of their current tour of duty early next year. But, she said the decision would be up to the government.

"They are very highly regarded," she told TV New Zealand in an interview. "They work extremely professionally."

"We have a high regard for New Zealand and the troops that you deploy there, of course we would like them to stay as long as you have them stay," Clinton said.
More on link

 Afghan broadcaster says militants smell victory 
Article Link
The Canadian Press Date: Friday Nov. 5, 2010 9:05 PM ET

HALIFAX — Militants smell victory in Afghanistan because the West is gradually turning its back on the war-torn nation, one of the country's most influential broadcasters told a Canadian-hosted security conference Friday.

Saad Mohseni, director of Moby Media Group, offered the sober assessment at the opening the Halifax International Security Forum.

Mohseni said divisions within NATO, the international community and the United States are making Afghans nervous about the future of their country.

Afghanistan, along with neighbouring Pakistan, remains a major security threat to the rest of the world, he said.

"Fine words will be spoken at these forums but we have a clear example in Afghanistan today, and the world is unwilling to commit longer term," said Mohseni, who founded Tolo TV, Afghanistan's most popular television channel.

"We see that the world is going to turn its back toward our region. And to an extent, what's transpiring with debates here and also in Washington, in some way it's giving confidence to the radicals. They seem to feel and smell victory. So for them it's the beginning of the end." 
More on link

 Wounded Canadians find a piece of home at German hospital
Article Link
Published On Fri Nov 05 2010

RAMSTEIN AIR FORCE BASE, GERMANY—Standing in the bitterly cold wind blowing across the airstrip, Master Cpl. Karen Dickie waits for the giant C-17 aircraft to open its jaws.

After a few abortive tries, the mouth of the massive U.S. air ambulance opens and a whoosh of cool German air hits the faces of soldiers, acclimatized to the desert heat, as they lie on their stretchers.

Dickie, a Canadian Forces medic, walks up the metal ramp and scans the stretchers laid out in front of her in search of Toronto Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Tiffin. The naval diver was flown out of Kandahar eight hours earlier, after a bomb blew up in his hands.

Dickie is stationed at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the casualty hub for NATO troops airlifted from combat. She is one of eight specially trained Canadian soldiers whose sole purpose is to move our wounded from the battleground to this German safe haven before being flown home for further care.
More on link


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## GAP (9 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 9, 2010*

 Hillier: Afghan withdrawal 'at exactly the wrong time'
  Article Link 
By Jack Knox, Times Colonist November 9, 2010

 Canadians can be forgiven for wanting out of Afghanistan, says retired general Rick Hillier.

When all they hear about are deaths, IEDs and corruption in the Afghan government, it's no wonder the polls show most Canadians want our troops to fly home.

What they don't hear, he says, is that most of the country is relatively peaceful, that the population is gaining confidence, that the "surge" of American troops is having an effect and that the Taliban are under pressure, many of their leaders in Afghanistan dead and those in Pakistan feeling the heat from an Islamabad government that has grown to see them as a threat. "We've reached a tipping point in Afghanistan," he says.

Hillier, who commanded the international effort in Afghanistan in 2004 and then served as Canada's chief of defence staff until his retirement in 2008, was at Royal Roads University on the weekend for a dinner to benefit Boomer's Legacy, the charity set up in memory of Courtenay's Andrew "Boomer" Eykelenboom, a 23-year-old army medic killed by a suicide bomber in 2006.

Hillier isn't happy about the July deadline for Canada to pull out of Afghanistan. "We will be leaving at exactly the wrong time." Canada's hard-won international credibility will be lost. We should be staying to help train Afghanistan's army and police to take over, he says.

The assumption, therefore, is that Hillier will be encouraged by yesterday's news that Canada is considering leaving several hundred soldiers behind for that purpose.
More on link

 Abbott & Costello go to war
by Aaron Wherry on Monday, November 8, 2010 
Article Link

Three years ago, despite having said a year earlier that “we can’t set arbitrary deadlines and wish for the best,” the Prime Minister said, of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, “you have to put an end date on these things.”

In January, the Prime Minister’s insisted that the mission for Canada after 2011 would be “strictly civilian.” In June, the Prime Minister noted “with some interest” the comments of Liberal critic Bob Rae after Mr. Rae mused of troops remaining in Afghanistan, but maintained that the mission would transition to a “civilian and development mission at the end of 2011″ as set out in a parliamentary motion, even though that motion referred to Kandahar and the Liberal proposal referred to Kabul. Three weeks later, the Defence Minister expressed “great interest” in the Liberal proposal, but again pointed to the motion of parliament as binding. Either way, a day later, the Foreign Affairs Minister dismissed any suggestion that troops might remain past 2011, observing that “Peter might be open to the idea, but this doesn’t mean that the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada is open to the idea.”

And so it is now that a “senior government official” tells the Star that the idea of troops remaining in a training role is being considered, a revelation seemingly confirmed publicly by the Defence Minister.
end

 Afghanistan is 'winnable'
Article Link

Pamela Wallin, National Post · Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010

The man who has twice commanded Canadian troops in Afghanistan says the war is "winnable." He should know -- he's recently back from the heat of combat where he saw the combined effect of the NATO-U. S. troop surge and a more able Afghan Army.

In testimony at the Senate defence committee, Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance pointed out, "The insurgency is finding it increasingly difficult to do anything that would really challenge the seat of government, anyone in government, or their security forces.... As a result, our casualty rates are falling." At the same time, Taliban leaders are being taken out at an unprecedented rate.

General Vance's optimism echoes that of Canada's current commander on the ground in Afghanistan, Brigadier-General Dean Milner, and General David Petraeus, the top NATO commander there, who has said that operations are proceeding "more rapidly than was anticipated." The Canadian Forces' unique combination of warrior and humanitarian skills is also bringing -- and keeping -- Afghans onside. General Vance says that as a population becomes hopeful, it has a "galvanizing effect."

For example, 26 schools have recently opened in the Dand district of Kandahar, and now that they are operating, villagers are beginning to feel more confident and the situation for them becomes more "normal." Schools and education are a big part of the good news out of Afghanistan. We know that school enrolment rose from 900,000 in 2002 to 7.3 million in 2009 -- and now nearly 40% of the students are girls.
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 Afghanistan shuts down 150 aid groups
By Jonathon Burch, Reuters 
Article Link

Afghanistan has ordered around 150 aid groups, including four foreign organisations, to shut down for failing to submit reports on their projects and finances, a government official said on Tuesday.

The ruling by a government-backed commission which monitors aid groups includes 145 domestic organisations and has immediate effect, said a spokesman for the Economy Ministry, which heads the commission.

The commission was established as part of an anti-corruption drive by President Hamid Karzai, who has long been critical of foreign organisations in Afghanistan and says they have been involved in widespread graft.

“The commission has decided the organisations should be dissolved because they have not submitted reports to the Ministry of Economy for the past two years,” ministry spokesman Sediq Amarkhil said.

Amarkhil said he did not know why the NGOs had failed to submit reports, but suggested it may be because they were not registered with the government.

According to Afghan law, non-government organisations (NGOs) must submit reports every six months to the ministry, disclosing details about their funding and activities, Amarkhil said.

WARNING LETTERS

None of the NGOs ordered to close had submitted those reports despite warning letters from the ministry, Amarkhil said, adding government institutions and other donors had been informed not to provide any funding to the groups.
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## GAP (10 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 10, 2010*

 The perfect Canadian compromise
  Article Link
keeping some of our troops in Afghanistan in a non-combat role would allow us to continue to do our part
 By L. IAN MACDONALD, The Gazette November 10, 2010

Well, of course Canada is going to stay on in Afghanistan in a training rather than combat role. It's the perfect Canadian compromise that our NATO partners have found for us -we can do our part in terms of burden sharing, having done more than our share in a mission that has cost 150 Canadian lives.

In relocating to Kabul from Kandahar, the Canadian contingent will downsize from 2,500 to about 1,000, including 700 trainers. While they won't be completely out of harm's way, they will be behind the wire and out the combat zone in the south. And their role, training Afghan forces, fits in with Canadians' perception of our military as the nice guys in the neighbourhood, peace keepers rather than war fighters. We haven't been in that business for quite some time, but the legend lives on.
More on link

 Where's the national monument for Canada's Afghan vets?
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 By Robert Smol, special to CBC News
Article Link

At the start of November, the final rotation of Canadian troops began their deployment to Afghanistan.

Come June 2011, when this last rotation returns, our current combat mission to that country will be over.

With that end in sight, it seems appropriate now to ponder what the legacy of this conflict will be.

By legacy, I mean our collective historical memory of the thousands of Canadian Forces who have served in this nine-year conflict, including the more than 150 Canadian men and women who gave their lives in the cause.
More on link

 Is Defence Minister out of loop on Afghan plans?
Jane Taber Globe and Mail Update Posted on Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Article Link

1. More cracks in cabinet. For the second time in as many months, it appears Defence Minister Peter MacKay is being marginalized by Prime Minister Stephen Harper – this time over the debate about Canada’s role in Afghanistan after 2011.

The main spokesman on the file is not the Defence Minister, who you would think is the most likely person to be stick-handling questions and decisions over what happens to Canadian troops after the combat mission ends next July. 

Rather, the main players are the Prime Minister’s unelected director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, who made the rounds of media on Sunday and Monday, and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.

Indeed, it was Mr. Cannon who reached out to the Liberals. On Friday, he telephoned Bob Rae, the Liberal foreign affairs critic, to talk about “some idea about trainers,” according to Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

“We don’t know what they’re talking about. We don’t know how many trainers. This isn’t the kind of thing you want to do some secret deal with the Liberals about,” Mr. Ignatieff told reporters Monday. 
More on link

 'Inside-the-wire' Afghan plan has soldiers talking
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 9, 2010

Reports that Canada is seriously considering taking on a NATO training mission in Afghanistan after current combat operations end next summer have given a jolt of adrenalin to many troops now serving in Kandahar.

"If the second training rotation begins early in 2012, which seems likely, that would be perfect for me," speculated a sergeant now on his fourth Afghan tour. The combat engineer added that another rotation, this time "inside the wire" as a trainer, would be the perfect way for him to end his long military career.

Word of the possibility of a new military role for Canada in Afghanistan spread quickly among soldiers as they woke up across Kandahar on Monday morning.
More on link

 Remaining in Afghanistan the right choice
Article Link
Remaining in Afghanistan the right choice
By MICHAEL DEN TANDT, QMI Agency Last Updated: November 8, 2010 

What took the Harper government so long? Why all the strenuous denials, month after month, that such an outcome was even possible?

Because it was always likely, if not inevitable, given the situation on the ground and Canada’s alliances, that we would keep an armed force of some kind in Afghanistan beyond July, 2011.

This is also, it so happens, the right thing to do.

The New Democrats will accuse the Conservatives of rank hypocrisy. They’ll repeat their long-standing assertion that the only responsible option for Canada is to pull every last soldier out of Afghanistan, pronto, and never mind the consequences.

The NDP may be well-intentioned. But when it comes to Afghanistan, they don’t have a clue. They speak from a position of ill-conceived anti-militarism that could not be less humanitarian, if translated into reality on the ground.

It’s true that a majority of Canadians favour an absolute pullout now. That’s the Harper government’s fault: They have never managed to articulate the subtleties of the mission or make it plain why we’re there.

We’re over there, it is worth reminding ourselves, because on Sept. 11, 2001, Islamist guerrillas attacked the United States, killing 3,000 innocent people — including 24 Canadians.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (10 Nov 2010)

White House moves away from 2011 Afghanistan withdrawal timeline
The Obama administration is walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the Afghanistan war in an effort to de-emphasize the president’s pledge that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011.
McClatchy Newspapers, Nov. 9
http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013389298_afghanplan10.html



> WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided to walk away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the Afghanistan war in an effort to de-emphasize the president’s pledge that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials said Tuesday.
> 
> The new policy will be on display next week during a NATO conference in Lisbon, Portugal, where the administration hopes to introduce a timeline that calls for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014, according to three senior officials and others speaking anonymously as a matter of policy. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said Afghan troops could provide their security by then.
> 
> ...



The calculations of COIN: Don't forget the other surge -- of Afghans
_Best Defense_, Nov. 9
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/09/the_calculations_of_coin_dont_forget_the_other_surge_of_afghans



> …
> Total ANSF growth, starting from November 2009 to present increased from 191,969 to 255,506, an increase of 63,537 (33 percent). The Afghan army has grown from 97,011 to 136,164, an increase of 39,153 (40 percent) and the national police from 94,958 to 117,342, an increase of 22,384 (24 percent).
> 
> In November 2009, only 35 percent of all soldiers met the minimum qualification standards with their personal weapon. There was an unworkable 1:79 trainers to troop ratio at the firing ranges where Afghan soldiers were attempting to learn. Ten months later, the average unit has a 97 percent qualification rate at the range and the instructor to troop ratio has decreased to 1:29, thanks to increasing support from coalition partners.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (11 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 11, 2010*

 Families of fallen soldiers make trip to Kandahar for Nov. 11 ceremony
Article Link
By: Jonathan Montpetit, The Canadian Press Posted: 11/11/2010 

When Rene Allard was a boy cutting grass in a local cemetery he never thought much of the monuments to the soldiers who fought in the First World War.

"Nov. 11 wasn't a day I used to find special," he said.

But Remembrance Day was given new significance when he learned his son, Sapper Matthieu Allard of Val D'Or, Que., had been killed by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar's Zhari district last year.

"It changed my thinking a lot," Allard said, choking back tears.

He was among the families of eight fallen soldiers who made the trip to Kandahar Airfield to take part in what will likely be the last Remembrance Day ceremony with Canadian soldiers in combat in Afghanistan.

The families joined more than 200 soldiers and dignitaries to honour the 152 members of the Canadian Forces who have died as part of the Afghan mission since 2002.

Canada will begin withdrawing troops next year, and while Ottawa has signalled it will extend the mission, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday soldiers won't be fighting insurgents in their new role.

During Thursday's ceremony, the commander of the Canadian mission in Kandahar told the crowd it is worth recalling that soldiers died here for the "common cause of freedom and human decency."

"It is important that we take the time to mark this day, especially here in Afghanistan," Milner said.

"(It is) a place which is so close to the sacrifices made by the brave men and women who fought in this theatre."
More on link

 Finding peace in a war zone
  Article Link
A Vancouver teacher returns to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country he loves
 By Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun November 10, 2010

When Bashir Jamalzadah reflects on his time in Kandahar, it’s his friends he recalls and their many late-night gatherings telling jokes and drinking tea.

There are disturbing memories, too — of gunfire and blood and the chilling whoosh of homemade bombs erupting from the earth.

In the early days of his assignment as a language cultural adviser to Canadian troops in Afghanistan, Jamalzadah travelled 11,000 kilometres across sand and broken road in the back of a light armoured vehicle.

Once, a suicide bomber got too close to the convoy. The force of the explosion tore one arm clean off a soldier as he stood guard at the rear of the vehicle.

“It’s terrible,” Jamalzadah said of sounds of war.

“But when you hear it, if you hear it, it means you are alive.”

At 61, Jamalzadah is a long way from where most people want to be at his age.

The Vancouver resident traded in a lifelong teaching career, and the comfort of home with his wife and children, to take a job with the Canadian military in his native Afghanistan in 2006.

Fluent in Dari, Pashto and English, his role was part interpreter, part diplomat in a bid to help Canadian soldiers negotiate the support of the Afghan people over a deep-seated insurgency.

It meant a lot of travel across some of the world’s most hostile territory, accompanying battle group commanders to far-flung villages and remote police and army outposts where the reception was unpredictable.
More on link

 2010 death toll in Afghanistan is the lowest since 2005
  Article Link 
Postmedia News November 11, 2010

It was a regular August day in Nakhony -- as regular, that is, as days ever are in the Talibaninfested village southwest of Kandahar City -- when Canadian Forces Cpl. Brian Pinksen went down.

Pinksen, a 21-year-old from Corner Brook, N.L., was on patrol with a fellow Newfoundlander, Cpl. Grant Miller, when they rounded a corner.

Without warning, an improvised explosive device planted by insurgents detonated, seriously injuring both.

Miller survived. Pinksen died eight days later, on Aug. 30, at a U.S. military hospital in Germany.

He was the last Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan this year. At 73 days and counting, the interregnum between Canadian deaths is the longest in nearly two years.

Canadians are still dying in Afghanistan, but 2010 has so far been the least lethal year since 2005.

So far this year, 14 Canadians have died in Afghanistan. By comparison, 30 or more Canadians died every year from 2006 -- when our troops first deployed to perilous Kandahar province -- to 2009.

There are several explanations, experts say.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (12 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 12

Bombs Away: Afghan Air War Peaks With 1,000 Strikes in October
_Wired_, Nov. 10
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/11/bombs-away-afghan-air-war-peaks-with-1000-strikes-in-october/



> The U.S. and its allies have unleashed a massive air campaign in Afghanistan, launching missiles and bombs from the sky at a rate rarely seen since the war’s earliest days. In October alone, NATO planes fired their weapons on 1,000 separate missions, U.S. Air Force statistics provided to Danger Room show.
> http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/11/31-October-2010-Airpower-Stats.pdf
> Since Gen. David Petraeus took command of the war effort in late June, coalition aircraft have flown 2,600 attack sorties. That’s 50% more than they did during the same period in 2009. Not surprisingly, civilian casualties are on the rise, as well.
> 
> ...



First women's cricket team for Afghanistan
AFP, Nov. 11
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hggxgX3DXpIIlABoUQtfKyblQkgg?docId=CNG.725519d0a8e414c790293b772e140526.121



> KABUL — Afghanistan is to get its first national women's cricket team, the sport's governing body in the country said on Thursday, announcing plans for it to compete in an international tournament next year.
> 
> "This development is so exciting for our young women cricketers and their families and supporters," said Diana, women's cricket development officer at the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), in a statement.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (13 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 13, 2010*

 Afghan training stepped up
Article Link
Trainers at Camp Eggers work to build strong foundation for Afghan forces
By Mercedes Stephenson, QMI Agency November 12, 2010

The emphasis has shifted from quantity to quality in the training of Afghan national security forces at the command where Canada will likely head to provide support through 2014.

Located in Kabul, not far from the Canadian Embassy and the presidential palace, Camp Eggers is home to NATO Training Mission Afghanistan (NTM-A). Here, Afghans work, train and live with NATO soldiers who provide them with basic but essential skills including marksmanship, literacy and ethics.

The priority for the command is to build a strong foundation for the Afghan forces - including the Afghan National Police - so security responsibilities in the war-torn country can be transitioned from Western to Afghan hands.

But NATO is experiencing a significant shortfall, which is limiting the number and quality of Afghan forces produced. The appeal for Canadian trainers is clear.

NATO’s priority is no longer on Operational Mentor Liaison Teams (OMLTs), which is the kind of training Canada has provided in the past, requiring mentors to go into combat with their mentees.

NTM-A is instead focusing on “institutional” training, which the command believes will have a greater strategic impact. Emphasis is being placed on reforming and expanding the Afghan police force where 85% of the officers were initially fielded with no training.
More on link

 Immigration minister says program to bring Afghan translators could be extended
Article Link
By: Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press  12/11/2010 

Ottawa may extend its fast-track immigration policy for Afghan translators who help the Canadian Armed Forces and aid workers in Kandahar if troops remain in Afghanistan beyond 2011.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Friday it would make sense to continue the program for as long as such translators work with Canadians.

"The basic principle is any Afghan whose life is at risk because they've assisted Canadian Forces or aid workers we're going to give them fair consideration for expedited immigration to Canada," Kenney said Friday.

"If there is some kind of extension of a non-combat mission, I'm sure we'll extend the same principle in the future."

It was Kenney who originally announced the program to help Afghans who face what he called "extraordinary personal risk'' by working with Canadians in Kandahar.

The program was scheduled to end in 2011 when Canada was originally scheduled to end combat operations in Afghanistan. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed Thursday that Canadian troops will stay in Afghanistan to train the country's military in a non-combat role after the combat mission ends next July.

Kenney said his priority right now is to deal with the current batch of applicants seeking to come to Canada. He said extending the program is not out of the question.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. We have applications in the queue we're reviewing right now. We'll focus on those first."

The application process has been slow and cumbersome.

There have been about 250 applications so far. Each has to be approved by a committee made up of officials from the departments of National Defence, Foreign Affairs, International Development and Immigration and Citizenship.
More on link

 In Afghanistan, a 16-year-old girl dares to learn
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN—An Afghan girl must be strong to reach for a book instead of a broom.

She will suffer for wanting to learn.

Dare to walk to school here in the Taliban heartland and a girl must endure the cruel taunts of neighbours. Not wild-eyed terrorists, just ordinary folk who think a young lady's proper place is hidden in the home.

They question her morals, call her venomous names, do all they can to make life difficult for the whole family.

When the Talibs punish aspiring females, the pain is much worse. Sometimes insurgents throw acid to burn schoolgirls' faces. They poison classes with noxious gas. Gunmen shoot students and their teachers in cold blood.

In one of their latest attacks on education, insurgents murdered Kandahar province's deputy director for literacy, Ustad Abdullah, with a burst of AK-47 fire as he walked to the mosque for morning prayers on Nov. 4.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (13 Nov 2010)

Dutch government to investigate possibility of new Afghanistan mission
CP (AP), Nov. 12
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5j-ikh1S10vILAS5qsmJlCBani9cg?docId=5113104



> THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The new Dutch government is sending a team to Afghanistan to explore the possibility of returning to the international alliance fighting the Taliban insurgency, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Friday.
> 
> The decision is a tentative step toward re-engaging in the international effort in Afghanistan just months after the last coalition government collapsed in a dispute over whether or not to prolong a military mission there.
> 
> ...



Afghan, NATO troops thwart Taliban attack on Jalalabad air base
AFP, Nov. 13
http://www.france24.com/en/20101113-afghan-nato-troops-thwart-taliban-attack-jalalabad-airport



> Taliban fighters launched a pre-dawn attack on a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, triggering a firefight with foreign and Afghan forces that left eight militants dead.
> 
> NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said its troops and Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers stationed at Jalalabad airport came under attack, but that none of their forces were killed.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (13 Nov 2010)

Afghan minorities dusting off weapons, fearing peace talks will return Taliban to power

By: Kathy Gannon, The Associated Press
Article Link
Posted 13/11/2010 12:39 PM

PANJSHIR VALLEY, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai's moves to make peace with the Taliban are scaring Afghanistan's ethnic minorities into taking their weapons out of mothballs and preparing for a fight.

Mindful that Karzai's overtures come with NATO's blessing, and that U.S. and NATO forces will eventually leave, they worry that power will shift back into the hands of the forces they helped to overthrow in 2001.

Such a peace deal won't be easy in a country with a complex ethnic makeup and a tradition of vendetta killings. With ethnic and tribal differences having sharpened during the violence of the last 30 years, there's little indication that Karzai's overtures are gaining much traction.

Still, some mujahedeen — commanders of the Northern Alliance of minority groups that fought the Taliban — are taking no chances. They speak openly of the weaponry they have kept despite a U.N. disarmament drive.

In the Panjshir Valley, heartland of the Northern Alliance, Mohammed Zaman says that when the U.N. came looking for weapons, "the mujahedeen gave one and hid the other 19."

"We have plenty of weapons, rocket launchers and small arms and we can get any kind of weapons we need from the gun mafias that exist in our neighbouring countries," he said. "All the former mujahedeen from commander to soldier, they have made preparations if they (the Taliban) come into the government."

Zaman was speaking to The Associated Press at the grave of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Tajik leader who commanded the Northern Alliance and died in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11 attacks that provoked the U.S. invasion.

Somah Ibrahim, a U.N. spokesman, said 94,262 small arms and 12,248 heavy weapons were collected by the time the disarmament program ended in 2005. But fewer than half of them were destroyed; some went to the army and police, which many of the militiamen joined.

The Hazara, a mainly Shiite ethnic group, are also worried.

"We have lots of weapons but they are not modern weapons. They are simple weapons," said Abbas Noian, a Hazara legislator.

"It is very bad, America announcing they will leave Afghanistan. It has given more power to the militants, more energy. Already we minorities are afraid. We want peace but we are afraid of a strong Taliban," he said.

In late 2009, President Barack Obama spoke of starting a gradual pullout in July 2011 if conditions allowed, but then clarified that he was not envisaging a mass exodus at that time. Lately, attention has lately shifted to 2014, when Karzai expects his forces to be ready to take the lead in securing Afghanistan.
More on link


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## GAP (14 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 14, 2010*

 Karzai wants US to cut back Afghan military operations
Article Link
Last Updated: November 14, 2010 12:01am

WASHINGTON - Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the U.S. military to scale back the visibility and intensity of its operations in Afghanistan and end night raids that he said incited people to join the Taliban insurgency, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

"The time has come to reduce military operations," Karzai told the Post in an interview. "The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan ... to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life."

The Post said his comments put him at odds with U.S. General David Petraeus, who has made "capture-and-kill" missions a central part of counterinsurgency strategy.

In the past three months, such night raids of Afghan homes by U.S. Special Operations forces had killed or captured 368 insurgency leaders, the Post said.

Karzai was quoted as saying his comments were not meant as criticism of Washington, adding that candor could improve what he termed a "grudging" relationship between the two countries.

A senior Afghan official was quoted by the newspaper as saying that Karzai had repeatedly criticized the night raids in meetings with Petraeus and was seeking veto power over the operations.

"The raids are a problem always. They were a problem then, they are a problem now. They have to go away," Karzai said in in the interview.

"The Afghan people don't like these raids, if there is any raid it has to be done by the Afghan government within the Afghan laws. This is a continuing disagreement between us," he said.
More on link

 Canadian soldiers won't let amputations slow them down
Article Link
Derek Miller, W5 Date: Sat. Nov. 13 2010 6:56 PM ET

My alarm went off at 5:30 a.m., Newfoundland Time. I add that it was Newfoundland time because I live in Toronto and that means my internal clock was telling me (irritatedly), that it was just 4 a.m. and I had only gotten about four hours of sleep after a 15-hour long day.

There was no way I was going to complain about this though, because of the two people who I was actually following in Newfoundland: Andrew Knisley and Jody Mitic. They too were up at 5:30 a.m., having already shaved and dressed. And they too were groggy after a 15-hour day.

The difference between them and me was that they had driven a car 350 kilometres the day before, at an average speed of about 150 km/h, through downtown streets, beside cliffs and through the rain. They were competing in the Targa Newfoundland -- a huge road rally -- against experienced race drivers. They themselves had only been racing a car for about three months. And they weren't complaining.

Oh, and one more thing: Jody is missing both legs below the knee and Andrew is missing his entire right leg and part use of his right arm. 
More on link

 Empowering Afghans through education
Article Link
By Mindelle Jacobs November 14, 2010 

If education and social development are as crucial as military capability to the future of Afghanistan, a Calgary-based group is helping modernize the war-torn nation one teacher at a time.

Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan) has just finished a two-year project that upgraded the skills of 1,500 Afghan teachers.

It was a daunting task, says Lauryn Oates, CW4WAfghan’s project manager. “We had math teachers who were trying to teach Grade 8 students and they didn’t understand how to do long division.”

Some of the science teachers had never seen a microscope. At best, the Afghan teachers had a high school education. But their thirst for knowledge was enormous.

CW4WAfghan was supposed to train only 500 teachers but the demand for the eight-week upgrading sessions was so huge that they trained three times as many. The group now hopes to get renewed funding from the Canadian International Development Agency to continue the salaries of the core group of Afghan teacher-trainers so they, alongside international volunteers, can train other Afghan educators.

Canadians and Afghans have more similarities than differences, maintains Oates, who just returned from three weeks in Afghanistan.

“They want their daughters and their sons to go to school. They want to have jobs. They want to have food on the table,” she explains. “They want to be able to walk on the streets without bullets and bombs overhead.”

She understands Canadians’ weariness with our combat role there and is relieved that the federal government has decided to focus on a training mission after our combat troops withdraw next summer.
More on link

 Insurgents infiltrate Kandahar city despite security
Article Link
The Canadian Press  Saturday Nov. 13, 2010 12:59 PM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A security cordon set up around Kandahar city has failed to keep out insurgents, who are filtering back in as coalition forces escalate operations in the province's rural areas.

The cordon was erected under the command of the Canadian military as part of the initial phase of the ongoing offensive to stabilize Kandahar, and consisted of a series of checkpoints around the city.

It passed to U.S. command in recent months, and American military officials now acknowledge it has not provided the desired level of security inside the city.

"We recognize it is not where we would like it to be in terms of the conditions setting," said Lt.-Col. Vic Garcia, deputy commander of the American task force responsible for Kandahar city. "We're taking measure to adjust."

Both American and Canadian military commanders have trumpeted recent success against the Taliban in many of Kandahar's rural areas. But violence in the city itself has failed to abate. 
More on link

 Abducted Afghan diplomat freed after two years
Article Link
By Sayed Salahuddin, Reuters November 14, 2010 4:51am

KABUL - A senior Afghan diplomat in Pakistan, kidnapped two years ago by gunmen, has been freed, the Afghan government said on Sunday.

Abdul Khaliq Farahi, the Afghan consul general in Pakistan, was seized after gunmen ambushed his car and killed his driver in September 2008 in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.

"I can confirm that he was freed yesterday and he is in Afghanistan," said Siyamak Herawi, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai.

"The government of Pakistan has apparently said that he was freed in an operation," he replied when asked whether any deal had been struck to secure Farahi's release.

Pakistani officials, however, denied any operation had been undertaken.

"What we know is it was not the outcome of any operation," a senior government official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

At the time of his abduction, Farahi was Kabul's nominee to become ambassador to Pakistan.
More on link

 Afghan mujahedeen prepare to fight as Karzai attempts peace with Taliban they helped overthrow
Article Link
By: Kathy Gannon, The Associated Press Posted: 13/11/2010

PANJSHIR VALLEY, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai's moves to make peace with the Taliban are scaring Afghanistan's ethnic minorities into taking their weapons out of mothballs and preparing for a fight.

Mindful that Karzai's overtures come with NATO's blessing, and that U.S. and NATO forces will eventually leave, they worry that power will shift back into the hands of the forces they helped to overthrow in 2001.

Such a peace deal won't be easy in a country with a complex ethnic makeup and a tradition of vendetta killings. With ethnic and tribal differences having sharpened during the violence of the last 30 years, there's little indication that Karzai's overtures are gaining much traction.

Still, some mujahedeen — commanders of the Northern Alliance of minority groups that fought the Taliban — are taking no chances. They speak openly of the weaponry they have kept despite a U.N. disarmament drive.

In the Panjshir Valley, heartland of the Northern Alliance, Mohammed Zaman says that when the U.N. came looking for weapons, "the mujahedeen gave one and hid the other 19."

"We have plenty of weapons, rocket launchers and small arms and we can get any kind of weapons we need from the gun mafias that exist in our neighbouring countries," he said. "All the former mujahedeen from commander to soldier, they have made preparations if they (the Taliban) come into the government."

Zaman was speaking to The Associated Press at the grave of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Tajik leader who commanded the Northern Alliance and died in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11 attacks that provoked the U.S. invasion.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (14 Nov 2010)

Military trainers likely required beyond Kabul 
Afghanistan's 'need for training is national,': NATO deputy commander
Postmedia News, Nov. 14, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Military+trainers+likely+required+beyond+Kabul/3826120/story.html



> It is highly unlikely the military trainers the Canadian government intends to send to Afghanistan next year will all be based in Kabul -- as has been widely suggested in the Canadian media.
> 
> "The need for training is national," Canadian Maj.-Gen. Stu Beare, one of two deputy commanders of NATO Training Mission Afghanistan, told Postmedia News on Saturday, as he pointed at a brightly coloured map showing dozens of academies located across Afghanistan.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (14 Nov 2010)

Exclusive: Afghanistan - behind enemy lines
Article Link
James Fergusson returns after three years to Chak, just 40 miles from Kabul, to find the Taliban's grip is far stronger than the West will admit
Sunday, 14 November 2010

The sound of a propeller engine is audible the moment my fixer and I climb out of the car, causing us new arrivals from Kabul to glance sharply upwards. I have never heard a military drone in action before, and it is entirely invisible in the cold night sky, yet there is no doubt what it is. My first visit to the Taliban since 2007 has only just begun and I am already regretting it. What if the drone is the Hellfire-missile-carrying kind?

Three years ago, the Taliban's control over this district, Chak, and the 112,000 Pashtun farmers who live here, was restricted to the hours of darkness – although the local commander, Abdullah, vowed to me that he would soon be in full control. As I am quickly to discover, this was no idle boast. In Chak, the Karzai government has in effect given up and handed over to the Taliban. Abdullah, still in charge, even collects taxes. His men issue receipts using stolen government stationery that is headed "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan"; with commendable parsimony they simply cross out the word "Republic" and insert "Emirate", the emir in question being the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar.

The most astonishing thing about this rebel district – and for Nato leaders meeting in Lisbon this week, a deeply troubling one – is that Chak is not in war-torn Helmand or Kandahar but in Wardak province, a scant 40 miles south-west of Kabul. Nato commanders have repeatedly claimed that the Taliban are on the back foot following this year's US troop surge. Mid-level insurgency commanders, they say, have been removed from the battlefield in "industrial" quantities since the 2010 campaign began. And yet Abdullah, operating within Katyusha rocket range of the capital – and with a $500,000 bounty on his head – has managed to evade coalition forces for almost four years. If Chak is in any way typical of developments in other rural districts – and Afghanistan has hundreds of isolated valley communities just like this one – then Nato's military strategy could be in serious difficulty.
More on link


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## GAP (14 Nov 2010)

Taliban motivated by revenge against Western armies more than Islam: study

By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
Posted: 14/11/2010
Article Link

A new report, partly funded by the Foreign Affairs Department, says western nations have misunderstood the war aims of the Taliban and it cautions any potential peace deal with them could be a threat to human rights.

The study, initiated by the U.S. Institute for Peace with help from Ottawa's Global Peace and Security Fund, comes as the Karzai government made more attempts over the weekend at reconciliation with top insurgents.

The report suggests many insurgent fighters have taken up arms in retaliation for perceived military aggression by NATO — a sentiment echoed Sunday when the Afghan president asked western armies to restrain their operations.

The Taliban cling to that perception despite the billions of dollars the international community is pouring into Afghanistan's reconstruction, the study found.

The research, which examined the motivations of insurgents through face-to-face interviews, sheds a different light on why the war has cascaded to new heights of violence.

Penned by a former foreign policy and defence adviser to the British Parliament, the document suggests some of the West's Afghan policies, including the emancipation of women, have served to inflame conservative elements in Afghan society — anger on which the Taliban has capitalized.

Researcher Matt Waldman, recently a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School, conducted over 80 interviews in Kandahar, Kabul and Quetta, Pakistan, last spring and many of his findings turn accepted notions about the insurgency upside down.

He says the longer the fighting has dragged on, the more the Taliban have convinced themselves and ordinary Afghans that they're fighting a war of liberation.
More on link

Military trainers likely required beyond Kabul
   Article Link
Afghanistan's 'need for training is national,': NATO deputy commander

By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 14, 2010



It is highly unlikely the military trainers the Canadian government intends to send to Afghanistan next year will all be based in Kabul -- as has been widely suggested in the Canadian media.

"The need for training is national," Canadian Maj.-Gen. Stu Beare, one of two deputy commanders of NATO Training Mission Afghanistan, told Postmedia News on Saturday, as he pointed at a brightly coloured map showing dozens of academies located across Afghanistan.

The mission is responsible for training local security forces.

While NATO would "certainly" tell any nation contributing trainers to Afghanistan where their services were most required "they can choose where to go," Beare said in his first interview since the federal government made a U-turn last week and committed to a new training mission in Afghanistan once the current combat mission in Kandahar ends next summer.

"It doesn't matter where they go. It's the same mission with the same force protection. The training centres are all over the country because that is where the trainees are."

Although Prime Minister Stephen Harper has confirmed that Canada would try to help meet NATO's urgent request for trainers, he has not yet provided details about the size of the force that would do the training.

Aides have suggested that it could number as many as 1,000, including support staff.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (15 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 15

Daily brief: Petraeus reportedly "frustrated" with Karzai's call to end night raids
_Foreign Policy_, "AfPak Channel", Nov. 15 (links in original)
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/15/daily_brief_petraeus_reportedly_frustrated_with_karzais_call_to_end_night_raids



> *Mixed messages*
> 
> Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave an interview to the Washington Post over the weekend in which he called for the reduction in military operations in Afghanistan and the end of night raids (Post). Excerpts of the interview are here (Post). NATO officials said Karzai's remarks frustrated Gen. David Petraeus, top commander in Afghanistan, and that NATO had received assurances that Karzai was on board with the coalition's strategy (AP, AFP). Karzai's spokesman said the comments were a sign of a "maturing partnership" (Post).
> 
> ...



Taliban war aims misunderstood: study 
CP, Nov. 14
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/101114/national/afghan_talking_taliban



> KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A new report, partly funded by the Foreign Affairs Department, says western nations have misunderstood the war aims of the Taliban and it cautions any potential peace deal with them could be a threat to human rights.
> 
> The study, initiated by the U.S. Institute for Peace with help from Ottawa's Global Peace and Security Fund, comes as the Karzai government made more attempts over the weekend at reconciliation with top insurgents.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (15 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 15, 2010*

 Teaching Afghans more important than combat: army trainer
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 14, 2010

Col. Paul Scagnetti’s small unit at the Afghan Army Command and Staff College has already been doing for 18 months what the Harper government is about to order hundreds of soldiers to do after Canadian combat operations cease in Kandahar next summer: train Afghans to bring security to their country.

"If Canadians want bang for their dollars, this is it," he said.

"Every soldier wants to be on a combat mission, but if they have to do something else, training is actually more important," said Scagnetti, who was a high school teacher in Timmins, Ont., for 31 years and who has been an army reservist for almost as long.

"In the long-term, this (training) is an enabler for peace, because you end up with an Afghan teaching an Afghan, who brings security to other Afghans. And there is now a generation of Canadians with combat experience with lessons to pass on."

Canada has more than 40 soldiers working as trainers with the Afghan army and police in Kandahar. Another six, including Scagnetti, are responsible for a course for junior army officers in Kabul.
More on link

 Protecting Afghan women a possible post-combat role for Canada
Article Link
Tobi Cohen, Postmedia News · Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010

Championing the emancipation of Afghan women is emerging as a possible non-military, post-combat role for Canada as politicians and activists debate the future of the costly mission in Afghanistan.

While the focus has shifted in recent days toward an 11th-hour decision to keep as many as 1,000 troops in Afghanistan until 2014 to train Afghan security forces, there’s been a fractured attempt over the past few weeks and months to explore the issue of women’s rights — which some argue has captivated the Canadian public and kept dwindling support for the mission alive.

Ottawa has yet to unveil its full strategy for Afghanistan once combat troops pull out of restive Kandahar in July 2011 but, on Monday, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights will begin hearing from experts on what role Canada might play in supporting the promotion and protection of women’s rights in the war-torn country.

The hearings come weeks after CARE Canada released a report that calls on the government to make the plight of Afghan women its top priority. It also follows on the heels of a much-anticipated and long-delayed Foreign Affairs action plan released weeks ago on a series of United Nations resolutions aimed at addressing women’s issues in all conflict zones.
More on link

 On Afghanistan, we’re getting propaganda
NORMAN SPECTOR Globe and Mail Update Monday, Nov. 15, 2010 
Article Link

Last December, when President Barack Obama unveiled his plan to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, he made no mention of 2014 as the end-date for the mission. Instead, to mollify an anti-war base that presumably did not believe his campaign rhetoric about Afghanistan being the “good war,” July 2011 was the President’s target date for at least the beginning of the end: “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home,” he stated boldly at West Point.

That date must have been music to the ears of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who – referring to the parliamentary resolution – rode a similar end-date through the 2008 election campaign. A month after Mr. Obama spoke at West Point, Mr. Harper stated in an interview that all Canadian troops would be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2011, with the exception of the odd guard at the embassy.

Mr. Harper’s problem began in July, when General David Petraeus agreed to save the President’s face by assuming command in Afghanistan and, in the process, exacted his pound of flesh. Shortly thereafter, the end date of 2014 for the mission entered the scene at a UN-sponsored security conference. By early Fall, it began to show up in statements from NATO. Now, it’s the only date you hear coming from Washington – accompanied by considerable propaganda about how the situation on the ground is improving.
More on link

 Battle lines drawn in Ottawa over Afghan mission
Article Link

Joanna Smith Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA—A decision to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan for another three years is expected to dominate federal politics this week, but all that talking is unlikely to reveal many details yet.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed last week he wants some Canadian troops to remain in Afghanistan until 2014 in a non-combat role that would involve training the local military.

The New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois are against extending the Canadian military presence past what was once a firm deadline of July 2011, but the Liberals are onside with the idea so long as more details are provided.

“I think the key problem so far is that we just don’t have a full description of what the mission actually is and answers to some questions about what other countries are involved,” Liberal MP and foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said in an interview Sunday. He later added that his party will also want to know what the government plans to do in terms of development and democracy in the country. “There are a number of questions we want to ask and work our way through.”

But despite reports that Canada will provide as many as 1,000 trainers — including support staff — to meet NATO demands, official details are unlikely to be revealed in Ottawa this week.

That’s because any plans will be finalized first at a NATO meeting in Lisbon this week before being announced back home.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (15 Nov 2010)

Afghanistan: Transition Strategy - 2014
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, Nov. 15:
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1289845558/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (16 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 16, 2010*

 Canadian Helicopters foresees strong revenues from Afghanistan contracts
Article Link
By: Ross Marowits, The Canadian Press  15/11/2010

MONTREAL - Canadian Helicopters Income Fund expects the ramp up of U.S. military contracts in Afghanistan will strengthen its revenues in the coming quarters and offset normal seasonal domestic weakness.

"The likelihood we are projecting of greater revenues than previous years over the next two quarters in spite of normal domestic seasonal fluctuations is grounded in very solid expectations," CEO Don Wall said Monday during a conference call.

The Montreal-based transportation fund's optimism flows from its third contract with the United States Transportation Command and the renewal of two earlier deals.

The Oct. 1 contract would generate more than US$360 million if all options are exercised and hours flown by June 2016 and be the largest since the company's initial public offering in 2005.

It will use two heavy-lift Sikorsky S61 and four Bell 212 medium helicopters for the contract. Five of the aircraft will be acquired.

The contracts to carry goods and passengers to forward military operating locations in war-torn Afghanistan should ramp up in the first quarter of fiscal 2011 and more than offset two large unrenewed contracts.

Ontario air ambulance service Ornge recently decided against exercising its option to extend a services agreement beyond the end date in 2012.

The United States Transportation Command also didn't renew a North Warning System operation and maintenance contract.
More on link

 Church group helps kids in Afghanistan
Published Tuesday November 16th, 2010 
Article Link

GAGETOWN - A village of Gagetown church group is helping to educate children in Afghanistan.

Neighbours For Peace, a Grace United Church fundraising committee, has raised $4,300 that it will donate to the Canadian Rotary Centennial Afghanistan Challenge.

It's a joint initiative between Rotary and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The two organizations are working together to construct a school in Afghanistan that will educate 4,000 children a day in three shifts.

"It's our way of supporting our troops here," said Clair Ripley, co-chairman of the committee. "It's also a way for us to provide education for both girls and boys and to give Canadian troops some recognition for their community service."

CIDA is matching money raised by Rotarians across Canada to a maximum of $518,000. The Gagetown and Area Rotary is kicking in an extra $700 to the local Neighbours For Peace contribution, for a total of $5,000.

CIDA's matching formula will expand that donation to $10,000.

This time around, Neighbours For Peace received financial support from a variety of sources, including a joint fundraiser with the Old Boot Pub featuring harpist Jane Ogilvie.

Personal donations, Sunday givings and a contribution from the United Church Women in Oromocto rounded out the offerings.

Ripley said the other churches in the Gagetown-Grand Lake presbytery - in Young's Cove and Cambridge-Narrows - were also supporters.
More on link

 The detainees file appears lost in the fog of committee
LAWRENCE MARTIN Globe and Mail  Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010 
Article Link

Remember the Afghan detainees’ controversy? You might not because the Liberals, who had the government cornered on this explosive file, have let it fade from public view.

The dispute over the question of whether the government knowingly allowed war captives to be tortured by Afghan authorities is an issue that has visited more embarrassments on the Conservatives than perhaps any other.

The detainees’ imbroglio figured prominently in the resignation of defence minister Gordon O’Connor. It prompted revelations by diplomat Richard Colvin that tore holes in the government’s credibility. It prompted a mea culpa by Chief of the Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk. It was a factor behind Stephen Harper’s much-regretted decision to prorogue Parliament, a move that sparked a national protest. It led to an extraordinary ruling from House Speaker Peter Milliken condemning the government for breach of parliamentary privilege in its refusal to release uncensored documents.

The issue is still potentially lethal. The documents, if released, could show that the Prime Minister’s Office orchestrated a major cover-up. They could show that the Conservatives were in breach of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners.
More on link


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## GAP (17 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 17, 2010*

Canada to pull civilian staff from Kandahar, base trainers in Kabul
CAMPBELL CLARK OTTAWA— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010
Article Link

Canada is slashing aid to Afghanistan and abandoning any presence in Kandahar by withdrawing not only troops but civilian aid officials next year.

Despite the approval of a new training mission, the moves mark a turning point where Canada is significantly disengaging from Afghanistan: dramatically reducing the outlay of cash, reducing the risk to troops, and quitting the war-scarred southern province where Canada has led military and civilian efforts. 

There will be a deep cut to aid for Afghanistan. International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said Canada will provide $100-million a year in development assistance for Afghanistan over the next three years, less than half the $205-million the government reported spending last year.

And the focus will be shifted away from Kandahar. The Harper government’s decision to mount a 950-strong training mission in Afghanistan when it cuts off the combat role next July was accompanied Tuesday by confirmation of a complete pullout from Kandahar. The training mission will be mostly in Kabul, and possibly other Afghan centres, but not in Kandahar – and civilian officials who manage development projects from a Provincial Reconstruction Team will also leave.

“The [civilian] people who are in Kandahar will be either reassigned to Kabul, as needed, or will be returning to Canada,” Ms. Oda said.
More on link

 Afghan ambassador returns home to help
  Article Link 
By Jennifer Campbell, The Ottawa Citizen November 17, 2010 4:08 AM

Afghan Ambassador Hamid Karzai is so pleased with Canada's decision to extend its military mission in a non-combat role that he's recalled his ambassador.

Clearly it's not the traditional recall, which is done to express displeasure at a foreign government's position. Rather, Ambassador Jawed Ludin is being called home to Kabul so his skills can be put to use there.

"They're very happy," Ludin said. "The president called me and was very happy with Canada's decision. He thought I had a role in this -- which is quite optimistic. I don't think anyone had a role in it except for the prime minister himself, who should take credit.

"It was a very important issue for me and I tried to give a perspective of an Afghan but I was always very realistic about how much influence this would have because there are many factors the prime minister would take into account."

Ludin said Karzai hasn't told him what he'll be doing in Kabul but he said his recall is definitely a promotion, though he regrets having to leave Canada, which he'll do by the end of 2010.

On Canada's decision, Ludin said he's as pleased as his president. "It's a good decision and we're very grateful. We did wait for a long time and we were anxious about it but it was well worth the wait. The prime minister quite rightly took the time.
More on link

 Kabul Is Offered Wider Role in U.S. Missions 
Article Link

By ADAM ENTOUS And JULIAN E. BARNES

WASHINGTON—The White House sought to ease tensions with Hamid Karzai on Tuesday, promising to gradually give Afghans greater control over Special Operations missions that the Afghan president has sharply criticized.

Washington hopes to smooth over differences with Mr. Karzai and present a united front at a NATO conference this weekend in Lisbon, where coalition leaders are expected to endorse a plan that sets the goal of handing over security control to the Afghans by the end of 2014.

In recent months, Special Operations raids have assumed a higher profile, with U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization military officials in Afghanistan touting the number of insurgent leaders who have been killed or captured, and saying the missions are a critical part of the war strategy. But the raids, mostly at night, have long been a sore point with Mr. Karzai because of concerns about civilian casualties.

The Afghan leader, in an interview with the Washington Post this past weekend, called for an end to raids by Special Operations forces, spotlighting tensions between the U.S. and Afghanistan on how to conduct the war.

U.S. officials have rejected calls to halt the raids. But in a news briefing Tuesday, administration officials sought to play down the rift with the Afghan government as temporary.

"As Afghan special forces capacity increases, we'd expect to transition from what is today a predominantly international special operations forces role to one that's increasingly Afghan," White House Afghanistan adviser Douglas Lute told reporters. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (17 Nov 2010)

Afghanistan: Before fighting season ends, one last push
_GlobalPost_, Nov. 9
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/101108/afghanistan-war-photos-horn-panjwaii?page=0,0



> TALUKAN, Afghanistan — After days of waiting for the big mission in the Horn of Panjwaii to begin, a room full of infantrymen watched two Chinook helicopters packed with Special Forces touch down in the tilled fields outside the village of Talukan.
> 
> On a black and white monitor in the headquarters at Forward Operating Base Ramrod, the huge birds kick up clouds of dust as tiny figures race through it and are lost in the flickering image. A huge AC-130 gunship darts across the frame, then back. Little flashes of gunfire light up the night.
> 
> ...



France says Afghanistan is a trap
Reuters, Nov. 17
http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2010/11/17/16179641.html



> PARIS - The war in Afghanistan is a trap for all parties involved and France will discuss how to draw down its troop presence at a NATO summit this week, the newly-appointed defence minister said on Wednesday.
> 
> "Afghanistan is, I would say, a trap for all the parties involved there," said Alain Juppe, a former prime minister who was appointed defence minister on Sunday in a reshuffle of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's cabinet.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (17 Nov 2010)

Non-combat role? Canada doesn’t operate ‘inside the wire’: Worthington
By Peter Worthington November 16, 2010 9:01pm
Article Link

Believe what you want, but assurances from the PM and defence minister that Canadian soldiers who remain in Afghanistan after the 2011 withdrawal deadline will be “inside the wire,” is a lot of hooey.

The formal “combat” role may end, but Canadian soldiers do not function “inside the wire.” Never have, unlikely ever will.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s and Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s assurances make no sense — and this is not meant as criticism of them, but as recognition of reality.

If, as is widely touted, 750 to 1,000 Canadian soldiers are to remain in Afghanistan after the bulk of the 3,000-member battle group has departed, they will be responsible for training the Afghan National Army (ANA) and providing security for aid workers and reconstruction teams that will become Canada’s main priority.

Fair enough.

But “training” Afghans to be soldiers is not an “inside the wire” job. Afghans need neither training nor encouragement to fight, but they do need discipline if they are to be an effective army that can impose security and something resembling “peace.”

The more detailed the training, the more involved Canadian soldiers will likely be.

Our guys will almost inevitably be in the field mentoring the ANA — on patrols, providing security, doing what soldiers do to maintain or impose stability. In Afghanistan, as elsewhere, that means being outside the wire. And “outside the wire” means fighting when necessary to pacify those who would subvert the status quo.

“Reconstruction,” which is building schools, dams, restoring normal life, takes place “outside the wire.”

Canadians involved in aid work are justified in feeling more secure if Canadian soldiers are responsible for their security.

That’s as it should be, and will be.

Maybe the Harper government feels it has to sugar the pill to condition the public on what ending our combat role in Afghanistan really means. But not too much sugaring. Canadians prefer straight talk, which doesn’t come easily to politicians.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his understudy, Bob Rae, have already voiced approval of a continuing military role in Afghanistan. Putting Canada’s interests ahead of political expediency is a credit to them both.

Having visited our troops in Afghanistan, both Ignatieff and Rae have a better understanding of the situation than, say, the NDP’s Jack Layton whose forte is posturing and pronouncing.

That the Americans are virtually pleading with Canada to remain in Afghanistan in some capacity is testimony to our effectiveness. U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham lavishly praising the professionalism of Canadian soldiers is not just massaging Canadian egos.

Rather, it is heartfelt recognition of our worth and is reflected in the U.S. military’s realization (somewhat to their own surprise) that “outside the wire” our guys know what they are doing and at every occasion have thumped the Taliban enemy.

For a peace-loving people, Canadians make excellent soldiers — as witnessed in all our wars which have been fought mainly by citizen soldiers who, once the job is done, return to their peaceful lives.

An oddity of the world today is the most effective soldiers tend to be those from English-speaking countries. That doesn’t mean others aren’t good, but that English-speaking countries produce soldiers who usually win — or are damned hard to defeat.

That can work to advantage in peace as well as war — as Afghanistan may yet prove.
end


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## MarkOttawa (17 Nov 2010)

Our trainers won't be 'Omleteers'
_Ottawa Citizen_, Nov. 17, letter from Lew MacKenzie:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/SOMNIA/3840182/story.html



> Re: You can't train troops from 'behind the wire,' Nov. 15.
> http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/train+troops+from+behind+wire/3828207/story.html
> 
> I frequently agree with Senator Colin Kenny in spite of our ideological differences, but not this time. He needlessly and unfortunately raises unwarranted concerns regarding the proposed role for our soldiers post-2011.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (17 Nov 2010)

New Canadian Commitment to Afghanistan
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, Nov. 17
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1290016090/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (18 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 18

Moscow Expands NATO's Routes
Russia to Allow More Supplies to Flow to Afghanistan Amid Efforts on Both Sides to Improve Ties
_WS Journal_, Nov. 18
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703688704575620882049694928.html



> Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign an agreement with the leaders of the NATO alliance on Saturday aimed at expanding the use of supply routes through Russia into Afghanistan, as part of an effort to improve ties between the former antagonists...
> 
> The transit agreement with Russia will expand the goods that can be sent on rail routes through Russia to include armored cars, such as U.S. MRAPs, according to NATO officials. Some 4,000 containers have passed through Russia to Afghanistan since 2008, according to NATO and Russian officials, and the number of shipments has accelerated since June.
> 
> ...



Russia completes small arms deliveries to Afghanistan
RIA Novosti, Nov. 12
http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20101112/161303989.html



> Russia has completed deliveries of small arms and ammunition to Afghanistan under a military assistance program.
> 
> The last of nine Il-76 cargo planes landed on Friday in Kabul carrying weaponry and ammunition for the Afghan police forces to assist the legitimate government in the fight against crime, drug-trafficking and Taliban militants.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (19 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 19

U.S. sending tanks to hit harder at Taliban
_Washington Post_, Nov. 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/18/AR2010111806393.html



> The U.S. military is sending a contingent of heavily armored battle tanks to Afghanistan for the first time in the nine-year war, defense officials said, a shift that signals a further escalation in the aggressive tactics that have been employed by American forces this fall to attack the Taliban.
> 
> The deployment of a company of M1 Abrams tanks, which will be fielded by the Marines in the country's southwest, will allow ground forces to target insurgents from a greater distance - and with more of a lethal punch - than is possible from any other U.S. military vehicle. The 68-ton tanks are propelled by a jet engine and equipped with a 120mm gun that can destroy a house more than a mile away.
> 
> ...


  

Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (23 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 23, 2010*

Enduring' ground being gained in Afghanistan: Canadian commander
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 22, 2010
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Military successes in southern Afghanistan are "not just fleeting," but have set the stage for more dramatic gains in the near future, says the Canadian commander of a 200-strong group of army trainers.

"Some people say it is only because the Taliban have gone back to Pakistan because it is the winter," said Col. Ian Creighton, in charge of the operational mentor liaison team (OMLT) that has gone to war alongside the Afghan army as advisers. "And, you know, it is the truth. Some have. But others have died or given up.

"A lot of Taliban fled because a lot of key players were being killed," added Creighton, whose Afghan travels include Kandahar City, Arghandab, Zhari, Panjwaii and Dand.

What is crucially different than previous autumns when the Taliban also went to ground is that previously, there had never been enough NATO and Afghan forces to ensure "a proper, enduring hold," of territory that had been gained during the summer fighting season, he said.

Now, because of a U.S. troops surge and far greater numbers of soldiers and police being produced by Afghan training academies, this is possible.
More on link

 U.S. Senator thanks Canada for staying in Afghanistan
By BRYN WEESE, Parliamentary Bureau  November 22, 2010 
Article Link

OTTAWA — Canada's decision to stay in Afghanistan past 2011 won't go unnoticed in either the United States or around the world, according to U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman.

The longtime American political veteran offered his heartfelt thanks to Canada Monday for the Canadian government's recent decision to keep about 1,000 Canadian Forces personnel in Afghanistan until 2014 to help train the Afghan army.

Lieberman, a Democrat Connecticut senator since 1988, praised Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision as a principled one, "not made as the result of a public opinion poll.

"I understand how politically difficult it is to sustain support for this fight in Afghanistan. I also understand how people naturally become weary of war, but I want to emphasize to you how important Canada's contribution has been, and how grateful the people of the United States are that you will continue to be there with us in a training role," Lieberman said. "It matters to us. It matters to the people of Afghanistan."

Lieberman was speaking in Ottawa at the annual forum of Kollel of Ottawa, a Jewish education centre.

He acknowledged Canadian casualties have been "disproportionate.

"(But) their determined efforts have been absolutely essential to keeping us safe back here at home ... as well as to protect the human rights of millions of innocent people who are threatened by the most mid-evil kind of Islamist barbarism," he told the crowd of several hundred at the Government Conference Centre. "As one American senator speaking, I think on behalf of a bipartisan majority of members of Congress and certainly the president of the United States, I thank you for your principled commitment to a future Afghanistan that reflects the rule of law and gives its people a chance to live as we do in a democratic country."

The senator, the first Jewish candidate ever on a serious presidential ticket (Al Gore's in 2000), also warned the crowd about Iran's nuclear program and how it must be stopped at all costs, even militarily if necessary, and also praised Harper for his unwavering support of Israel.
More on link

Taliban impostor 'dupes Afghans and vanishes with cash'
Article Link
 23 November 2010 Last updated at 08:26 ET

An impostor posing as a leading Taliban negotiator held secret talks with Afghan officials, report US media.

The Afghans thought they were dealing with Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansour, a top Taliban commander.

But he may not even have been a member of the Taliban, reports the New York Times, which broke the story.

He was paid "a lot of money", then he disappeared, say diplomatic sources. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has denied reports he met the impersonator.

The man is said to have travelled from Pakistan, where it is thought the Taliban's leadership is based, and reportedly had three meetings with government officials.

The fake Taliban leader was flown to Kabul on a Nato aircraft and taken to the presidential palace to meet Mr Karzai, unnamed Nato and Afghan officials told the New York Times.

It is not clear why Afghan officials would have had any difficulty identifying the real Mr Mansour as his face should have been well known to them, BBC correspondents say. He was civil aviation minister during Taliban rule.
Shopkeeper?

Doubts about the man's identity arose after someone who knew Mr Mansour told Afghan officials he did not recognise the impersonator.

"It's not him," an unidentified Western diplomat in Kabul, said to be deeply involved in the negotiations, was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "And we gave him a lot of money." 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (24 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 24

Progress in Afghan war called 'uneven'
_Washington Post_, Nov. 24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112307000.html

Pentagon Reports Afghan Setbacks 
_Wall St. Journal_, Nov. 23
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730304575632942345740212.html

Pentagon Report Cites Gains in Afghanistan
_NY Times_, Nov. 23
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/world/asia/24military.html?ref=todayspaper

Pentagon offers grim status report on Afghanistan
_LA Times_, Nov. 23
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-report-20101124,0,5646558.story

Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (24 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 24, 2010*

 Van Doos take over outposts; begin patrols as last Kandahar battle group
Article Link
By: The Canadian Press  24/11/2010 

BAZAAR-E-PANJWAII, Afghanistan - Soldiers from the battle group that will close out Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan started to take over desert outposts and patrol the winter-scorched fields west of Kandahar this week.

Members of the famed Royal 22e Regiment also took part in their first operation, a push with fellow Canadians and Afghan forces through a troublesome farming region where a team of Taliban bombers was on the loose.

The official handover between the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment battle group and the incoming Van Doos has yet to take place.

Soldiers from the incoming unit, based in Valcartier, Que., partnered with some of their predecessors as they helped Afghan forces hunt a bomb-making cell in central Panjwaii district.

At least two soldiers were wounded by either a roadside bomb or other booby traps over the last two days — something the Canadian military does not acknowledge because information on injuries is considered an operational secret.

The Van Doos will see the country's mission through to its end in July next year.
end

 Training female Afghan police officers rewarding, but challenging for Canadian
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 23, 2010

KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan — Cpl. Karen Holowaychuk found out the hard way about the dangers of being a female cop in Afghanistan.

One of the Mountie's former students, Shoa Gul Bari, was murdered three months ago. Two insurgents shot her to death at the home she shared with her husband and their six daughters and one son.

That Gul Bari was the target was obvious from the fact that nobody else was hurt in the attack and from numerous threats the Taliban had made against women who dared to become police officers.

The six students that Holowaychuk recently had in another all-female class often brought up the murder of their colleague, who had been a member of the Afghan National Police for five years.

"What made them angry was the waste of it," said the corporal, who returns to the RCMP training depot in Regina in December after nine months instructing male and female members of the Afghan National Police.

"I feel quite helpless," she said. "I don't know who did it and whether they will held responsible."
More on link

 DiManno: The slide from Kandahar to Kabul
Article Link

There are two occupying armies in Kabul: NGOs and ISAF.

The non-governmental agencies are in their element, many underscrutinized in their aid and development budgets, as literally billions of donation dollars flow through the capital.

Little of that largesse has substantially improved civilian life. But the humanitarian hyenas drive around in chauffeured SUVs, usually reside in highly secured compounds with extensive domestic staff, and enjoy a lively social whirl in restricted clubs where Afghans are rarely found — beyond serving alcoholic drinks they're not permitted to imbibe.

Planet ISAF is equally insulated behind high UN and NATO walls, though officials in tandem with Afghan ministry representatives conduct weekly media briefings where not much of significance is ever discussed. The Kabul bureau for journalists is a surprisingly soft gig as most reporters rely ever more on stringers to bring back the goods, take all the risks.

Though International Security Assistance Force convoys venture out daily, the city's security responsibility has for the past year been Afghan-led. Unlike their ISAF counterparts, barely visible from within their heavily armoured vehicles, Afghan security forces — national army and police — are dangerously exposed in mini pickup trucks.

If the Afghan National Police, in particular, is loathed by the citizenry as hooligans and extortionists, a considerable number in cahoots with insurgency elements, one can almost understand their treason and criminality: Pay is negligible, dangers omnipresent, command-and-control corrupt. For many Afghans who enter the police training program, the true objective is a year or two of shakedown opportunity, after which they can return to their villages with a useful nest egg.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (26 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 26

Canadian colonel says Taliban defeated on battlefield
AP, Nov. 26
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20101126/taliban-afghanistan-canadian-101126/



> The outgoing commander of Canada’s mentoring team in Kandahar says the Taliban were routed this fall and won’t present a significant threat in the future.
> 
> Col. Ian Creighton says the lull in violence that’s trickled across southern Afghanistan over the past few weeks has nothing to do with onset of colder weather, as in previous years.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (26 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 26, 2010*

Pakistan suicide attack 'foiled'
Article Link
 26 November 2010 Last updated at 06:07 ET

Police in Pakistan have prevented two would-be suicide bombers from attacking a mosque in the capital Islamabad, officials say.

One of the two men was wearing an explosives vest and was on his way to bomb a mosque during Friday prayers, a police official said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the place of worship was in the upmarket F8-1 residential neighbourhood.

The district is home to many wealthy Pakistanis and Westerners.

Authorities learned of a possible attack late on Thursday and stepped up security, Mr Malik said.

"We took all the required measure without creating a panic," he added.

Police official Bin Yamin told AP news agency the suspects were connected to the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan.
More on link

Karzai aide blames British for Taliban impostor
Article Link
 26 November 2010 Last updated at 20:45

President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff has said British authorities brought a fake Taliban commander into sensitive meetings with the Afghan government.

The British embassy refused to confirm or deny the remarks, made in an interview with the Washington Post.

A man described as Mullah Mansour, a senior Taliban commander, was flown to Kabul for a meeting with President Karzai.

Now it is claimed he was really a Pakistani shopkeeper.

British government sources say the man was introduced to British agents by the Afghan security service and that the UK was merely helping to facilitate Afghan-to-Afghan negotiations.

Reports say he vanished after being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

UK officials told the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner that no British taxpayers' money was used to fund the bogus negotiator.

They say the money paid to him was Afghan government money and was a fraction of the amount mentioned in some press reports. 
More on link

 'It's in the blood': Canadian military family reunites in Afghanistan
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 25, 2010

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Cpl. James McKenzie got the surprise of his life and his best birthday present this week.

James' father, Warrant Officer Alistair McKenzie, flew out to a forward operating base to congratulate him on the safe conclusion of his seven-month combat tour in the Taliban heartland.

"It was amazing. Seeing my father made my day," said James, 26, who returns to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa from Panjwaii with the Royal Canadian Dragoons early next week. "But we couldn't even manage a handshake as I got on the helicopter because I had to carry my rifle, my duffle bag, a carry-on and a rucksack."

Alistair, 51, and a "scope dope" or radar expert for 32 years for the air force, said he was "extremely happy" his son was "out" of volatile Panjwaii district, where Canada's combat forces have been concentrated since last year.

Working at Task Force Kandahar's main command post, the older McKenzie could instantly see whenever Category A and Category B casualties popped up on the board. If these casualties had occurred where his son's reconnaissance squadron was operating "my heart would drop," he said.
More on link


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## George Wallace (27 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 27, 2010*

Afghanistan: Suicide bombs target police in Paktika

Article Link
27 November 2010 Last updated at 06:01 ET 

*Two suicide bombers have attacked a police HQ in Afghanistan's south-eastern Paktika province, officials say, killing at least 12 officers.*

A Taliban spokesman said its fighters had carried out the attack, which also injured at least 13 policemen.

The suicide bombers reportedly detonated devices in the compound of the regional police headquarters.

Paktika, which borders Pakistan, has been the target of numerous attacks from insurgents.

The BBC's Paul Wood in Kabul says that as Nato pursues offensives in Helmand and Kandahar, other parts of Afghanistan have become more violent.

*'Covered with blood'*

Both attackers were dressed as police officers and entered the main police compound some 20 minutes apart.

They made it through three security checkpoints on the roads outside before reaching the main police headquarters. 

One attacker detonated his explosives inside the building, another one near the entrance. 

Nawab Waziry, the head of Paktika's provincial council, told Associated Press news agency: "There are lots of casualties. The site was covered with blood."

The Paktika region has been the target of many US drone attacks on insurgents.

Nato forces also killed 19 Taliban fighters who attacked an outpost in the province in October.

In May a group of suicide bombers attacked a police base in Urgun district. At least one policeman and four militants were killed.


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## MarkOttawa (27 Nov 2010)

Alliance Commitment for Afghanistan-2014
Conference of Defence Associatons' media round-up, Nov. 26
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1290795959/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (28 Nov 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND NOV. 28

Treasury Board rules could heighten risk in Afghanistan
Postmedia News, Nov. 26, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Treasury+Board+rules+could+heighten+risk+Afghanistan/3890134/story.html



> KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The lives of Canadian soldiers could be put at greater risk because of Treasury Board regulations that prevent Task Force Kandahar from continuing to employ its best cultural advisers.
> 
> About half a dozen of Canada’s top advisers, who are ethnic Afghans with Canadian citizenship, have been told that they cannot be rehired when their current contracts expire. They are being let go because of government rules that state that if they work for more than three years for any federal department they must be offered permanent employment in the public service.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (28 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 28, 2010*

 UK-based Taliban spend months fighting Nato forces in Afghanistan
Article Link
Taliban fighter reveals he lives for most of year in London and heads to Afghanistan for combat
 * Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and Jon Boone     * guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 November 2010
Special report: Taliban troop with a London cab driver

British-based men of Afghan origin are spending months at a time in Afghanistan fighting Nato forces before returning to the UK, the Guardian has learned. They also send money to the Taliban.

A Taliban fighter in Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan last month told the Guardian he lived most of the time in east London, but came to Afghanistan for three months of the year for combat.

"I work as a minicab driver," said the man, who has the rank of a mid-level Taliban commander. "I make good money there [in the UK], you know. But these people are my friends and my family and it's my duty to come to fight the jihad with them."

"There are many people like me in London," he added. "We collect money for the jihad all year and come and fight if we can."

His older brother, a senior cleric or mawlawi who also fought in Dhani-Ghorri, lives in London as well.

Intelligence officials have long suspected that British Muslims travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan each year to train with extremist groups.

Last year it was reported that RAF spy planes operating in Helmand in southern Afghanistan had detected strong Yorkshire and Birmingham accents on fighters using radios and telephones. They apparently spoke the main Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, but lapsed into English when they were lost for the right words. The threat was deemed sufficiently serious that spy planes have patrolled British skies in the hope of picking up the same voice signatures of the fighters after their return to the UK.

The dead body of an insurgent who had an Aston Villa tattoo has also been discovered in southern Afghanistan.
More on link

 Afghanistan Arrests 9 in Probe of Election
Article Link

BY MATTHEW ROSENBERG AND HABIB KHAN TOTAKHIL

KABUL—Afghan authorities arrested nine private citizens and are seeking the arrest of four election officials on allegations of fraud in September's parliamentary vote, a top prosecutor said, deepening Afghanistan's political uncertainty at a crucial juncture in the fight against the Taliban.

Authorities are also looking into a person who works at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari without elaborating. The U.N. said it was looking into the matter.

The Attorney General's investigation sets up a potentially destabilizing confrontation that pits the administration of President Hamid Karzai against election officials and possibly even the international community 
More on link

 Diplomats may cut back the paper trail
  Article Link
WikiLeaks documents dump will encourage officials to keep reports verbal

By Juliet O'Neil, Postmedia News November 27, 2010

WikiLeaks could put a chill on the way diplomats perform their basic function of keeping their masters in the loop with blunt written assessments of the players and politics in the nations where they're posted.

The release by WikiLeaks of reams of potentially embarrassing American diplomatic cables may mean more verbal reporting and fewer paper trails in the future, says Queen's University expert Kim Nossal.

Governments will likely be less inclined to have their diplomats produce a written record of observations and recommendations about the players and politics wherever they're stationed if it's likely to be revealed while everyone is still in place
More on link

 Green found everywhere
Article Link
Soldiers in Afghanistan show their Rider Pride

By Jeremy Warren, The StarPhoenix November 27, 2010

Colby Hogemann made sure to pack a Saskatchewan Roughrider's flag for his first tour of duty in Afghanistan.

In June, Hogemann and three other soldiers from his squadron unfurled the flag at a Canadian military forward operational base in the Khandar region and posed in front of a tank.

"We're all Rider fans," said Hogemann on Friday, less than a week after he finished his eight-month stint in Afghanistan. "Where ever we go, we're always Roughrider fans, even overseas."

Hogemann, a 23-year-old tank driver, is stationed at CFB Edmonton, but he grew up on farm south of St. Gregor, a small town east of Humboldt.

He arrived in Afghanistan in April. CFL games were made available to soldiers, although the feed was delayed by several hours.

"We watched them anyway even though we knew the outcome," Hogemann said.
More on link

Afghan-Canadian doctor opens Afghanistan’s first heart clinic
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News November 27, 2010

An Afghan-Canadian doctor has taken a drastic cut in pay to return to his homeland and open Afghanistan’s first heart clinic.

"I feel that the nicest people in the world are Canadians, but I felt a duty to return to my homeland," said Asmat Naebkhill, the director of the Alli Abad Cardiac Research Centre in Kabul.

"I was not comfortable in Canada knowing how my people were suffering.”

Naebkhill was living in Windsor, Ont., before relocating to Kabul.

"Once upon a time, Afghanistan was such a nice place,” he said. “There were no guns, no bombs, no explosions. Because of the war, everything is volatile, and that includes medicine. There is no law today in Afghanistan. People can do what they want. What I am trying to do is bring a Canadian standard of medicine to Afghanistan."

Naebkhill finished medical school in Kabul and became a cardiologist in India before emigrating to Canada during the Soviet war in the 1980s. After passing the Canadian medical exam in Kitchener, Ont., he worked as a cardiologist in Regina, Saskatoon, Toronto and Windsor before returning to the country of his birth last year.

"The first few months I was alone. I even had to do the cleaning," the soft-spoken doctor said in precise, lyrical English.
More on link


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## GAP (29 Nov 2010)

*Articles found November 29, 2010*

 Karzai's brother 'corrupt drugs baron' US says: WikiLeaks
Article Link
By Claire Truscott (AFP) – 16 hours ago

KABUL — Leaked US documents on Monday painted President Hamid Karzai's controversial younger brother as a corrupt drugs baron, exposing deep US concerns about graft undermining the war against the Afghan Taliban.

Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks has started to release quarter of a million confidential US diplomatic cables, detailing embarrassing and inflammatory episodes in what the White House has condemned as a "reckless and dangerous action".

Ahmed Wali Karzai has long been dogged by allegations of unsavoury links to Afghanistan's lucrative opium trade and private security firms.

But as a powerful figure in Kandahar, where US forces are leading the fight to break a nine-year Taliban insurgency, Western officials have kept quiet in public on the president's younger half brother's tainted record.

Leaked cables from the US embassy in Kabul now reveal their true feelings in moves that could complicate already strained relations between Washington and Karzai at a key juncture in the war.

"While we must deal with AWK (Ahmed Wali Karzai) as the head of the provincial council, he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker," said one note that followed a meeting between the president's brother and US envoy Frank Ruggiero in September 2009.
More on link

 Canadians may end up training some enemies
  Article Link 
Ottawa Citizen November 29, 2010

Re: Remind me why we're fighting in Afghanistan, Nov. 24.

In his insightful column, Dan Gardner looks for Canada's goals in Afghanistan. Canadian taxpayers must be wondering about the same thing.

The Canadian military will end its combat mission soon but continue a smaller presence there for training the Afghan armed forces.

And on the same page in the Citizen, former British MP George Galloway ( "As I was about to say ..." Nov. 23) wrote that "yet at least a quarter of the army, according to the latest U.S. figures, disappears every year and pops up, trained perhaps, in the ranks of the Talibans."

I would think that the Canadian military may now be engaged in training some potential members of its own enemy. Even those trainees who remain in the Afghan army may not do their job according to Canadian standards or NATO expectations.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have invested heavily in training and also equipping the Iraqi army for the past several years. However, since the partial U.S. withdrawal, the sectarian fights and violence in various parts of Iraq continues with considerable loss of life and property.

As it is the case in Iraq, members of Afghanistan's security forces also have much stronger allegiance to their own families and tribes. They put their tribal and sectarian benefits way ahead of their national interest. Fighting for Canadian or NATO goals cannot be their top priority.

President Hamid Karzai provided a good example of such corrupt practices by publicly confessing that his government accepts regularly bundles of cash from Iran. One must wonder how many other countries and/or interested parties are filling his pockets with cash in return for favours.
More on link


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## GAP (8 Dec 2010)

Video thought to show American held in Afghanistan
By Associated Press Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - Added 36 minutes ago
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan — A new video released by the Taliban shows a man believed to be the only known American serviceman held captive in Afghanistan, a group that tracks militant websites said Wednesday.

Spc. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, has been held by the Taliban since June 30, 2009, when he disappeared in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan.

The U.S.-based IntelCenter said that along with Berghdal, another man in the video appeared to be the Taliban commander who had once threatened to kill the U.S. soldier.

The video, which also shows militant attacks in Afghanistan, was released by Manba al-Jihad, a video production group affiliated with the Taliban. The man believed to be Bergdahl appears only briefly in the video and is not the main focus of the release.

Bergdahl appeared in three videos the Taliban released prior to this latest: on July 18, 2009; Dec. 25, 2009; and on April 7.
More on link


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## GAP (11 Dec 2010)

*Articles found December 11, 2010*

 Charles Company commander causes a stir in Afghanistan
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News December 11, 2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Maj. Eleanor Taylor caused quite a stir when she deployed to a remote outpost deep in the Taliban heartland of western Kandahar last spring.

When the 34-year-old soldier from Antigonish, N.S., took off her blast goggles and helmet, Afghan elders in Panjwaii were taken aback, meeting the first woman to command a Canadian infantry company in combat.

"I would be disingenuous if I did not acknowledge that they were often very surprised," Taylor said during an exclusive interview with Postmedia News at the end of her seven-month tour. "There was shock on their faces and they would exchange a couple of words among themselves. I know the word for women in Pushto and I heard that word."

But these rural Pushtoons from what may be the most conservative Islamic society in the world were always respectful as well as curious, as were the soldiers from two Afghan army companies her unit was partnered with, so it turned out "not to be a handicap at all."

"I honestly think that notion that Afghan men won't deal with western women is a myth. Or that has been my experience, anyway," the commander of Charles Company said.

"Certainly if an Afghan woman were to come and ask them the things that I asked of them, they would receive an entirely different response. But as a western woman, they see me as foreign and if they hold prejudice towards women, and I certainly suspect some may, they don't show it. In fact, I have found they have been more open with me — certainly much more than I expected — than with some of my male counterparts."

Locals provided Taylor with a logical, if slightly bizarre explanation for their solicitous behaviour.
More on link

 Mountie helps Afghan Border Police
Article Link
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, QMI Agency December 11, 2010

OTTAWA — It’s a wild and bloody 5,000-kilometre stretch that goes from Himalayan-type mountains to Sahara-style deserts and waters wide as the Mississippi River.

RCMP Supt. John Brewer has spent the last nine months helping Afghan Border Police secure this perilous, porous border that touches six neighbouring countries. As part of an international NATO team, Brewer has helped locals intercept insurgents and organized criminals running drugs, weapons and explosives along the loosely-defined “front line.”

"In peace time, this would be difficult enough. But in times of fighting an insurgency, that of course makes it even more difficult," Brewer told QMI Agency in an interview from Kabul.

Working to overcome cultural, religious, literacy and gender challenges that come with building a 21,000-strong force of Afghan border security officials, Brewer has travelled through 17 provinces and inspected dozens of crossing points and airports.

Despite the dangers, Brewer calls it a "phenomenal" experience that is among the highlights of his career.

Before heading off from his home base in B.C., Brewer had 13 weeks of training in Kingston, Ont., and Ottawa and another three weeks in California, brushing up on everything from military tactics to cultural sensitivity. His experience working in a vast country with remote outposts and First Nations communities was an asset to his role in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Border Police is growing fast — a primarily young male force that now includes 125 women. Along with the insurgency and organized crime, they battle another enemy — harsh mountainous terrain and winter weather conditions that can block transport of food and supplies.
More on link

 Soldiers surrounded by oceans of opium
  Article Link 
By ALEX ROSLIN, BILBO POYNTER, The Gazette December 11, 2010

Say you're a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan surrounded by oceans of opium poppies and piles of easily accessed heroin. How do you cope?

Some reports suggest there could be a problem. In 2007, a Canadian military police report on Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan said there had been "13 investigations including importation of heroin" involving Canadian Forces personnel.

"One area of concern, which will continue to be a focal point for criminal intelligence resources, is the accessibility to illicit drugs," the report said.

Canadian soldiers have also been hit with greater rates of criminal charges related to drugs since Canada's large-scale deployment to Afghanistan started in 2003.

- ¦Charges for conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline relating to drugs and alcohol shot up from an average of 75 per year during the four years prior to the Afghan mission to 99 per year since 2003, according to data from the Defence Department's judge advocate general's office.
More on link

 Complementing Air Support?
Tanks In Afghanistan: Supplementing or Augmenting Air Power Via Direct Fire Support
By Murielle Delaporte md@sldinfo.com
Article Link

12/09/2010 – M1A1 Abrams vs Leopard 2A6M?
If the Canadians and the Danes regularly use their tanks in the Afghan theatre – respectively since 2006 and  2007 — the U.S. military leadership has always been reticent to imitate its allies out of fear to replay the scenario of the Soviet intervention in the eighties in the minds of the Afghan population. The Canadians were the very first ISAF members to deploy seventeen Leopards 1C2, which they had to replace because of increasingly high maintenance costs and the looming risks of lacking spares by 2012. They therefore deployed as early as 2007 twenty Leopards 2A6M. The Danes have been using fifteen Leopards 2A5DK since 2007.

Repeated tactical successes of the German-made Leopard seem to have demonstrated the key role of the tank in operations: sixteen tanks M1A1 thus will supplement the arsenal of the Marines and will be deployed in the Helmand Province in the spring of 2011. Such an initiative seems intended less as an “escalation” than a mean to replace the Canadian tanks,  on which American forces have been regularly relying for support (it was the case no later than last month during the offensive of Panjwaii). Canadian armed forces must indeed leave Afghanistan in July 2011, leaving behind only a thousand advisers [1]. If figures are correct and add up, the overall number of tanks within the Coalition in Afghanistan would in actual fact go down from thirty five to thirty one as of this summer.

    Such an initiative seems intended less as an “escalation” than a mean to replace the Canadian tanks,  on which American forces have been regularly relying for support (it was the case no later than last month during the offensive of Panjwaii). Canadian armed forces must indeed leave Afghanistan in July 2011.
More on link

Heroin glut hits home
 Treatment centres are struggling to cope with the surge of addicts hooked on the heroin that is pouring into Canada from war-torn Afghanistan
 By ALEX ROSLIN and BILBO POYNTER, Montreal Gazette December 11, 2010
Article Link

It's just before 1 p.m. on a cool, sunny Monday afternoon in late November. On a quiet residential street in Montreal's east end, half a dozen heroin addicts are waiting by office phones and cellphones in the Méta d'Âme drop-in centre and residence for opiate users and recovering addicts.

Their fingers are poised to hit the speed dial button. At precisely 1 p.m. each Monday, the phone lines open at the city's main opiate addiction treatment centre, the Centre de recherche et d'aide pour narcomanes.

CRAN is so overwhelmed with demand, only the first caller to get through each week gets a coveted treatment spot.

For everyone else, the wait will continue another week. CRAN is the only provincially funded opiate treatment centre in the city where heroin users even have a shot at help any time soon. At other centres, the waiting lists are six to 12 months long.

"We have to come up with all kinds of tricks to help our clients (work the system)," says Guy-Pierre Lévesque, Méta d'Âme's director and a former heroin user himself.

The city's treatment centres are struggling to cope with a surge of addicts - many younger than ever before - who are hooked on a rising tide of heroin pouring into Canada from war-torn Afghanistan.
More on link

 Suffering of Afghan women and children remains widespread: report
Article Link
By: Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press Posted: 10/12/2010

OTTAWA - Afghanistan's women and children continue to live a mainly wretched existence, despite a decade of well-intentioned, international intervention, says a new report obtained by The Canadian Press.

Mothers die in childbirth at alarming rates, aspiring female politicians face death threats and most school-age girls never see the inside of a classroom.

That portrait emerges from a 2009 Foreign Affairs report, the department's most recent human-rights audit of the war-torn country. It contrasts sharply with the Harper government's usual, upbeat talking points on the pace of progress in Afghanistan — particularly the educational gains of girls.

With Canada withdrawing combat troops next year in favour of a military training mission, the report underscores the formidable challenges that remain for Afghanistan's most vulnerable.

"Afghan women and children continued to suffer amid ongoing insecurity, sexual violence, pervasive poverty and socio-cultural and economic exclusion," says the 38-page report, obtained under Access to Information.

"Child labour was prevalent and social discrimination of some minorities continued," it says. "Malnutrition remained high and health conditions of women and children were considered among the worst in the world."
More on link

 Camp Pendleton Marines beat back insurgents
As casualties taper, commanders send in tanks in Sangin river valley in Afghanistan
Article Link
By Gretel C. Kovach Friday, December 10, 2010

Camp Pendleton Marines made advances in recent weeks in their campaign to beat back insurgents in the hard-fought Sangin river valley — the Taliban’s last major stronghold in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, their commanding general said.

To help the infantrymen build on those gains, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment is getting an infusion of tanks, troops and counter-explosive equipment, said Maj. Gen. Richard P. Mills, head of Marine forces in Afghanistan and NATO’s southwestern regional command.

Sangin is now the deadliest area for the Marines. The battalion has suffered heavy casualties, including the loss of at least 20 Marines in a little more than two months, since it moved into the fertile redoubt of poppy growers and Taliban fighters in October.

But Mills said casualties tapered in recent weeks even as the unit pushed up a strategic road toward the Kajaki dam, expanded security beyond the district center and held peace talks with village elders.

“The reason casualties are going down is because they are winning, plain and simple,” Mills said, in an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune from his Camp Leatherneck headquarters in Helmand province. The 3/5 Marines have not backed down, they “have gotten more aggressive; they have taken the fight harder to the enemy.”
More on link 

 An education for Afghan schoolgirl, thanks to Star readers
Article Link

VANCOUVER—Generous Canadian spirit has revived an Afghan schoolgirl’s dying dream.

Roya Shams, 16, had her heart set on continuing her education over an Internet link from Kandahar, in insurgency-wracked southern Afghanistan, to Canada. But funding ran out after she completed a course in civics and passed the exam.

She had sailed over the first hurdle on the rough road to a career in politics, only to stumble because she couldn’t find $500 for tuition and books.

When the Toronto Star’s Insight section reported last month that Roya’s dream was fading fast, dozens of readers rallied to help her stay in school.

Almost 100 donors gave more than $7,000 to the Canadian International Learning Foundation, which supports Roya and hundreds more Afghan students, said agency president Ryan Aldred.

Several others offered to pitch in as volunteers, he said.

“The response was overwhelming, and was a huge boost for both the staff and students of the Afghan-Canadian Community Center (ACCC) and the volunteers at the foundation,” Aldred said from Ottawa.

Roya is one of about 1,900 Afghan students, mostly women and girls, who defy insurgent threats and attend the centre’s classes. 
More on link

 15 dead, 24 injured in Afghan bombings
Article Link
By Borzou Daragahi Los Angeles Times Staff Writer December 11, 2010

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan —
Civilians bore the brunt of insurgent violence in a series of attacks Friday and Saturday that killed at least 15 people and injured 24, Afghan officials said.

The bombings took place in the south and the northern province of Kunduz, both home to the Pashtun plurality fueling the Taliban insurgency against NATO troops and the Afghan government.

In the most deadly attack, a roadside bomb struck a pickup truck loaded with Afghan men Friday morning in a rural stretch of Helmand province, killing 15, Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor, disclosed Saturday.

Get dispatches from Times correspondents around the globe delivered to your inbox with our daily World newsletter. Sign up »

A car bomb explosion set off early Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of the Information and Culture directorate in the southern provincial capital of Kandahar injured four police officers and two youths, said Zalmay Ayoubi, spokesman for the governor.
More on link


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## GAP (12 Dec 2010)

*Articles found December 12, 2010*

 Bases going to the dogs - and cats
By Jon Rabiroff Stars and Stripes  December 11, 2010
Article Link

ARGHANDAB DISTRICT, Afghanistan — U.S. soldiers and Marines are smuggling them onto bases across the country.

The military leadership seems to turn a blind eye, though regulations specifically prohibit them.

They go by names like Smoke, Bacon, Mickey Blue Eyes and Butterscotch, and they can be coerced with as little as a pat on the head, a scratch behind the ears or a tasty treat.

They are the stray dogs and cats of Afghanistan who, at many — if not most — U.S. bases here are adopted by soldiers and Marines individually, by squad or platoon, and spoiled as much as any mutts or felines in suburban America.

While no one will say so officially, it appears commanders recognize the value that pet dogs and cats bring to the morale of a base, so they look the other way as long as the animals do not interfere with the mission or present health concerns.

You might call it a policy of don’t bark, don’t smell.

“It is common in both Iraq and Afghanistan for units to adopt local dogs and cats,” said SPCA International spokeswoman Stephanie Scott. “We have been told time and time again that these dogs and cats can be of great comfort and a little piece of home to our troops.”

Spc. Jimmy Labbee, of the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment’s Company B, based in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, said: “I can honestly speak for everybody else — it definitely boosts our morale and gives us another bit of responsibility. It keeps our energy positive, playing with them and spending time with them.”
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 Taliban by conviction or convenience; Afghan hearts and minds not easily swayed
  Article Link
By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press 11/12/2010

ZANGABAD, Afghanistan - The man in the white cloak and turquoise striped turban didn't want to be photographed, and pleaded that his name remain a secret.

That's always a sign around here, but not necessarily a good one.

"If you write my name, by the evening my throat will be slit," the villager with anxious eyes said through an interpreter. A young boy of about 10 stood at his elbow.

"Not only me, but they will kill my family. The Taliban know my face."

Just moments earlier, the man had stood shoulder to shoulder with the governor of Panjwaii district in an interview with a western journalist. He'd given his name and offered his support to Haji Baran, who'd come to put the Afghan government's stamp on this enmeshed little corner of Kandahar province.

He was introduced by the district chief as a supporter of the Taliban with two sons active in the insurgency, prompting nearby Canadian military officers to scribble furiously in their notebooks. The man — in his 40s and well-dressed, compared with his companions — said he believed in his heart the future was with the government.

"I have 100 per cent confidence in Haji Baran, the district leader, that he will support me and keep the promise he has made," the man said.

Whether the man was Taliban by conviction or convenience wasn't clear.
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 Last of a dying breed: The Canadian peacekeeper
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KINGSTON—Unlike most other Canadian soldiers, Lt.-Col. Dalton Cote doesn’t carry a gun. He is a peacekeeper, one of 27 left in a military that used to be defined by that role.

For the past six months, while his comrades in arms were patrolling through Kandahar and sidestepping IEDs, Cote left his guns at home, donned a blue beret, climbed into a UN truck and negotiated his way through checkpoints in an effort to observe troop movements, monitor weapon stashes and investigate violent attacks on both sides of the makeshift border that could next month become the official partition between north and south Sudan.

As the leader of 20 Canadian peacekeepers sprinkled across the Sudanese countryside, Cote, a 45-year-old father of two, was, until five weeks ago, leading the largest Canadian peacekeeping contingent currently deployed.
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 Canada backs blacklisted Afghan firm
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WASHINGTON—Canada is standing by a controversial Afghan security firm that’s controlled by Afghanistan’s ruling Karzai family despite a U.S. military decision to sever ties with it, The Star has learned.

The Watan Group, which safeguards Canada’s signature Dahla Dam restoration project in Kandahar, was blacklisted this week as part of a U.S. effort to stop aid dollars slipping into the hands of corrupt officials and Taliban commanders.

But Watan Risk Management, the specific subsidiary facing intense American scrutiny, will remain Canada’s security partner on the ground, according to Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, the lead partner in the project.

“For the moment, we have no plans to replace Watan. Until or unless we have evidence that these contractors have done something illegal we will continue to employ them,” SNC-Lavalin spokesman Leslie Quintan confirmed in an email to The Star.

“Our primary concern is, as always, the safety and security of our people and we will do nothing to put them in jeopardy.”

The U.S. move to ban Watan from future contracts follows a Congressional report in June that determined the firm engaged in widespread bribery of Afghan officials and regional strongmen to ensure safe passage along NATO supply routes.

Watan denies any wrongdoing and intends to appeal the U.S. debarment, the firm’s managing director, Simon Hilliard, told the Associated Press.

Canadian concerns over Watan were exposed earlier this year in a Star investigation into setbacks surrounding the $50 million Dahla Dam project, which stands as Canada’s last chance for a lasting legacy in Afghanistan. 
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 Afghan police crisis threatens British withdrawal as thousands quit force
Article Link
Former Army commander says 2015 departure could be delayed if Afghanistan is unable to police itself
Rajeev Syal The Observer, Sunday 12 December 2010 

Afghanistan's police force, whose success and stability is crucial to allowing the government to withdraw British troops, is losing nearly one in five recruits every year, new figures reveal.

Foreign Office statistics show that more than 20,000 officers from the Afghan National Police (ANP), the country's main law enforcement agency, have left over the past year. The Foreign Office figures will cause concern in the armed forces, where the success of the police is seen as the basis for handing control to an Afghan government in 2014 and British troop withdrawal in 2015.

Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said the figures were "worryingly high" and could play a significant role in determining when Britain can leave.

"In order to get into the condition where we can hand over the country to the Afghans themselves, to manage the security of the country, we need not only a capable army, we need a strong police force," he said. "We are a long way from there. The Afghan national army has still got a long way to go even if it is improving, and the police are some way behind that."

Kemp, who was responsible for training Afghan forces, including the ANP, in 2003, said that the figures would be key in defining when British forces can leave. "Numbers are still important. If we are not getting to where we need to be in terms of either quality or numbers, that is a major concern in terms of being able to hand over to the Afghans in 2014 as is our aspiration," he told the Observer.
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Afghan Nato attack: 'Six US soldiers' die near Kandahar
Article Link
 12 December 2010 Last updated at 10:16 ET

Six US soldiers have been killed in an attack near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, military sources say.

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said earlier six of its troops had been killed, but did not provide their nationalities.

A senior Afghan army officer told the BBC a suicide car bomber had targeted a checkpoint outside a base manned by Afghan and US troops in Zari district.

It is at the heart of a months-long Nato offensive against the Taliban.

Fighting has intensified in the south of the country as US troops have tried to push Taliban militants out of their strongholds in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

American commanders there are confident that they have been making progress in and around Kandahar, says the BBC's Paul Wood in southern Afghanistan, but clearly the Taliban are still present in the area.

None of the US officers to whom our correspondent has spoken are under any illusion that the Taliban can be completely defeated.

But they do hope to weaken the insurgency sufficiently that the Afghan forces will be able to deal with the Taliban on their own once the US troops start to withdraw next year, adds our correspondent.
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 The Rules
December 10, 2010
Article Link

 The war in Afghanistan you don't hear much about is the culture clash. Afghanistan is largely defined by a tribal culture, not a national, elected, government. Individually, Afghans want to get ahead in life, to have more comforts and the respect of family and friends. But when it comes to government, the only thing most Afghans trust are family, clan and tribe (usually in that order). A cousin who is a murderous bandit is more trusted than foreigners who come in and build schools and clinics and drill new water wells. The thing is, cousin Ali and his bandit ways will be around for a long time, while the foreigners are strangers that will soon leave.

The old American saying that; "all politics is local," applies everywhere, and certainly in Afghanistan. But the politics is tribal and the tribes do not trust a national government. Moreover, it's traditional to view all strangers (including Afghans from another tribe, or even clan) as potential victims. Stealing from "others" is an ancient custom in Afghanistan, and those who can grab the most from foreigners gain lots of stature. This even applies to the current situation, where government officials are stealing billions of dollars of foreign aid. Yes, Afghans resent that these thefts often hurt them personally. But, as an Afghan, you gotta admire the guy. And if the big thief is a member of your tribe, you can pay him a respectful visit and ask for a handout. By custom, your newly wealthy fellow tribesman is expected to take care of his own. It's part of the cultural game. We all play one of those, but the Afghans play by rules that died out in the West centuries ago.

There's also a problem with the lack of educated Afghans. With one of the lowest literacy rates on the planet, along with a miniscule number of college educated professionals, all these billions in aid are being given to people who don't really know how to handle it. There are not enough Afghan planners, accountants, lawyers, engineers and construction managers to make the most of the money. So many Afghans do the next best thing, and grab as much of the money for themselves and their families. What really annoys the generous foreigners is that Afghans are hostile to the idea of foreign technical experts helping with the efficient spending of the aid bonanza. For all their strutting and bravado, Afghans are intimidated by their backwardness, and the numerous skills, and  technology, possessed by the foreigners. Even the foreign soldiers regularly kick the crap out of Afghan warriors. Since paranoia has long been recognized as a useful survival skill in Afghanistan, the foreigners should not be surprised that it is being directed at them. 
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## GAP (12 Dec 2010)

NATO targets Kandahar assassin squads; mayor warns not all are Taliban
Article Link
By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press  12/12/2010 

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - NATO has given itself a licence to kill those who are murdering government workers in Kandahar, but the mayor of this embattled city says those lurking under the assassin's masks are not all Taliban.

The general commanding Canadian troops in the war-wasted region calls hunting down insurgent assassination squads "an absolute focus."

"I have some very capable intelligence resources linked in with the Americans, linked in with the international community; (and) we have these guys on the run," said Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner in a recent interview with The Canadian Press. "We are targeting these guys nightly. We're going after them."

American and other NATO commanders have long been frustrated by the wave of assassinations that's gripped Kandahar over the past few years.

Two deputy mayors — or emirs — were murdered this year, crimes that brought about a spate of mass resignations by municipal employees.

Since 2004, at least 300 tribal elders, moderate mullahs, advisers and government employees have been shot or blown up by roadside bombs.

A remote-controlled car bomb exploded outside police headquarters Saturday, wounding four police officers and two children.

The targeted violence and the panic it induced was so intense that in the spring of 2009 provincial council members fled the city, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press under access to information laws.

"It is the only line (of operation) where insurgents have won a clear victory," said a NATO officer speaking on background recently.

The knee-jerk reflex in this city is to blame the Taliban whenever there is mischief, mayhem or murder, and many Kandaharis joke about it in a bit of black humour amid the chaos.

But there is a darker, even more sinister reality lurking in the tangled web of Afghan politics, corruption and drug dealing.

Mayor Ghulam Hayder Hamidi, who was the target of a failed assassination attempt in March 2009, said instability and a weak government benefits more than just hardline Islamists.

"Believe me, I not thinking that Taliban or al-Qaeda put the bomb for my car, to kill me," he said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press. "I don't believe my two emirs were killed by Taliban. The corrupt people, which are the warlords, which are the drug dealers, the powerbrokers are the ones responsible."

Hamidi is careful not to name names, but held up the attempt on his life as an example.

The bomb blast happened in the city's so-called Green Zone, a highly secured, often patrolled area of government buildings and offices in downtown Kandahar.

The remote-controlled detonation happened 500 metres from his office, near an Afghan National Police checkpoint.

"How are they coming here?" Hamidi asked rhetorically.

Since assuming the mayor's chair almost four years ago, Hamidi has waged a lonely, sometimes one-man war against the corruption and nepotism that greases Kandahar politics. He's fired unqualified engineers, railed against shady contract deals and battled powerful land speculators.

"Because they are my enemy and I am their enemy with these corrupt people," said Hamidi, who spent 30 years as an accountant in Arlington, Va.

"I am fighting. I am doing jihad with these corrupt people, which there are not more than 50 or maximum 100 people in Kandahar city."

But his war has had collateral damage.

The Kandahar municipal office in 2007 had 76 employees, including six or seven engineers. With Canadian support, officials set a goal of 119 workers.

There are now only 44 employees in the aftermath of the murder of Deputy Mayor Noor Ahmad Nazari, 55, who was shot by two attackers riding on motorbikes Oct. 4. His death, while on the way home from work, came six month after his predecessor Azizullah Yarmal was killed by gunman as he prayed in a mosque.

In both cases local police blamed the killing on "enemies of Afghanistan" — a coded reference to the Taliban.

All of the bloodshed has staggered the ability of the government to deliver basic services.

"It is not possible to manage a city of 300 square kilometres with 800,000 citizens to serve it by 45 people," Hamidi said.

"The municipality office (over) the last four years started fighting corruption. Now (the powerbrokers) want to destroy the organization of the municipal office (and) to not serve the people. These (powerful) people will do anything they want."

NATO officials privately acknowledge "other interests" are a big part of the mayhem which has gripped the city.

"We're very concerned about threats to government officials," said one NATO officer speaking on background.

"If you look at threats to stability and prioritize those; the assassination networks within Kandahar city is a top priority; it only takes one decisive blow with the right person to significantly set back progress."

Military commanders claim success in their campaign to wipe out the death squads, but refused to provide specific numbers or the names of those targeted.
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## GAP (18 Dec 2010)

*Articles found December 18, 2010*

 In Afghanistan, all roads lead to Pakistan
by Andrew Potter on Thursday, December 16, 2010 1:15pm - 8 Comments
Article Link

Today’s summary of the president’s report on the war strategy is getting tons of press, and while the picture being shown is positive, the truth is that on virtually every measure, the overall situation is very complicated. For every story you read about things getting better, there is one about how they are getting worse somewhere else.

And so even as the coalition is claiming some sort of tactical victory in the South and talking about it turning into permanent gains, a large group of Afghan analysts and observers are arguing that the security situation is worse than ever, and that it is time to sit down and negotiate with the Taliban leadership. This “open letter to Obama” came out last week, and while it hasn’t received a lot of attention, I think it does a useful job of highlighting just why the situation in Afghanistan is so frustrating.

To some extent, the letter simply repeats the tension that has bedeviled all previous calls to negotiate. On the one hand,  the authors acknowledge that a military victory is not possible, the costs of the military mission are unsustainable, and that the presence of international troops must eventually come to an end. On the other hand, they’re pressing for serious negotiations with the Taliban. As many people have repeatedly pointed out, the Taliban won’t have an incentive to negotiate seriously unless there is strong, sustainable and lasting Western military presence — and till now, the Taliban have said they won’t negotiate until foreign troops leave.

But I actually think the key passage in the letter is this one:

    The Taliban’s leadership has indicated its willingness to negotiate, and it is in our interests to talk to them. In fact, the Taliban are primarily concerned about the future of Afghanistan and not – contrary to what some may think — a broader global Islamic jihad. Their links with Al-Qaeda – which is not, in any case, in Afghanistan any more — are weak. We need to at least try to seriously explore the possibility of a political settlement in which the Taliban are part of the Afghan political system. The negotiations with the insurgents could be extended to all groups in Afghanistan and regional powers.

I’m an amateur observer when it comes to all things Afghanistan, but this strikes me as a plausible idea in one respect, and somewhat naïve in another.  The central problem with this is that there is no single, organized “Taliban leadership” with which to negotiate. As far as I can tell, there are at least three distinct insurgencies going on. There are the former Kandahar Taliban, who lost their jobs when the Americans invaded in 2001, and are now based in Quetta. Then there is the Haqqani network, based in North Waziristan, which is officially susbsumed under the Quetta Shura, but which is in many ways an operationally, politically, and ideologically distinct organization. And then there are the loosely organized (or not) former mujahideen commanders, warlords, power brokers, and plain old gangsters who taking advantage of the chaos in the country to assert their control over some piece of the pie.
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 Terrorism rulings an early Christmas present from our justice system
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD Saturday's Globe and Mail Friday, Dec. 17, 2010
Article Link

As someone smarter than me remarked upon reading the slew of newly released terrorism judgments from the Ontario Court of Appeal, this young country just did a whole lot of growing up.

In a series of six linked decisions, the highest court in the province dramatically upped the sentences for three convicted Canadian terrorists (to life in prison, in the case of Ottawa’s Momin Khawaja) and urged judges to ditch their “business as usual” approach with terrorists.

More than that, the decisions in total reflect a hardnosed realpolitik remarkable in a country where sentences rarely match the judicial thunder that often precedes them.

“Terrorism, in our view, is in a special category of crime and must be treated as such,” Justices David Doherty, Michael Moldaver and Eleanore Cronk wrote in the Khawaja case.

With terrorism offences, they said, “sentences exceeding 20 years, up to and including life imprisonment, should not be viewed as exceptional.

“That may not be the traditional approach to sentencing,” the court said, “but it is the approach we believe must be taken to repudiate and deter terrorism and denounce it for the insidious crime it is.”

The judges noted that though Canada’s “sentencing and correctional philosophy also places a premium on the notion of individual dignity and it accepts redemption and rehabilitation as desired and achievable goals,” these hallmarks of the justice system “may be seen by those who reject democracy and individual freedom as signs of weakness.

“Terrorists, in particular, may view Canada as an attractive place from which to pursue their heinous activities.
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 Collateral damage in Afghanistan much on mind of Canadian top gun
  Article Link 
By Doug Schmidt, Postmedia News December 18, 2010

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Avoiding civilian deaths is top of mind for a Canadian pilot currently flying an arsenal-laden fighter jet over hostile Taliban territory.

"We're not in the business of collateral damage — it doesn't take a lot of that to change the war," said Calgary's Capt. Jameel Janjua. A CF-18 Hornet pilot back home, Janjua is a top-gun pilot flying combat missions here in a British Tornado GR4 while on exchange with the Royal Air Force.

Civilian casualties from the international battle against the Afghan insurgents, particularly from errant airstrikes by NATO aircraft, have fuelled tension between allied leaders and Afghans, including President Hamid Karzai, who has protested against air attacks, period. Wedding parties and innocent women and children have been among the unintended victims of airstrikes on insurgent positions.

Before each mission — unless there's no time because of a scramble alert — Janjua said it's drilled into each pilot the importance of being absolutely sure before making that decision to release deadly ordnance.

"We talk incessantly about Roe's (rules of engagement). As someone at the pointy edge of the sword, we know that tactical decisions have significant strategic consequences if you get it wrong," said Janjua.

In counter-insurgency warfare, harming an innocent is a sure way to bolster the enemy's cause. Janjua said pilots rely on their years of training, as well as daily briefings and reminders, to do the right thing.

"At the end of the day, when you're on your own, you have to make a decision like THAT," Janjua said, snapping his finger on the last word. "We're the last guys with the finger on the button," he added.
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 Mozhdah: The Oprah of Afghanistan
Article Link
Vancouver-raised Mozhdah is revolutionizing her society one fearless talk show at a time
by Nancy Macdonald on Friday, December 17, 2010

On the face of it, the taping of the The Mozhdah Show looks like that of any other U.S. talk show. Green lights dim as the house band—Afghanistan’s only known rock group—starts up. A white spotlight sweeps the audience. Whistles and cheers erupt as the host, Mozhdah Jamalzadah, emerges, hopping gracefully onto the bright-pink set. “Salaam!” says the charismatic, Canadian-raised star, whose nine-month-old TV program has taken Afghanistan by storm. “Salaam!” she says again, smiling, her adoring crowd refusing to return to their seats.

Mozhdah, who like Beyoncé is known by her first name, and is mobbed whenever she leaves her Kabul home, has been labelled the Oprah of Afghanistan. The comparison is of course imperfect. Oprah doesn’t sleep with a gun. She doesn’t ride in bulletproof cars or travel with guards armed with AK-47s. Death threats don’t flood her inbox. Mozhdah, whose first thought on entering a new building is how she might escape, is gutsy in a way Oprah doesn’t need to be. Her black leather leggings, six-inch heels and silver hoop earrings wouldn’t get a second glance in Vancouver, where she’s spent all but five of her 26 years, but this is Afghanistan. Until a few years ago, the bare ankles alone could have earned her a public whipping.

Her clothes aren’t the only thing raising eyebrows in the ultra-conservative country. There is the unapologetically frank content of the show. Should women have to wear the veil? Should the marriage of a 10-year-old girl be allowed? If a woman is willing to set herself alight to escape the violence of a marriage—a common form of suicide in much of Afghanistan—why aren’t we talking about divorce? Conversations like these, she says, are raised in hushed voices in Afghanistan, when at all. She’s taking them to the airwaves, and into the homes of millions of viewers, an astonishing change.

That Afghans are watching TV at all is a meaningful shift. Under the Taliban, watching television and listening to music was a crime; the Talib mouthpiece, Radio Shariat, was the country’s lone radio station. Dancing was punishable by execution. But with the lifting of these restrictions in 2004, some 20 networks have rushed to fill the void. In a country with an illiteracy rate as high as 80 per cent, the tube’s popularity is soaring. Afghan Star, the local take on American Idol, draws as many as a third of the country’s population of 32 million. The impact, especially in cities and on the new generation—the 60 per cent of Afghans under 25—is dramatic.
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 Rain Maker takes business to Afghan war zone

 By Cassandra Kyle, Postmedia News December 17, 2010
Article Link

SASKATOON — Boyd Derdall and his co-workers have been to the Middle East before to install irrigation systems, but until November, they had never been to a war zone and they'd never worked at a former al-Qaida training site — especially one where Osama bin Laden once gave lessons on militant activities.

Derdall, the president and founder of Rain Maker Irrigation Development Ltd., along with three of his staff members, spent three weeks in Afghanistan doing their part to contribute to the Canadian International Development Agency's $50-million restoration of an irrigation system near Kandahar City.

From Nov. 13 to Dec. 3 the four-man crew resided at Kandahar Airfield and wore flak jackets and helmets on their "commute" to work in bulletproof vehicles complete with armed guards.

"This was a war zone," Derdall said. "I felt very responsible. It was Rain Maker Irrigation and taking these three people over who had wives and kids . . . ."

Luckily, the irrigation expert says, the group never once felt threatened.

"We left at different times. We never got on the road at nine o'clock in the morning — sometimes it was 8:30 sometimes it was 9:30, sometimes it was quarter-to-nine. . . . Even driving through the field we never went on the same trail."

Working under the Afghanistan sun where temperatures averaged 27 C, the Rain Maker crew installed two irrigation sprinklers, known in the farming sector as Zimmatic centre pivots, which can each cover 12.2 hectares of arid, desert land.

Two Cadman Travellers, which carry irrigation hose, were also installed.
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## GAP (19 Dec 2010)

*Articles found December 19, 2010*

Bystanders dead after Kandahar district leader target of botched assassination
By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press 18/12/2010
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A vehicle packed with explosives blew up near the car of a district governor south of Kandahar city on Saturday, killing two people, including one child.

The attack happened in Dand District, a relatively quiet sector within the Canadian area of operation.

Governor Hamdullah Nazik was unharmed.

He was travelling home when the suicide car bomber tried to ram his vehicle, but missed and exploded among bystanders, said witnesses.

A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said 11 children were also wounded in the bombing.

Young and refined, Nazik is considered to be one of the leading lights in terms of governance in the corruption-riddled province.

The area, which is settled by the tribe that supports Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is often held out as an example of what the war-wasted country could become in terms of development.

The suicide bombing caps a week of escalating violence after a period of relative calm.

Three children were killed Thursday in Kandahar city when a parked car filled with explosives detonated outside a pilgrimage office, a centre where Afghans gather and return from their trips to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Also on Thursday, Noor Mohammed, the leader of the shura, or council, in Zhari District, was killed as he headed home from a mosque.
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 NATO General Visits Kandahar’s first ANP Officer Candidate Class
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Article Link

KANDAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - At a Police Training Center within Camp Nathan Smith located in Kandahar City, Afghan National Police cadets are eager to impress.

They proudly salute, scream and practice their drill sharply in front of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan’s Brig. Gen. John McGuiness, deputy commanding general for regional support, during a Dec. 15 visit to the class.

An infantry officer with a background of supporting the warfighter, McGuiness has previously helped manage the U.S. Army’s mortar and Bradley Fighting Vehicle programs and was the project manager for Soldier’s equipment.

In Afghanistan, the general oversees six regional support commands, one for each region of Afghanistan, and tries to visit each once a month. The RSCs play the critical role of training, sustaining, maintaining and equipping Afghan National Security Forces at training sites and fielded units throughout Afghanistan.

On his visits he assesses NTM-A programs and addresses issues faced by NATO advisors and Afghan instructors on the ground. Today he is curious about what the students are learning and their attitude, as well as the attitudes of the Afghan communities they come from. He knows these students are the future leaders of Afghanistan and will play a key role in the victory over the Afghan insurgency.

“What did they learn today?” he asks the instructors.

Challenges
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## GAP (24 Dec 2010)

*Articles found December 24, 2010*

 Coalition troops clear Taliban staging area in Afghanistan
Article Link
Steve Rennie The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN—Hundreds of Canadian, American and Afghan troops pushed deep into Taliban country this week as part of an operation to rout the insurgents from an area in Kandahar they use to stage their attacks.

The coalition said its forces faced little resistance from the enemy fighters during the three-day mission, called Operation Khenkakak after a village in the area, southwest of Kandahar city.

No one fired on the Canadians and no one found any improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, said Maj. Luc Aubin, a senior operations officer with Canada’s mentoring team. He added the Americans did encounter some of the makeshift bombs.

But despite the apparent lack of action, Aubin said the mission was a success in that it was primarily planned and carried out by Afghan commanders on the ground.

“It’s harsh to say that because we didn’t find as much as expected that the whole operation was not successful,” he said.

Two Afghan battalions, called kandaks, were inserted into the eastern and western flanks of the village of Khenkakak, supported by engineers.

They worked their way down to another village, Yaru Kalay, which sits on the opposite banks of the Tarnak river.
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 Troops having a holly, jolly Afghan Christmas
Article Link
By BRYN WEESE, Parliamentary Bureau December 24, 2010 

OTTAWA — The holiday spirit is "alive and well" among Canadian troops in Afghanistan, according to one solider deployed there during for Christmas.

And Cpt. Jamie Donovan says a lot of the yuletide cheer is thanks to people back home.

"The efforts by both the CF and especially the extension of good will of so many Canadians through packages and Christmas wishes sent is really quite something," he said from Kandahar this week. "In all honesty, with the flood of support and good will in appreciation for those in uniform, if I have to be away from home this Christmas there's likely no other place I'd rather be.

"Still, being away from family and my children at Christmas will be difficult, for sure."

Chief among the Canadian Forces Christmas traditions — since 1991 anyway — is Operation Santa Claus, which sends care packages to all deployed Canadian troops.

The packages include things such as playing cards, travel games, razors, toothbrushes, nuts and hard candy, ball caps, T-shirts, CDs, books, and Christmas cards from children across the country. This year, more than 3,000 Tim Hortons gift cards loaded with a cup of coffee were also sent out.

High-ranking military officers will also switch places — and in some cases uniforms — with their subordinates and serve the troops Christmas dinner.

Also, soldiers lining up for coffee at the Tim Hortons at the Kandahar Airfield can read Christmas cards sent to them from school children across the country.

"A hand-written card from a child is small and simple gesture, but a very heart-warming one," said Lt. Kelly Rozenberg-Payne, a spokeswoman for the Canadian military. "Tokens of appreciation like this are prevalent within Canadian lines."
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Afghan guards killed in NATO raid
By Hamid Shalizi, Reuters
Article Link

KABUL - Foreign troops raided a compound belonging to a private security firm in Afghanistan's capital, killing two Afghan guards and seizing weapons, an Afghan government spokesman said on Friday.

The raid took place overnight and involved a unit from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemari Bashary.

ISAF declined to comment on the raid and directed inquiries to Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, whose head reports directly to President Hamid Karzai. The directorate also declined to comment.

Bashary said two Afghan guards were killed and three wounded in the raid, which he said was not coordinated with Afghan troops. He said the incident was being investigated, but did not provide further details.

The use of "night raids" on private homes by foreign troops hunting insurgents has long angered Afghan officials.

Rules governing their use were tightened in 2009 and again this year but it is far less common for raids to be carried out by foreign troops on private security companies.

Under new rules, raids must be cleared by Afghan authorities first and must involve Afghan troops.
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## GAP (25 Dec 2010)

*Articles found December 25, 2010*

 Soldiers' homecoming 'the perfect Christmas gift'
  Article Link 
By David Gonczol, Ottawa Citizen December 25, 2010

CFB Petawawa -- CFB Petawawa's Afghan war finally came to a fitting end Friday in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.

The sprawling base, west of Ottawa, welcomed home the last 50 of its fighting soldiers sent to the "sandbox" of Afghanistan in a combat role. Some 40 soldiers from the base have perished over the years while serving in Afghanistan, a war that has taken a total of 154 Canadian lives. About 150 personnel from the base remain at headquarters in Kandahar while soldiers from CFB Val Cartier carry on the combat operations passed to them by soldiers from CFB Petawawa.

The base at Petawawa is currently not preparing any personnel for future assignments to Afghanistan as Canada's role will move in 2011 from fighting the Taliban insurgency to training the Afghan National Army to do the fighting.

Col. Wayne Eyre, commander of 2nd Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group at CFB Petawawa, said he was pleased the military managed to return all of his 1,800 strong force from Afghanistan in time for Christmas.

"This is great. It's a great Christmas present for many families," said Col. Eyre. But he was quick to point out there are still 150 of his soldiers serving in Kandahar.

He said it was important that "our thoughts and prayers" are with them as they are away from their families and still in "harms way" over the holidays.

Families waited on the base well into the early hours of Friday morning at building Y101 for a bus to return their loved ones safely home after a seven-month tour of duty.
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Pakistan border clashes leave 11 soldiers, 24 insurgents dead
Anwarullah Khan Khar, Pakistan— The Associated Press Friday, Dec. 24, 2010
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Some 150 militants attacked five security posts in Pakistan's tribal area near the Afghan border overnight, sparking a clash that killed 11 soldiers and 24 insurgents, officials said Friday.

The fighting in the Mohmand tribal area shows that insurgents in the region retain significant ability to coordinate and mount complex assaults, despite multiple military offensives against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan's northwest.
Saeed Shah, 39, lives with his sons Saeed Awais Ali Shah, 13, and Abdul Haseeb Shah, 3. in Suwan, a village which has lost half its population in the years after the 2005 earthquake as many residents moved away.

The top government official in Mohmand, Amjad Ali Khan, said 11 soldiers died in the fighting, while a dozen were wounded.

The troops called in helicopter gunships to help push back the militant fighters, said Maj. Fazl Ur Rehman, a spokesman for the Frontier Corps security force.

The fighting ended by morning. Information from Pakistan's tribal regions is nearly impossible to verify independently because access is restricted and the conflict zones are dangerous.

Mohmand has been a trouble spot for years and the focus of multiple army operations. Its border location makes it a valuable transit point for insurgents seeking to travel to Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces are fighting.
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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Iranian Officer Captured In Afghanistan: NATO 
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Katherine Haddon (AFP)
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 Friday, December 24, 2010

(NSI News Source Info) KABUL, Afghanistan - December 24, 2010: A member of the elite al-Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard has been captured in southern Afghanistan accused of cross-border weapons smuggling, international forces said Friday.

The man, described as a "key Taliban weapons facilitator", was captured Saturday in Zhari district, Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, a volatile district targeted in recent coalition offensives.

He was targeted "for facilitating the movement of weapons between Iran and Kandahar through Nimroz province," a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

It is thought he was connected to smuggling small arms between the countries.

"The now-detained man was considered a Kandahar-based weapons facilitator with direct ties to other Taliban leaders in the province," the ISAF spokesman added in a statement.

The news again spotlights the complex relationship between Afghanistan, Iran and the United States, whose troops make up roughly two-thirds of the coalition force.

Kabul has insisted that Iran, as a neighbouring country, has a legitimate concern in helping the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan.

But some in Iran's arch foe the US are concerned that Tehran could be funding insurgents or trying to play on anti-Western sentiment in Karzai's government.

British newspaper The Times reported Friday that Iran has released a string of senior Al-Qaeda militants from custody so they can help the network rebuild in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas.

The newspaper quoted anonymous Pakistani and Middle Eastern officials accusing Iran of giving covert support to the Islamist militants, often through the Revolutionary Guards.
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 NATO fails to deliver half of trainers promised for Afghanistan
SUSAN SACHS KABUL— From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010
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NATO is not meeting its target for assembling specialized trainers to build up Afghanistan’s army and police forces, the key that would open the way to a withdrawal of coalition troops beginning next year.

An internal progress report from the training mission headquarters here warned that it “does not have the required number of trainers, which threatens our ability to sustain momentum through the summer of 2011 to develop and professionalize the Afghan national security force.”

The Dec. 12 report, obtained by The Globe and Mail, said NATO member countries have so far pledged to fill just half of the 819 “critical” trainer slots that need to be filled if Afghanistan is to begin to assume responsibility next year for its own security.

Some nations that have made offers, including Canada, have yet to confirm their pledges or decide what kinds of skills and capabilities their trainers would bring.

“It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle,” said a senior NATO officer in Kabul. “Some countries can confirm their pledges right away. Others say they need time to resolve political and budgetary issues.”
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Pakistan suicide bombing kills dozens
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 25 December 2010 Last updated at 09:47 ET

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool says victims are among the most vulnerable people in the north-west

A female suicide bomber has killed at least 43 people in an attack on a large crowd receiving aid in north-west Pakistan, officials say.

The blast took place in the town of Khar in the Bajaur region, in tribal areas close to the Afghan border - a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold.

People displaced by fighting had been getting food at a distribution centre.

Reports say at least another 100 people were injured and there are fears the death toll could rise.

The attack came as Pakistan's military took action against militants in Mohmand, an adjacent tribal region, killing an estimated 40 rebels.
'Safe' area

Saturday's bombing in Bajaur was the latest in a string of recent attacks in Pakistan's north-west.

Pakistan's Taliban said they were responsible for the attack on the distribution centre, which is used by the World Food Programme and other aid agencies.

Those in the crowd were displaced members of the Salarzai tribe, which has supported the army's operations against the Taliban.

Claiming responsibility, a Taliban spokesman said the rebels had targeted the local people because of their support for the Pakistani military.

An estimated 300 people were queuing for food at the time of the blast.
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