# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread May 2010



## GAP (1 May 2010)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread May 2010 *               

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


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## GAP (1 May 2010)

*Articles found May 1, 2010*

The enemy within: why coalition forces fear attack by Afghan comrades
Article Link
 May 1, 2010

The battle was brief — a sudden stab of tracer fire into the remote police post from the surrounding mountains that left a US staff sergeant bleeding from his face, hit by a ricochet or fragment of flying rock. “It’s like shooting at ghosts,” the soldier beside him complained, staring into the silent darkness after the shooting had stopped.

At least the two soldiers knew which way to face — outwards from their gun position on the roof of Police SubStation 7, on the western outskirts of Kandahar. In the sleeping quarters below, a pair of Canadian police officers, sent there to help to mentor the Afghan National Police (ANP), had trained their guns inwards, on the door of their own accommodation.

“I don’t mind admitting it,” one said. “I thought the firing was coming from inside the post. I thought it was one of the ANP, a little unhappy with the way I spoke to him on the patrol today, turning his gun on us.”

For coalition troops working with the Afghan police, life has its unique strains and dangers. Five British soldiers were killed last year by a renegade Afghan police officer they were mentoring. American soldiers have died in similar circumstances. Afghan law enforcers, regarded as part of the key to stability, include the dregs of society — heroin addicts and common criminals — as well as professional officers. A word of criticism at the wrong moment, a perceived slight, a loss of face, can have fatal consequences.
More on link

 Afghan forces battle-fatigued, unmotivated: witnesses

Testimony paints picture of frequent friendly-fire incidents and describes national army as disorganized and sometimes farcical
  Article Link
By Andrew Duffy, Canwest News ServiceMay 1, 2010

The court martial of a Canadian soldier has offered a ground-level view of the difficulties faced by coalition forces as they ready the Afghan National Army to take on the Taliban.

Capt. Robert Semrau, accused of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a wounded Taliban insurgent on a battlefield in Helmand province, served as the leader of a four-man Canadian team embedded with an Afghan rifle company.

Their job, by all accounts, was challenging and perilous. From forward operating base Sperwan Ghar, west of Kandahar City, Semrau's team was to mentor the Afghans in the art of war: planning, tactics, ethics.

But the Afghans were not always receptive to the message of Canada's Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams, the court martial, which resumes Monday in Gatineau, Que., has heard.

Witnesses have variously described the Afghan forces as battle-fatigued and unmotivated. Drug use was said to be common, while professional development among the officer corps was almost unknown. Lower level commanders often had trouble reading maps.

The Afghan National Army had trouble with supplies, and would scavenge everything from a battlefield, including the weapons of Taliban casualties.

Friendly fire accidents were a constant concern.

"They [the Afghans] had a tendency to shoot at noise," Col. Joseph Shipley, former commander of the mentoring program in Afghanistan, testified at Semrau's court martial.

About 200 Canadian soldiers remain embedded with the Afghan National Army in Kandahar province.
More on link


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## GAP (2 May 2010)

*Articles found May 2, 2010*

 Inside Canada’s ‘Hurt Locker’
For Canadian soldiers asked to clear improvised bombs in Afghanistan, every step may be their last
Article Link
Louie Palu Special to the Star

KHAIRO KALA, AFGHANISTAN—As I position my dusty boot above the dirt path my eyes scan for a safe spot. Will my next step be my last?

Canadian soldiers call this “IED hopscotch.” It’s part of the macabre humour that comes with patrolling the volatile Panjwaii District, where the ground is strewn with IEDs, or improvised explosive devices.

These home-made bombs are the weapon of choice in Afghanistan. Some are remote controlled; others are set off when you step on them. They are responsible for most of the Canadian casualties here. Every military activity now involves preparing for their deadly threat.

Khairo Kala is a small village west of Kandahar City surrounded by grape, poppy and wheat fields, as well as typical mud-walled structures and snaking, uneven paths. It is part of Canada’s new area of operations, a district where there are almost no gun battles but instead a tension-filled game of cat and mouse: The Taliban insurgents operate as ghosts, planting their explosive traps by night and disappearing during the day, leaving the Canadians to search for the buried bombs.

On April 15th, a small group from Delta Company of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry descended on Khairo Kala. The region has been hard on Delta Co. — four of its members have been killed by IEDs here: Sapper Steven Marshall, Lt. Andrew Nuttall, Sgt. John Faught and, only four days earlier, Pte. Tyler Todd.

We arrive in blistering, 35C heat, immediately greeted by the village malik (leader). He gets frisked and questioned; the Canadian soldiers can trust no one. The unit’s living quarters are established in an abandoned mud enclosure that could be a setting in the Bible.
More on link

From screams to whimpers on Afghan detainees 
Article Link
 Christie Blatchford

The same week that House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken made his historic ruling that Parliament has the right to see all the documents about Afghan detainees, the very man whose sensational allegations fuelled the whole shooting match was being delivered a thumping.

How amusing, except it isn’t.

Richard Colvin is the diplomat whose testimony at a special committee last fall – chiefly, that torture of the Afghan prisoners Canadian soldiers handed over to their fellow Afghans was “standard operating procedure” and that he had warned senior military officials about it to no avail – was given war-sized treatment in the press.

His allegations were front-page news across the country, led to stern editorials in several major newspapers a day later, and added gasoline to the fire already simmering about alleged Canadian complicity in torture and government stonewalling of efforts to view uncensored documents on the subject.

But when Gavin Buchan, the former political director and senior official on the ground in Kandahar (but for two months, when Mr. Colvin replaced him) for most of 2006 and part of 2007, and Major General (Retired) Tim Grant, the commander of the Canadian military effort in Afghanistan during the same approximate time period, came to testify before the committee on Wednesday, their evidence collectively a profound rebuttal of Mr. Colvin’s claims, the media coverage was a whisper.

Of the four major newspapers that put Mr. Colvin’s claims on their front pages – The Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Citizen – last November, only The Globe even deigned to cover Mr. Buchan’s and Mr. Grant’s evidence in a separate story, this a piece by my colleague Bill Curry. The story appeared on Page 13.

The Citizen, in a story about the really big news of the week – Mr. Milliken’s ruling – made passing mention of Mr. Grant’s evidence, but didn’t say what it was and didn’t refer at all to Mr. Buchan’s testimony.

The Post ran no story about what the two men said, nor did the Star, which did, however, devote a startling chunk of its front page to a photo of the backyard water park Celine Dion has built her son in Florida.

There were some extenuating circumstances: At the same time on Wednesday that Mr. Buchan and Mr. Grant addressed the special committee on the mission to Afghanistan, Nazim Gillani, the mysterious businessman involved with former Tory MP Rahim Jaffer, was sitting down before the microphone next door at another special committee.
More on link

CIDA and Afghanistan
 By Alina Smirnova
Article Link

Canada’s role in Afghanistan after troop withdrawal will include training teachers.

The Canadian International Development Agency hopes that having better teachers will draw more students to go to school.

The CIDA is looking for companies that will certify and train teachers. They will pay $1 million for the firm to design the program which will include accrediting teacher training schools and creating a curriculum, Canadian Press reports.

Overall, the project will cost $10 million. According to the Canadian Press, it is not yet clear if the money will come from money already allocated to education in Afghanistan.

The CIDA is also looking at the possibility of setting up a long-distance program that will allow students to learn from teachers in different parts of the world.

After the decided troop withdrawal date of 2011, Canadian involvement may last up to another 10 years, Canadian Press reports.
More on link

Hotshot sniper in one-and-a-half mile double kill
Michael Smith  May 2, 2010
Article Link

A BRITISH Army sniper has set a new sharpshooting distance record by killing two Taliban machinegunners in Afghanistan from more than 1 miles away.

Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle.

“The first round hit a machinegunner in the stomach and killed him outright,” said Harrison, a Corporal of Horse. “He went straight down and didn’t move.

“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”

The shooting — which took place while Harrison’s colleagues came under attack — was at such extreme range that the 8.59mm bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target after leaving the barrel of the rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.

The distance to Harrison’s two targets was measured by a GPS system at 8,120ft, or 1.54 miles. The previous record for a sniper kill is 7,972ft, set by a Canadian soldier who shot dead an Al-Qaeda gunman in March 2002.

In a remarkable tour of duty, Harrison cheated death a few weeks later when a Taliban bullet pierced his helmet but was deflected away from his skull. He later broke both arms when his army vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.

Harrison was sent back to the UK for treatment, but insisted on returning to the front line after making a full recovery.

“I was lucky that my physical fitness levels were very high before my arms were fractured and after six weeks in plaster I was still in pretty good shape,” he said. “It hasn’t affected my ability as a sniper.”

Harrison, from Gloucestershire, was reunited in Britain with his wife Tanya and daughter Dani, 16, last month. Recalling his shooting prowess in Helmand province, he said: “It was just unlucky for the Taliban that conditions were so good and we could see them so clearly.”

Harrison and his colleagues were in open-topped Jackal 4x4 vehicles providing cover for an Afghan national army patrol south of Musa Qala in November last year. When the Afghan soldiers and Harrison’s troop commander came under enemy fire, the sniper, whose vehicle was further back on a ridge, trained his sights on a Taliban compound in the distance. His L115A3 long-range rifle, the army’s most powerful sniper weapon, is designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft and supposedly capable of only “harassing fire” beyond that range. 
More on link


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## GAP (3 May 2010)

*Articles found May 3, 2010*

 Canada expanding Kandahar memorial to include American soldiers
Article Link
By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press 2/05/2010

It is a sign of unwavering respect, but also a sign of the times, and perhaps a sign of things to come.

The Canadian memorial to soldiers at Kandahar Airfield is about to undergo a major expansion, adding two wings to the existing structure to accommodate American soldiers who've been killed serving under Canadian command.

The white marble and black granite cenotaph has grown steadily over the years. It started in 2006 as a simple boulder where plaques of fallen soldiers were hung.

But as the casualties mounted with heartbreaking regularity, the tribute quickly outgrew its place and the current open-air vault was created.

Over the past year, 26 American soldiers serving under a Canadian commander have died in action, the vast majority through insidious homemade bombs and mines. There are three U.S. army battalions — a couple of thousand soldiers — under the direction of Task Force Kandahar.

U.S. casualties started to outpace Canadian losses late last year and that is before the summer fighting season and NATO's planned Kandahar offensive gets underway.

Brig.-Gen. Dan Menard, the commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, says the two countries have been fighting alongside each other here for months and the losses should be recognized, regardless of nationality.

"This memorial is extremely important for Canadians, but we want to make it a more all-inclusive," he said.

"When you look at this memorial, it is just not representative enough as far as I'm concerned. A lot of (U.S. soldiers) have paid the ultimate price and it's important that there's room here for them."

Plans for the additions were drawn up by the task force engineers. They expect the job to be finished with the help of local contractors by the end of June. Each of the 142 Canadian soldiers and two civilians killed since the Afghan war started are remembered with their pictures etched on to a black granite plate.

Menard said the same honour will be accorded to each of the American casualties.
More on link

 Afghanistan vets at risk for homelessness: experts
Article Link

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Sun. May. 2 2010 9:57 PM ET

As Canada prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan next year, veterans' advocates say they worry shell-shocked soldiers may end up without a home, like many of those who served before them.

Veterans accustomed to the rigid structure and unique culture of the military often find it difficult to adapt to civilian life -- a struggle that can lead them to the streets or the bush, experts say.

"Sometimes when people come back and they've experienced very traumatic experiences, if they don't have a good support network in place or they don't have advanced coping skills, they may end up falling through the cracks," Adrienne Alford-Burt, director of the Veterans Affairs Vancouver office, told CTV News.

It is unclear how many of the country's nearly 80,000 veterans are currently homeless.

In one Vancouver neighbourhood alone – the downtown eastside, Canada's poorest postal code – Veterans Affairs found 33 homeless veterans, as part of an outreach project launched last summer. All of them are men, mostly in their mid-30s.

That number has alarmed government officials. "I was thinking around 10 or 15, so the fact that we've seen 33 in such a small community is concerning," Alford-Burt said.

Canada's Veterans Ombudsman, retired Col. Pat Strogan, warns many more will end up on the streets once the Afghan mission wraps up.

"It's important that we get this safety net established to prevent them from becoming embedded in the homeless lifestyle," said Strogan, the first to hold the ombudsman position established in 2007.

A handful of projects have cropped up recently to help ex-soldiers find their feet once they return to Canada.

Among them is Cockrell House, a facility just outside Victoria, B.C., believed to be the nation's first homeless shelter for veterans.

The privately funded shelter opened in April. It presently houses six veterans, including some who served as far back as the Second World War. Organizers plan to welcome 11 residents by the end of the year.

Luke Carmichael lived in the bush until he heard about Cockrell House during a visit to a Legion. 
More on link

 Rising tide of insurgency looms as Kandahar election nears 
Article Link
Sonia Verma

Kandahar, Afghanistan — From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Sunday, May. 02, 2010 10:59PM EDT Last updated on Monday, May. 03, 2010 12:38AM EDT

On the same day Rangina Hosala decided to run as a candidate in Afghanistan’s upcoming parliamentary elections, she sat down at her kitchen table and wrote her memoirs, convinced she was going to die.

The Taliban sent her threats by text message: Quit now or we will kill you. Her children begged her to withdraw from the race; instead she smashed her cell phone.

For now, the middle-aged mother of seven is keeping her candidacy a secret in Kandahar. She hopes by the time elections roll around in September, this city will have changed so she can campaign, unless the insurgents find her first.

“I am hope things will improve. For now, I am scared from every place, from every person,” Ms. Hosala says, removing a billowing green burqa to reveal a face etched with worry over fears a white Toyota Corolla might have followed her to the guesthouse where the interview is conducted.

Those hopes, hemmed by raw fear, represent the current paradox of Kandahar city.

Optimism among officials

NATO has promised that by August, its surge of 30,000 American troops in the south, armed with a new counterinsurgency strategy and backed by an Afghan government that vows reform, will succeed in wrestling control of Kandahar city back from Taliban insurgents, just in time for parliamentary elections. 
More on link

 Empowerment blooms for Afghans
  Article Link
Barb Stegemann blends philanthropy and business savvy in her orange blossom perfume 
By KINDA JAYOUSH, FreelanceMay 3, 2010 5:05 AM

Thanks to her business acumen, Barb Stegemann has managed to foster the production of orange blossoms instead of opium-producing poppies in Afghanistan, while at the same time empowering women in the war-damaged country.

Stegemann buys orange blossom oil from Afghans who pick flowers from orchards around Jalalabad. In Canada, the oil is turned into perfume and sold in high-end boutiques.

"I am an entrepreneur and a philanthropist at the same time," said Stegemann, who launched her perfume, Afghanistan Orange Blossom, in Ottawa in March.

"I do not believe in charity," she said. "I believe in the empowerment of women, men and children in a nation like Afghanistan.

"When I purchase the precious yet licit crops of orange oil from Afghanistan, I am encouraging these brave people not to be under the complete mercy of drug lords."

Stegemann grew up in Montreal but is based in Halifax now. She has taken this perfume to such prestigious stores as Mills Brothers in Halifax and the Noor Boutique in Toronto. Montreal's upscale Holt Renfrew chain is considering selling the scent. Her goal is to market it across North America.

A 50-millilitre bottle of the eau de parfum is $70. Its packaging features quotes from poets and political leaders.

"I am using the buying power of women in North America to empower women, men and children in Afghanistan," Stegemann said.

"For this season, I have already told them I will buy all their stock of rose oil.
More on link


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## Dog Walker (3 May 2010)

Afghan army not ready to lead big raid-U.S. officer 
03 May 2010 23:01:26 GMT 
Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE6420D6.htm

* Commanders wanted Afghans to take charge of air assault 
* Scrapped just weeks before war's biggest planned offensive 
* "We're nowhere near the stage where they can lead" 

By Jonathon Burch
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan, May 4 (Reuters) - NATO commanders scrapped a helicopter assault by hundreds of U.S. and Afghan troops last week because the Afghans weren't able to take charge, a U.S. military officer familiar with the planning said. The decision to cancel the assault, designed to prepare the ground for the biggest offensive of the nearly nine-year-old war, has frustrated U.S. officers on the ground who say their local partners are not ready to lead. 
"It wasn't Afghan enough ... approval was denied," a U.S. Army officer with knowledge of the plans told Reuters. "The implication is that the Afghans are in the lead. The bottom line is we're nowhere near the stage where they can be in the lead." 
The assault in a rural part of Kandahar -- due to take place in March and repeatedly postponed -- would have been one of the biggest operations so far in the province, where U.S. troops are massing to carry out a major offensive beginning in June. 
Its abrupt cancellation exposes limitations of the Afghan security forces and raises doubts over whether they are ready to start taking control of the country's security this year. 
The U.S. officer, who asked not to be identified while discussing the cancelled operation, said approval for it had been blocked by a senior NATO commander in the south. 
The commander, a general, stood up during a planning briefing and told the U.S. officers to come back once the Afghan army was in charge of the operation, he said. 
PREPARING GROUND 
The battalion-sized operation would have seen three companies from a U.S. Stryker Brigade and a company of Afghan soldiers launch a helicopter assault into a Taliban-controlled area to the west of Kandahar city. Their job would have been to prepare the district for the arrival of new troops for the summer offensive. 
The operation was repeatedly postponed when officers met resistance from NATO commanders concerned that Afghan involvement was insufficient, the officer said. The plan was ditched altogether last Thursday. 
Since taking command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, General Stanley McChrystal has pushed for increased partnering between foreign and Afghan forces, saying Afghans should take part in all operations. Increasingly, he has sought to give Afghans a lead role in planning and execution. 
But military officers on the ground who work with Afghan soldiers on a daily basis say that while the Afghan army has made strides on the battlefield, it still lacks leadership and effective coordination with its foreign partners. 
The rank-and-file Afghan troops slated to go on the cancelled air assault were capable enough but their leadership was not up to the task, the U.S. officer said. 
"Tactically they are very good. They are excellent on patrol and under fire, what they lack is leadership and guidance," he said. "There is no higher level partnership between coalition forces and the Afghans. They expect us to start at the bottom and work up," he added. 
The cancelled assault would have formed part of the "shaping operations" currently under way ahead of the major offensive that is being billed as the central objective of McChrystal's campaign plan to turn the tide in the war this year. 
Over the next few months, the Kandahar operation will make use of the bulk of the 30,000 reinforcements pledged by President Barack Obama in December. It will directly involve more than 23,000 ground troops, including about 8,500 Americans, 3,000 Canadians and 12,000 Afghan soldiers and police. 
U.S. commanders stress that Afghan police are expected to be in the lead throughout the campaign, which they hope will clear most Taliban fighters out of Kandahar city by August. 
NATO leaders have said they are ready to start handing over security to Afghans in parts of the country at the end of this year, although they stress they will still act in a supportive role and the handover would be gradual. 
The U.S. officer said the drive from the top to get Afghans more involved was affecting routine day-to-day operations, potentially putting the lives of soldiers and civilians at risk. 
Operations such as route clearance patrols, where troops search for and clear roadside bombs known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), were being called off because no Afghan troops were available at the time, he said. 
"They have issued an edict from the top saying 100 percent of all route clearance patrols must be patrolled with Afghans. Sometimes Afghans aren't available and route clearance patrols are getting cancelled," he said. 
"We normally find two to three IEDs on every patrol, IEDs that could potentially blow up and kill people if we hadn't got to them first."


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## GAP (4 May 2010)

*Articles found May 4, 2010*

 Kudos on Canadians' Approach in Afghanistan
Monday, May 03, 2010
Article Link

Buried in this piece on a contractor's blog out of Afghanistan, talking about how the U.S. military isn't optimally organized for the "build" phase following "taking" and "holding", is a little atta-boy for the approach of some Canadians re: monitoring development and reconstruction projects:

    .... The future of war for the rest of our lifetimes will feature very little peer to peer wars pitting one state against another and a lot of what we see in Afghanistan which is battle in the daily context of everything else. The United States needs to develop the force structure to function in this kind of an environment and the proven solution would be to grow the Marine Corps (who has the mission of expeditionary warfare) and couple to them a contractor based organization which would be just like the old East India Company, but different. Different in the sense that it works directly for the Marine Corps as armed reconstruction implementers and project managers. The natural choice for the management side would be guys like me, retired Marines who are well known to the commanders and have to answer to those commanders for everything they do and fail to do. Just like they did on active duty. Project management of that nature coupled with implementers who work just like Team Canada is working now would make lines of authority and accountability clean, simple and efficient ....

Some earlier praise here:

    On 24 February Panjawaii Tim was called to the Kandahar PRT to see if he could help mitigate the damage caused by flooding to the irrigation system of northern Kandahar Province. Knowing why he was going, he called the USAID official in Kabul who adminsters the cash for work program Tim and company are implementing to see if he could free up some cash for a massive emergency project. The AID official immediately gave him permission – to the credit of USAID they do work with incredible speed when they have a vehicle in place which is proving successful. Tim arrived at the PRT and was asked how soon he could get workers to clear 36 canals of an estimated 600,00 cubic meters of silt and debris. The conversation went something like this:

    PRT SgtMaj (Canadian Army): ”When can you get started, eh?”

    Tim: “Tomorrow, eh?”

    SgtMaj: “No, Tim, I mean when can you really get started, eh?”

    Tim: “Tomorrow SgtMaj no shit, eh?”

    As promised Team Canada was on the job the next day. Yet they still had to deal with senior guys from other agencies who seemed to be upset by the speed at which they got a massive project off the ground. Every day Team Canada expats are out in the bad lands performing the time intensive task of monitoring and evaluation. As usual, they travel in local garb without armored vehicles or armed PSC escorts (PSC gunmen raise your profile, which increases risk for very little gain in security). They did not have to do this job, they are not paid more cash for taking this additional risk, they could have said no and saved themselves hundreds of man hours of additional work for which (I need to stress this point) they receive not one penny of additional compensation. Team Canada is comprised of mission-focused former Canadian soldiers who look upon these dangerous tasks as yet another opportunity to perform. That is what military men are raised to do – accomplish any and all assigned missions to the best of their ability. You would think for doing this they would receive at least a hearty handshake and an ata boy, not a ration of shit from senior bureaucrats who could not manage to do the same no matter how much time and money is thrown at them ....

Well done, whoever the heck "Team Canada" is, on the work you appear to be doing.
end

 PASHMUL, Afghanistan – They call it The Green Hell.
Article Link

Not coincidentally, that’s also how the Russians used to describe Zhari district – the tangled, sometimes swampy, berm-laced patch of land northwest of Kandahar city.

The U.S. troops who now patrol Zhari’s perilous, bomb-sown grape fields and laneways have appropriated the nickname, and the irony is not lost on them.

Since taking over for Canadian troops, both in this volatile district and in Arghandab to the east, the Americans have suffered serious casualties – 19 dead and 51 wounded since early December. Nine Canadian soldiers and one civilian have died during the same stretch.

The U.S. deaths, which occurred under the command of a Canadian general, have largely gone unnoticed in Canada but they have caught the attention of worried NATO commanders as they prepare for an upcoming summer offensive in Kandahar.

The U.S. has a different reporting system for casualties, one that sees news of combat deaths released days after the incidents.

Looking back a full year to just before Canada took command of three U.S. battalions in its sector, the figures become even more startling: 26 U.S. combat deaths and 176 wounded since May 2009.

"It’s been a roller-coaster fight," said Capt. Duke Reim, the commander of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, which is near the end of a year-long tour.

Reim commands a combat outpost – a dusty burrow – known as JFM, an acronym of the first letters of the last names of three of their buddies killed in action last August.

The region is soaked in Canadian blood.

It is where the landmark battle Operation Medusa was fought almost four years ago; from the towers of this remote station, U.S. soldiers and their Afghan partners can see the hollowed remnants of compounds destroyed in those battles.

Ever since 2006, when Canadian casualties topped 36 dead, the country has nursed a sense that they were largely alone doing the fighting and dying in Kandahar. The Americans are now being bloodied in a big way.
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 Canadian soldiers help canine refugees 
Article Link

Rebecca Dube

From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, May. 03, 2010 9:23AM EDT Last updated on Monday, May. 03, 2010 12:29PM EDT

The four-week-old puppy stumbled into the Canadian soldiers’ mess tent in Afghanistan, orphaned and malnourished.

The soldiers took pity on the tiny refugee and fed him their rations, which he gobbled so quickly that his stomach bloated, earning him the name “Guts.”

In short order the dog became the mascot of the remote outpost, greeting the soldiers when they returned from patrols and curling up on one of their cots every night.

But soon it was time for the troops to move on, and if Afghanistan is a tough place for people, it’s even bleaker for puppies. Dogs are generally used for protection or for fighting. Rabies and distemper run rampant, and stray dogs are commonly shot – the fate that befell Guts’s mother and litter-mates.

The soldier”s credo kicked in: Leave no man behind.

“They were putting dogs down at most of the camps. We couldn't let that happen and he was too small to fend for himself in the wild,” writes Private Geordon Roy-Hampton in an e-mail from Afghanistan.

Pte. Roy-Hampton, who had formed a strong bond with Guts, recalled hearing a rumour that there are ways to get dogs out of Afghanistan – for a price. After dozens of e-mails, he connected with Nowzad Dogs (www.nowzaddogs.co.uk), an organization dedicated to bringing soldiers’ dogs – and the occasional cat – home from Afghanistan and Iraq. With its help, Guts was transported to Kabul. 
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 It's secrecy or death, army says
Article Link
By: David O’Brien 3/05/2010 

Casual observers of the war in Afghanistan can be forgiven if they are under the impression Canadian troops have been having it easy this year, while their allies have been suffering numerous casualties. The number of Canadians wounded in action, as well as non-battle injuries, has not officially increased since the end of 2009, which would be a miracle if it were true.

In fact, based on the experience of previous years, an estimated 40 to 50 Canadians have been wounded in combat so far this year, while twice that number have suffered non-battle injuries caused mainly by accidents. The real numbers, however, are a military secret and they will not be disclosed until the end of the year.

The Canadian military decided about two years ago to withhold these statistics, updating them once a year only, because it "did not want to provide insurgents with a direct, incident-specific correlation to the impact of their actions," according to a statement from defence headquarters in Ottawa.

The information falls under the rubric of operational secrecy, the prime directive for reporters covering the war in Afghanistan. A lot of it makes sense. No responsible commander wants to advertise his capabilities, particularly sensitive subjects such as the ability to detect and disrupt mines and roadside bombs, or counter-measures to protect troops in armoured vehicles.

The long delay in reporting casualty numbers, however, is an example of caution carried to the point of absurdity. Among other things, it prevents Canadians from getting a proper sense of what the troops are doing, the risks they face and the tempo of fighting. The media have reported on campaigns that are billed as a big deal, but then... nothing. No numbers of wounded, enemy killed or injured, nothing. Maybe it was a big deal, maybe it was a waste of time.

It's not unusual for a Canadian journalist to arrive in Kandahar with only a vague impression of what's going on, and return home no wiser for the experience.

The best example of this obsession with secrecy surrounds Canada's special forces, particularly Joint Task Force 2, an elite group of commandos and counter-terrorism specialists. Just about everything involving their work is top secret, including their strength, current and past deployments and casualties. Again, some of it makes sense, but a lot does not.

Former lieutenant-colonel Pat Stogram, who led a battalion in Afghanistan in 2002, told the Toronto Star recently that JTF2 was secretive "to the point of being silly." The Star article was a rare expose of JTF2's work in Afghanistan at the end of 2001 following the American invasion.

The story was full of accounts of heroism and derring-do, but Brig.-Gen. Mike Day, a former member and commander of JTF2 who now leads all of Canada's special operations, told me in an interview from Ottawa he was upset with the article, even though it was about events that occurred nearly 10 years ago and there was no evidence it had put anyone at risk.

I suggested his response illustrated the view that the military is unduly secretive. He replied that he needed to weigh the media's desire to "satisfy your curiosity" against the moral duty to ensure the safety of his soldiers,
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (4 May 2010)

U.S. to Send Trainers to Afghanistan as Stopgap
_NY Times_, May 3
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/world/asia/04trainers.html?ref=todayspaper



> Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has signed an order sending 850 more American military personnel to Afghanistan as a stopgap measure to fill vacancies in the high-priority effort to train local security forces, Pentagon officials said Monday.
> 
> Officials said the decision reflects Mr. Gates’s assessment that while European allies have made substantial commitments to support the war effort, some nations have asked for and deserve more time to fulfill their pledges to supply trainers for the Afghan Army and police.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (5 May 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 5

U.S. scraps assault due to weak Afghan partnership
Reuters, May 4
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE6425RL20100504?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0




> NATO commanders scrapped a helicopter assault by hundreds of U.S. and Afghan troops last week because the Afghans weren't able to take charge, a U.S. military officer familiar with the planning said. The decision to cancel the assault, designed to prepare the ground for the biggest offensive of the nearly nine-year-old war, has frustrated U.S. officers on the ground who say their local partners are not ready to lead.
> 
> "It wasn't Afghan enough ... approval was denied," a U.S. Army officer with knowledge of the plans told Reuters. "The implication is that the Afghans are in the lead. The bottom line is we're nowhere near the stage where they can be in the lead."
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (5 May 2010)

*Articles found May 5, 2010*

 Bomb teams grapple with unseen enemy
Article Link
By South Asia correspondent Sally Sara in Kandahar
Updated Wed May 5, 2010 9:22am AEST

Australian and other coalition forces operating in Afghanistan know their lives depend on keeping their eyes peeled for IEDs - the explosive devices that have claimed the lives and limbs of so many soldiers.

One of the most dangerous spots is around the southern city of Kandahar. There, the bomb disposal teams play a constant game of cat and mouse with Taliban bombmakers targeting civilians and security forces.

Here, a small Canadian unit has the job of finding and defusing the deadly bombs laid by the Taliban.

Warrant Officer Kris Dlouhy says the shadowy nature of the enemy can be frustrating for troops who want to fight back.

"You have to keep going, you have to persevere and it's just the way that it is. You cannot allow that to set you back because once you've done that, they win," he said.

Warrant Officer Dlouhy knows just how deadly IEDS can be. He wears a wrist band to remember one of his best mates, who was killed in an IED blast.

"He was on his last patrol. He had a week left in theatre. He struck an IED coming back in and I've worn this every day on this tour to remind me and to motivate me to do the job that I do," he said.

The members of the counter-IED unit use a bomb disposal robot, but often they have to defuse the explosives by hand.

The soldiers wear a bomb suit that weighs almost 40 kilograms. It is so hot and heavy that they can only work in it for up to 15 minutes during the peak of the Afghan summer.

Petty Officer Yves Clement says it is one of the most dangerous but rewarding jobs in the military.

"It's rewarding not only for myself [but also] as a team, because it's always a team effort," he said. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (5 May 2010)

Afghan mission now about supporting local forces
_Toronto Star_, May 5
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/804734--afghan-mission-now-about-supporting-local-forces



> Canadian Forces still have the ability to get the upper hand against the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan before the combat mission ends in 2011, insists the general in charge of Canada’s overseas troops.
> 
> Outlining the end-game for Canadian soldiers, if not the thousands of Americans reinforcements now surging into Kandahar province for a longer stay, Lieutenant-General Marc Lessard said hope for an elusive turning point against the Taliban insurgency now hinges on Afghan leadership, civilian and military alike.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (6 May 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 6

Kandahar Deployments Augur Key Fight in Afghan War
_WS Journal_, May 6
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704866204575224543809280642.html



> FORT CAMPBELL, Ky.—The Army brigade that will lead the coming U.S.-led offensive in Kandahar began deploying to Afghanistan this week, signaling the final preparations for what is expected to be a pivotal battle of the Afghan war.
> 
> Hundreds of soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team—a unit that parachuted into Normandy on D-Day—are en route to bases just north of Kandahar, the Taliban's home.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (6 May 2010)

*Articles found May 6, 2010*

 CIA drones have broader list of targets
The agency since 2008 has been secretly allowed to kill unnamed suspects in Pakistan.
Article Link
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times May 5, 2010

The CIA received secret permission to attack a wider range of targets, including suspected militants whose names are not known, as part of a dramatic expansion of its campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan's border region, according to current and former counter-terrorism officials.

The expanded authority, approved two years ago by the Bush administration and continued by President Obama, permits the agency to rely on what officials describe as "pattern of life" analysis, using evidence collected by surveillance cameras on the unmanned aircraft and from other sources about individuals and locations.

The information then is used to target suspected militants, even when their full identities are not known, the officials said. Previously, the CIA was restricted in most cases to killing only individuals whose names were on an approved list.

The new rules have transformed the program from a narrow effort aimed at killing top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders into a large-scale campaign of airstrikes in which few militants are off-limits, as long as they are deemed to pose a threat to the U.S., the officials said.

Instead of just a few dozen attacks per year, CIA-operated unmanned aircraft now carry out multiple missile strikes each week against safe houses, training camps and other hiding places used by militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

As a matter of policy, CIA officials refuse to comment on the covert drone program. Those who are willing to discuss it on condition of anonymity refuse to describe in detail the standards of evidence they use for drone strikes, saying only that strict procedures are in place to ensure that militants are being targeted. But officials say their surveillance yields so much detail that they can watch for the routine arrival of particular vehicles or the characteristics of individual people.

"The enemy has lost not just operational leaders and facilitators — people whose names we know — but formations of fighters and other terrorists," said a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We might not always have their names, but ... these are people whose actions over time have made it obvious that they are a threat."

In some cases, drones conduct surveillance for days to establish the evidence that justifies firing a missile, the officials said.‬ Even then, a strike can be delayed or canceled if the chance of civilian casualties is too great, they said.

But some analysts said that permitting the CIA to kill individuals whose names are unknown creates a serious risk of killing innocent people. Civilian deaths caused by Western arms is a source of deep anger in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
More on link

 Suicide bombers, gunmen attack Afghan governor's compound
Thirteen people, including the nine assailants, are killed as security forces fend off the assault in Nimruz province, officials say.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times May 6, 2010
Article Link

A squad of suicide bombers and gunmen on Wednesday stormed a provincial governor's compound in southwestern Afghanistan, setting off a fierce gun battle. Security forces managed to fight off the attackers, but 13 people died, including all nine assailants, officials said.

A squad of suicide bombers and gunmen on Wednesday stormed a provincial governor's compound in southwestern Afghanistan, setting off a fierce gun battle. Security forces managed to fight off the attackers, but 13 people died, including all nine assailants, officials said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault in Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz province. The attackers wore police uniforms, a tactic commonly used by insurgents to cause initial confusion when striking government buildings and security installations.

A female provincial council member, two police officers and another civilian were among those killed in the assault, said Gen. Jabar Purdili, the police chief of Nimruz. About a dozen people were reported to have been wounded in the attack on the heavily guarded compound, which came as the provincial council was holding a meeting.

Nimruz shares a border with Helmand province, where some of the heaviest fighting of the nearly 9-year-old Afghan conflict has taken place in recent months.

Complex, coordinated attacks on government installations have become more common as an emboldened insurgency has braced for an expected confrontation with North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces this summer in Kandahar province, the hub of Afghanistan's south.
More on link


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## GAP (7 May 2010)

*Articles found May 7, 2010*

Nato gambles on collaboration with Ahmad Wali Karzai in Kandahar
Article Link
 May 7, 2010

Nato has taken one of the biggest gambles of its mission in Afghanistan by reluctantly deciding to collaborate with Ahmad Wali Karzai, the notorious power-broker of Kandahar — despite allegations that the half-brother of the President is involved in the drugs trade.

The decision comes as Nato planners continue preparations for their next big push against the Taleban in Kandahar and as the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, prepares to depart for Washington, where he is expected to meet President Obama next week.

Senior coalition officers would prefer to see the back of Wali Karzai but they have come to the conclusion that their only option is to work with him. They are trying, in the words of one officer, to “remodel” a man accused of running a private fiefdom in the south.

On Saturday Wali Karzai held a meeting with the US Central Command commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus; the latest in a series of contacts designed to rehabilitate and influence the activities of the chairman of Kandahar’s provincial council. 

“The plan is to incorporate him, to shape him. Unless you eliminate him, you have to [do this],” said a senior coalition official involved in planning what is viewed as this summer’s make-or-break military operation in Kandahar. “You can’t ignore him,” he added. “He’s the proverbial 800lb gorilla and he’s in the middle of a lot of rooms. He’s the mafia don, the family fixer, the troubleshooter.”

Although the meeting with General Petraeus was described as friendly, insiders say that the American commander reminded Wali Karzai of a number of key areas, including the appointments of local district and police chiefs, that he was encouraged not to interfere with. 
More on link

 Dutch Afghan experience a lesson for Harper?
You can't leave trainers behind without combat troops, Dutch PM says
Article Link

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende has offered some telling advice to Ottawa as Canada prepares to pull its soldiers from Afghanistan — you can't do training without troops.

The Netherlands is poised to withdraw a force of about 2,000 from Afghanistan's Uruzgan province, starting this summer, and is debating what to do next.

“At this moment there is some room for talking about a police training mission. Of course these trainers must be accompanied by people who will protect them,” Balkenende said.

That, too, has emerged as one possibility for Canada's future role – with a caveat. Stephen Harper's Conservatives have bluntly said all soldiers will be brought home next year, leaving behind a civilian mission, likely to take on development, perhaps a training mission.

Harper drove home that point Thursday here as he all but ruled out a parliamentary debate on Canada's future in Afghanistan, saying the new “civilian” mission doesn't need to be discussed in the Commons.

“Our plan is for Canada's military mission to end next year, and we will be pursuing a humanitarian and development and governance mission after that,” Harper told reporters.

But if a training mission is in the cards, Christa Meindersma cautions against any notions it would imply an end to fighting — or that it can be done without having soldiers on the ground.
More on link

  Tweed reception makes soldier 'proud to be a Canadian'
Posted By Janet Richards Updated 22 hours ago
Article Link

weed – It's become a rite of passage for Canadian troops on their way to war overseas: They stop in Tweed en route from Petawawa to CFB Trenton for deployment to Afghanistan and there waiting for them are young and old eager to show their support.

Reeve Jo-Anne Albert has described the stopovers as very emotional.

Continuing a tradition begun almost two years ago residents, schoolchildren and veterans took time to greet three buses of troops Wednesday.

The troops made a brief visit at Tim Hortons where each was given a gift card and then headed over to the legion.

Students from St. Carthagh's Catholic School walked to the coffee shop to show their support, while students from S.H. Connor and Tweed-Hungerford Senior School greeted the soldiers at the Tweed Legion.

Five-year old Landon Wright was in a line greeting troops outside Tim Hortons.

"I shake their hand and wave my flag," Landon said.

His mother Lindsay said it was the fifth time she had come out to greet the soldiers. 
More on link

 Scholar doubts soldiers could be convicted in detainee transfer
 By Juliet O'Neill, Canwest News Service May 6, 2010
Article Link

Canadian military commanders could not be successfully prosecuted under Canadian criminal law for "aiding and abetting" the torture of Afghan detainees unless it were proved they intentionally handed them over to Afghan custody to be mistreated, legal scholar Craig Forcese told the Military Police Complaints Commission Thursday.

Commanders would not only have to know the detainees would be tortured by Afghan authorities but would have to want them to be tortured, the University of Ottawa law professor testified.

"In domestic law they need knowledge and intent," he said, adding that he has seen nothing on the public record suggesting Canadians purposely transferred detainees to be tortured.

The Geneva Conventions Act also could not be plausibly invoked against the Canadian transfer of detainees to a risk of torture by Afghan authorities because that law applies only to international conflicts, he said. The situation in Afghanistan, where Canada is among dozens of NATO countries with forces on the ground, is generally not regarded as an international conflict by governments and legal bodies around the world.

Forcese testified he believes there is "a plausible basis" for invoking Canada's rarely used 1998 Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which might be breached if there is evidence that "commanders transferred in knowledge that torture was probable." But Forcese suggested prosecution is a long shot and conceded a conviction is "totally uncertain."
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (7 May 2010)

"Slow But Steady Progress" - General McC
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, May 7
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1273249480/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## The Bread Guy (7 May 2010)

GAP said:
			
		

> (....)
> 
> Scholar doubts soldiers could be convicted in detainee transfer
> By Juliet O'Neill, Canwest News Service May 6, 2010
> ...


And which other MSM outlets have picked this up so far?

*>>insert crickets chirping here<<*


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## GAP (8 May 2010)

*Articles found May 8, 2010*

Statement by the President of the Board of Inquiry Into the June 2006 Afghanistan Detainee Incident
Article Link
 May 07, 2010 14:46 ET

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 7, 2010) - Thank you all for being here today. Before I begin I would like to introduce the members of my Board, Colonel Bruce Ploughman from 12 Wing Shearwater and Colonel Michael Pearson, Commander of 3 Area Support Group in Gagetown. Both of these officers are superb and highly respected leaders, and both brought great energy, intellect and experience to the Board, for which I am very grateful. Thank you.

On December 9, 2009 Gen Natynczyk the Chief of Defence Staff publicly raised concerns over inconsistencies in statements that had been made related to a detainee incident that occurred on 14 June 2006 in southern Afghanistan. At that time he directed that a BOI be conducted with a mandate to clarify the events around the mistreatment of an Afghan male who had been in CF custody, who had then been handed over to Afghan authorities, and then taken back by CF personnel.

The CDS, as does the entire leadership of the Canadian Forces, places great emphasis on the transparent, honest and expeditious reporting of actions involving your soldiers, sailors and airmen and women, especially when those actions pertain to the treatment of detainees.

The BOI was formally convened by VAdm Rouleau, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff on 20 January 2010, with a deadline for the Board's findings to be submitted 1 March. The Board, supported by a team of six dedicated subject matter experts and a very hardworking administrative staff, began our work in Halifax the following day. We quickly mapped out a plan of investigation, built a witness list, began collecting documentary evidence, and commenced taking sworn evidence 27 January. Most interviews occurred in Halifax, however we did spend a week in Ottawa seeing witnesses here. We also took some testimony via secure video conference from witnesses who were deployed with Op Podium in operations supporting the Vancouver Olympics.

In total, the Board interviewed 30 witnesses, reviewed about 500 documents and delivered a comprehensive report to the Vice Chief on March 3rd – five weeks after we were officially convened. We are pleased to be here in front of you all today to summarize our findings and to answer any questions you may have. 

The Board was tasked to describe the specific details of the 14 June incident, to identify the reports that were submitted pertaining to the 14 June incident, to identify the process for reporting detainees in Afghanistan in 2006, and to determine to what a soldier was referring when he wrote that the Afghan male had been assaulted by Afghan police "as it happened in the past".

I think it is important to emphasize at the outset that these events took place nearly four years ago. As you would expect, the CF organizations and processes that are in place now at the tactical level in Afghanistan and at the operational level here in Ottawa are much improved over those that were in effect when the mission began. These improvements reflect a constant drive by successive leaders at all levels of the chain of command to identify best practices in the field, and to apply lessons learned, always with a view to protecting our soldiers, and to training and when necessary fighting alongside Afghan security forces, in accordance with the Laws of Armed Conflict.
More on link

 Siddiqui: Afghan mission has become incoherent
Article Link

You may disagree with Stephen Harper’s warfare with Parliament to keep Afghan detainee documents secret. But there’s some logic to it.  

The papers may implicate our army, diplomats and/or allies. Or blow holes in the Conservative defence that it did not preside over any actions in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which make it a war crime to knowingly hand detainees over for torture.  

You may also disagree with Harper’s refusal to hold a parliamentary debate on what Canada should do in Afghanistan after our July 2011 deadline for military withdrawal. But there’s logic to that as well. 

Harper does not want MPs reminding Canadians that he has changed his Afghan policy. After famously posing for the cameras in a military vest in 2006 and pledging that Canada would never cut and run, that’s precisely what he plans to do next year. He wants Canada to undertake only civilian and humanitarian duties. He won’t countenance any role for the military except training Afghan troops and police, even though said training cannot be done without leading the trainees into combat. He just does not want to go into an election this year or next with Afghanistan as a campaign issue, especially with his own caucus divided on it.  

That makes perfect sense from his partisan perspective. 

However, there’s little logic left in Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan. That’s because the NATO mission itself has become incoherent.

Initially it went awry under George W. Bush. But Barack Obama was not going to become the first president to admit defeat in war, so he opted for the contradictory goals of a military surge and a military withdrawal.

“We must win in Afghanistan.” Yet “America has no interest in fighting an endless war.” But how do you win by telling the enemy to just wait you out?

You settle for a limited goal: “We must deny Al Qaeda safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government in Kabul.”

Your aim is not to win but rather not to lose.
More on link

 Travers: Abu Ghraib photos frame Afghanistan prisoner problem
Canadian decisions took root on a fine spring day in the Oval Office
Article Link

 Canada's predicament with Afghanistan prisoners burst into full, awful bloom on a 2004 spring day in Washington. At the White House, George W. Bush, in distraught denial over Abu Ghraib torture photos, raised a rhetorical doubt with his Secretary of State and Canada's visiting foreign minister. “Real Americans,” the president insisted, would never do anything so horrifying.

For Colin Powell, urgently summoned to the Oval Office that morning along with Canadian counterpart Bill Graham, the point was moot. Powell immediately understood that U.S. soldiers were responsible for physically abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners.

Graham's reaction was different, if just as swift. He instantly grasped that public outrage at home would make it impossible to transfer Afghanistan prisoners to Canada's closest ally.

Graham's conclusion was steeped in more than a keen professional interest in humanitarian law. Along with widespread concern about was happening at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay prison, Graham's thinking was influenced by two memories, one military, one political. At defence headquarters, scars were still fading from the beating death of Somali teenager Shidane Arone, a grotesque murder that rogue Airborne soldiers, like the Americans at Abu Ghraib, captured in trophy snapshots. On Parliament Hill, Art Eggleton's 2002 failure to warn Jean Chrétien that Canadian JTF2 special forces had transferred prisoners to the U.S., and presumably to Guantanamo, was still remembered as a seminal lesson on how to cripple a cabinet career.

Witnesses at a military police inquiry and parliamentary committee put varying weight on how those factors contributed to the culture at the centre of the continuing Afghan prisoner controversy. Sometime between Somalia and Kandahar the military concluded that the best way to manage PoWs was to wash Canada's hands of them as quickly as possible.

Whatever the motivation, it's certain Graham returned from Washington tightly focused on the problem. With transfers to Americans out of the question, Canada desperately needed an agreement with Afghanistan extending Geneva Convention protection to prisoners.
More on link

 Battle for Kandahar could turn into deadly urban fight
 By Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service May 7, 2010
Article Link

Canadian and American troops will probably be drawn into fighting the Taliban inside Kandahar City — a task that can quickly turn nasty — during the unfolding offensive that is expected to begin soon, a NATO official says for the first time.

"But actions by NATO forces in the provincial capital will be targeted and precise," and would not involve clearing operations in the classic military sense, Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, says.

"It is quite likely that in some areas there will be resistance and that is why the military forces have to be strong enough and well-equipped enough to deal with that effectively."

Urban warfare is something that Canada and its allies have tried to avoid in Afghanistan, with officials previously suggesting that the potentially decisive battle of the nearly decade-long Afghan war would only take place around the provincial capital and not in the city itself.

Sedwill, who was Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan before joining NATO's International Security Assistance Force here four months ago, emphasized that the looming battle for Kandahar "is to be undramatic and unexciting," when compared with a recent offensive centred around Marja in neighbouring Helmand province that began with a spectacular helicopter assault.

"The whole point is that there is not going to be a big D-Day, climactic moment where security is imposed everywhere" in Kandahar, he said. "The reason we did that in Marja was because it was out of the hands of the government entirely, with the Taliban flag flying everywhere. To minimize the risk to civilians, we had to be everywhere at once."

This time, NATO will "really stand up the police capability on the streets of Kandahar City and the areas immediately around it, with Afghan and ISAF forces standing one step behind them."
More on link


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## GAP (9 May 2010)

*Articles found May 9, 2010*

 Afghan Army official: 4 Afghans beheaded, 10 militants killed in fierce gunbattle
Article Link
 Published on May 9th, 2010 

An Afghan army official says four members of an informal community defence force protecting villagers in western Afghanistan have been beheaded during a fierce battle with insurgents.

The commander of the Afghan National Army's rapid-response team in Herat province says the fighting occurred Saturday in a Taliban area of Shindand district. Maj. Zainudin Sharifi said Sunday the defence force came under fire when it was investigating reports suicide bombers were planning to attack a coalition outpost.

Four were captured and beheaded during the fighting.

Coalition forces and the quick-response force responded, killing 10 militants. Sharifi says four of the militants died when they were hit by bullets that detonated their suicide vests.
end

Victims of Afghan wars speak out ahead of major government-backed peace conference
Article Link
  May 09, 2010 Associated Press KABUL

Mothers of slain teenage sons, men wounded by mine blasts and tearful widows were among Afghans who spoke out Sunday at a conference billed as the first major gathering of victims of decades of war in their country.

The so-called "victims' jirga" at a Kabul hotel brought together dozens of Afghans from across the country to build pressure on the government ahead of a national peace assembly called by President Hamid Karzai for later this month.

Legal advocates who organized the gathering in the capital want to make sure the voices of the Afghan people who have suffered at the hands of insurgents, warlords and under the former Taliban and Soviet regimes are heard at the government's peace assembly.

Some 1,500 people from across Afghan society have been invited to the assembly to seek a consensus for reconciling with insurgents willing to lay down their arms. Some victims don't want those who perpetrated violence over the years to be allowed to regain a measure of power, and for them to pay the consequences for their actions in order to resolve the more than eight-year-old war.

"We cannot lose hope for a peaceful life," said Sima Hussiani, a woman from Badakhshan province in northern Afghanistan. The former Taliban regime killed her two brothers, both teachers, in the late 1990s, she said. "I don't want blood for blood, but the perpetrators should acknowledge their mistakes."
More on link

 Troops stitch camo jersey for Cherry
Article Link
By Tara Brautigam, THE CANADIAN PRESS Last Updated: May 8, 2010

 Don Cherry doesn’t know it yet, but his well-known support for the Canadian Forces over the years has earned him a rare souvenir: a custom-made hockey jersey worn on the dusty battlefields of southern Afghanistan.

Capt. Steven Defer was as far from an ice rink as one can get when he decided to have a military fatigue-style jersey designed to express the army’s gratitude to a select few Canadians.

Last fall, while at a forward operating base in Sperwan Ghar west of Kandahar city, the padre was wrestling with ways to lift the spirits of battle-weary soldiers while recognizing the support the military receives back home.

“What I wanted to do was to come up with an idea that got our soldiers to think about our nation before they came home,” Defer said.

He was in a colleague’s room that was adorned with hockey jerseys, “kind of like pretty much every other den that any (hockey) fan has,” when he came up with the idea.

From across the growing expanse of Kandahar Airfield, Defer collected discarded scraps of camouflage netting — formerly used to cover windows, buildings and tents — and stuffed them into a garbage bag.

He hauled the bag to Neil Wall and Tommy Burke, two Canadian corporals who are as proficient with a needle and thread as they are with a C7 service rifle.

From Defer’s heap of fabric they created four beige and brown hockey jerseys, each with a maple leaf stitched on the chest. They mimic the fatigues Canadian Forces personnel wear in the desert terrain of Afghanistan.
More on link

 The insurgents will be back
Article Link

This is the year of the surge in Afghanistan. Pro-government forces are being reinforced by more than 30,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization soldiers, most of them American. In the spring, they surged into Helmand. Next month, it will be Kandahar.

These offensives, the largest in Afghanistan since 2001, are modelled on the 2007 surge in Iraq. The surge was led by U.S. General David Petraeus, who now oversees all American military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and is the commander of General Stanley McChrystal, head of all international troops in Afghanistan. Endorsed by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Gen. Petraeus is the instrument of a military transformation that’s being put to the test for the first time in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The transformation began when some military leaders began to revise received analysis of the Vietnam War. Instead of looking beyond the military for causes of failure in Vietnam, the real possibility of meeting similar failure in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted them to criticize the significantly unchanged anti-insurgency approach. As a result, these surges are using new counterinsurgency tactics.

Instead of merely killing insurgents, the aim is to increase friends in the local population as much as to reduce enemies. According to proponents, the 2007 surge in Iraq was successful, and it is true that after initial spikes in violence, stability did improve significantly. However, critics have argued that factors other than counterinsurgency tactics (most importantly, the conclusion of a bloody civil war) were largely responsible for the increased stability. They have a case, and since it took the U.S. military until 2007 to question the Vietnam experience sufficiently to change course in Iraq, it would be prudent not to buy into the hype just yet.

The Afghan surges will certainly put significant pressure on insurgents in Helmand and Kandahar, who have been gaining momentum since about 2006. A massive concentration of military force backed by the strongest military alliance on Earth, in support of an intervention force that has been on the ground for more than eight years, supported by both absolute air dominance and incredibly deep pockets – this will scare off the insurgents, who lack organization, equipment and financing and are often characterized as cowardly, cruel and backward.

But why wouldn’t the insurgents simply wait out the surges, or regroup and pop up elsewhere? Isn’t that what happened in 2001, when it took only one month to rout the Taliban and liberate Afghanistan? Indeed, that is what has been happening for years now. Some areas, cleared once or even multiple times, continually fall back under control of insurgents who simply return when the odds are better. What will stop them from coming back after the surges?
More on link

 Canadian Elite Forces: Heroes Put in the ‘Cross-Hairs’
Article Link

An elite unit of snipers went from standouts to outcasts — victims, many say, of a witch hunt driven by jealousy and fear

By that point, Rob Furlong, Tim McMeekin and three other Canadian sharpshooters — Graham Ragsdale, Arron Perry and Dennis Eason — had spent nearly a week in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan’s Shahikot Valley, reaching out and touching the enemy from distances even they had never trained for. But that shot was something special. Rob Furlong had just killed another human being from 2,430 m. It was — and still is — the longest-ever recorded kill by a sniper in combat, surpassing the mark of 2,250 m set by U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock during the Vietnam War.

It should have been a moment of pride for the Canadian army. Five of its most talented snipers — men trained to kill without remorse, then turn around and kill again — did exactly that. They destroyed al-Qaeda firing positions, saved American lives and tallied a body count unmatched by any Canadian soldier of their generation. U.S. commanders who served alongside the snipers nominated all five for the coveted Bronze Star medal. “Thank God the Canadians were there,” is how one American soldier put it.

Yet days later, their heroics on the mountain would be overshadowed by suspicion, including stunning allegations that one sniper, in a subsequent mission, sliced himself a souvenir from the battlefield: the finger of a dead Taliban fighter. Military police launched a criminal investigation, but uncovered nothing but denials. As the months wore on, there emerged so many conflicting accusations and supposed explanations that no charges were ever laid. Even Rob Furlong’s record-breaking shot became lost in the confusion. In fact, until now, a different sniper has been widely — and incorrectly — credited with pulling the trigger on that long-distance kill.

Today, more than four years later, three of the five decorated snipers who served in Afghanistan are no longer in the army, brushed aside by a military machine that seemed all too willing to watch them go. Persecuted instead of praised, they fell victim to what many still believe was a witch hunt driven by jealousy and political correctness. Arron Perry was pushed out the door. Furlong left on his own, so disillusioned that he could barely stomach the thought of putting on his uniform. Graham Ragsdale — the leader of the unit — suffered perhaps the worst fate. Stripped of his command and later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he has spent the ensuing years battling deep depression.
More on link


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## GAP (11 May 2010)

*Articles found May 11, 2010*

Red Cross confirms 'second jail' at Bagram, Afghanistan
By Hilary Andersson BBC News 
Article Link

The US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan contains a facility for detainees that is distinct from its main prison, the Red Cross has confirmed to the BBC.

Nine former prisoners have told the BBC that they were held in a separate building, and subjected to abuse.

The US military says the main prison, now called the Detention Facility in Parwan, is the only detention facility on the base.

However, it has said it will look into the abuse allegations made to the BBC.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that since August 2009 US authorities have been notifying it of names of detained people in a separate structure at Bagram.

"The ICRC is being notified by the US authorities of detained people within 14 days of their arrest," a Red Cross spokesman said.

"This has been routine practice since August 2009 and is a development welcomed by the ICRC."

The spokesman was responding to a question from the BBC about the existence of the facility, referred to by many former prisoners as the Tor Jail, which translates as "black jail". 
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 Afghanistan readies program to reintegrate Taliban
Article Link

Small pockets of Taliban foot soldiers ready to switch sides are waiting for the Afghan government to roll out a nationwide program to lure them off the battlefield and make peace with their leaders.

The plan won't be completed until after this month's peace assembly in Kabul, but according to a 36-page draft, it would attract low- to midlevel fighters with promises of jobs, literacy and vocational training plus development aid for their villages.

Reaching out to top Taliban leaders would be done through political channels, perhaps by striking them off the U.N. sanctions list or granting a few exile to another nation, according to the draft, obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Program, backed by a trust fund soon to be flush with $160 million in pledges from the U.S., Japan, Britain and other nations, has been in the works for months. It is a topic of talks Afghan President Hamid Karzai is having in Washington this week with President Barack Obama.

A successful political resolution to the nearly 9-year war is key to any U.S. exit strategy, and Pakistan and other neighboring nations have a stake in any design of a post-conflict Afghanistan.

Reintegration is "more than just a few mullahs changing sides," Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a top Karzai adviser who is crafting the reintegration program, said before leaving for Washington.

According to Stanekzai and NATO officials, insurgents in a handful of provinces _ including Herat in the west, Baghlan and Balkh in the north and Daykundi in the south _ have already expressed interest in signing up for the reintegration program. To join, insurgents must renounce violence, respect the Afghan constitution and sever ties with al-Qaida or other terrorist networks.

Because the program isn't yet ready, the Afghan government recently sent the country's 34 provincial governors a nine-page letter with guidance for dealing with insurgents who say they are ready to quit the insurgency.
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 Technology shocks and awes but can’t guarantee victory
SCOTT TAYLOR ON TARGET Mon. May 10 - 4:53 AM
Article Link

For the past two weeks I have been travelling continuously throughout the United States and France on what could best be described as a professional development tour.

The chockablock itinerary involved an extensive series of defence industry briefings combined with equipment demonstrations and production facility visits.

I have reported extensively from war zones but this was a rare insight into just how international arms manufacturers are responding to the challenges of the modern battlefield.

In recent years, the arsenals of NATO allies have been fully stocked with weaponry required to battle the conventional forces of the Soviet Union, but were ill-prepared to wage a non-linear counterinsurgency in Central Asia.

As a result, many of the same obstacles confronting the Canadian military have been encountered by our coalition partners. These have been met or overcome with varying degrees of success.

Canadian senior defence officials are certainly not alone in their frustration with our ponderous and complex procurement process. Like Canada, many of our allies have had to find inventive ways to circumvent the normal procedures in order to acquire the necessary new equipment in a timely fashion.

For major ticket conventional items — such as strategic lift planes and heavy lift helicopters — the sudden increase in demand has far exceeded the industries’ ability to produce. Aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing, producer of the C-17 Globemaster cargo plane and the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, have a staggering backlog of orders.

While Canada has already received four new C-17s, the 15 new Chinooks we’ve ordered will not be delivered until well after Canada’s mission in Afghanistan expires in 2011.

The result of the common supply-and-demand problem has led to an unprecedented number of allied government-to-government contracts, wherein recipients borrow an existing weapon system from an ally — usually the U.S. — in anticipation of their own equipment order being built and delivered.
More on link


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## GAP (12 May 2010)

*Articles found May 12, 2010*

Walking the beat with Canadian police in Afghanistan
Article Link

When the paramount concern is death by Taliban suicide attack, the little things go unnoticed.

So small wonder that nobody – not the Canadian police, nor the American MPs, nor even the Afghan cops – was aware of the pungent little plant at their feet Tuesday afternoon as they stepped with considerable relief back inside the bomb-pocked walls of the Afghan Provincial Police Headquarters in downtown Kandahar.

Together, they had just completed an extended foot patrol through the heart of the city the Taliban vows will soon be theirs again. They rubbed shoulders with hundreds upon hundreds of Kandaharis – everyday people far more accustomed to soldiers barging through town in hermetically sealed armoured vehicles.

And from the Toronto Star’s vantage, a good three-quarters of Kandahar was happy to meet them face to face, eye to eye. Better this than being run off the road by a convoy of LAVs. There were many smiles, waves and friendly “Salaams.” Bakers handed out flatbread fresh from the oven to the passing patrol. One woman even reached beneath her burqa, wagging a hand of welcome.

It was a sitting-duck scenario and everyone knew it. But however nerve-ratting the job of dismounting and patrolling on foot – one of the Americans on Tuesday called it a “sphincter-tightener” – it also is crucial to the counter-insurgency strategy NATO is rolling out to bring the population to its side.

And crucially, there were newly minted Afghan police in the mix, all graduates of the Canadian-led training program at nearby Camp Nathan Smith, where RCMP, OPP, even Toronto cops still toil in relative obscurity. 
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 US air campaign in Pakistan zeroes in on North Waziristan, Bahadar
By Bill Roggio and Alexander MayerMay 12, 2010 12:01 AM
Article Link

The controversial US air campaign in Pakistan’s tribal areas has continued unabated in 2010, and is on track to exceed the number of strikes carried out in 2009. So far this year, the US has carried out 35 strikes, just 18 shy of the 2009 total. With six and a half months left in 2010, the 2009 total should be surpassed sometime in July at the current pace. The strikes continue to target top leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied jihadist groups based in the tribal areas, as well as the jihadist infrastructure and operatives used to carry out attacks against the Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the West.

Some interesting trends have developed since the beginning of 2010. North Waziristan, the hub for the Taliban, al Qaeda and allied jihadists, has become the primary focal point of the attacks. More than half of the strikes have taken place in the tribal areas controlled by North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar, while attacks against the Haqqani Network’s sanctuaries have decreased. And the strikes continue to hit a wide variety of targets.

North Waziristan is the eye of the storm

The shift in focus from South Waziristan to North Waziristan that began in September 2009 has continued, with 100 percent of the 35 strikes so far this year occurring in North Waziristan. Miramshah has been the most frequently targeted region within North Waziristan, accounting for nearly more than a third of all strikes so far this year, (13 of 35 strikes, or 37 percent). The Datta Khel region, a known haven for al Qaeda's military and command, is second on the targeting list, accounting for a quarter of the strikes (13 of 35 strikes, or 23 percent).

Hafiz Gul Bahadar’s territory is most hit

So far in 2010, more than half of the Predator strikes (19 of 35 Predator strikes, or 54 percent), have hit targets in territory controlled by Hafiz Gul Bahadar, far more than any other Taliban commander. Looking at the last 10 strikes, eight of those have taken place in Bahadar's areas. And the last seven strikes have hit targets in Bahadar's areas. The concentrated focus on Bahadar represents a significant shift in targeting priorities -- prior to 2010, Bahadar's territory had only been targeted four times in the past 5 years. At the end of 2009, the Haqqani Network was the primary focus of US strikes in Pakistan. 
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 Afghan secret police chief fired over torture of detainee, top soldier testifies
 By Juliet O'Neill and Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service May 11, 2010
Article Link

The firing of the "head honcho" of the Afghan secret police at a prison in Kandahar confirmed the allegations of torture that a Canadian-transferred detainee made on Nov. 5, 2007, to Foreign Affairs monitors, Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche testified Tuesday.

Laroche, then commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said the dismissal and transfer to Kabul of the head of the National Directorate of Security at the unnamed detention facility after an internal investigation "was probably due to the fact that the allegations were founded or at least partially founded."

Laroche told the Military Police Complaints Commission the incident — during which the victim showed Canadian Foreign Affairs (DFAIT) detainee monitors the braided electric cable and rubber hose with which he was beaten unconscious during interrogation — was "disappointing" because he thought progress was being made under a Canada-Afghan detainee transfer agreement aimed at reducing and deterring prisoner mistreatment.

"The fact that people might still be torturing other people was unacceptable and I think that people from DFAIT would agree," he said during questioning by Amnesty International lawyer Paul Champ. "We thought we'd gotten past that and it wasn't the case."
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 CSIS watchdog probes spy services role with Afghan detainees
By: Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press 11/05/2010
Article Link

OTTAWA - The watchdog over the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will look into the spy agency's role in interrogating Afghan prisoners.

Gary Filmon, chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, said members are planning a report on CSIS involvement with detainees.

The spy agency's role in Afghanistan, where it has been operating alongside Canadian troops since 2002, has recently come under scrutiny amid concerns that prisoners transferred to Afghan authorities were subsequently tortured.

Filmon's comments Tuesday in an appearance before the Commons public safety committee came as CSIS officials defend the spy service's work in Afghanistan.

CSIS director Dick Fadden told MPs on the committee the agency regularly talks with suspected Taliban insurgents to gather information.

"We try and talk to people in Afghanistan who would have some intelligence, some information about threats to both Canada and to our allies. By definition those people are either terrorists themselves — they're Taliban insurgents — or they're people who know something about them," Fadden said.

Early on, in helping the military interview detainees, CSIS was "frequently brought in to ask them questions" — usually to try to determine a suspected insurgent's identity and figure out what they were up to, Fadden said.

"In most cases, these interviews lasted less than 15 or 20 minutes. They were then transferred at the call of the Canadian Forces, or not, to the Afghan authorities."

Fadden said the service's efforts had saved lives.

The CSIS chief said the agency is investigating over 200 individuals in Canada whose activities meet the definition of terrorism.

Liberal MP Mark Holland pressed Michel Coulombe, CSIS's assistant director for foreign collection, on use of information that may have been obtained through torture.

Coulombe reiterated recent comments that it is sometimes impossible to know if information was collected by allies through abusive means.

"When it's possible, we try to find out more about how information was gathered by asking questions of the officials involved."

Asked Holland: "Is it OK to use information obtained by torture in those circumstances?"

Coulombe said when there is doubt, "we don't rely on the information."

Filmon, of the intelligence review committee, said the watchdog has assured itself CSIS does not rely on potentially tainted information without first cross-checking it.

"We are satisfying ourselves that they have clear direction and that their approach to it is clear," said the former Conservative premier of Manitoba. 
More on link

 Buildup of top Afghan police seen as key for NATO
By JAMEY KEATEN (AP) – 21 hours ago
Article Link

KABUL — One by one, the graduating Afghan police cadets marched onto a stage, clicked their heels and shouted vows of dedication to their war-weary country as they proudly hoisted their diplomas overhead.

"I am serving our suffering nation of Afghanistan!" one yelled to the audience, prompting enthusiastic applause from his classmates.

Fifty cadets became lieutenants last week in the Afghan National Civil Order Police, the first alumni of a 22-week program to train a force modeled on European police services such as French gendarmes and Italian carabinieri.

Officials say the graduates of the European Gendarmerie Force program will play a key role as the elite of "Afghanistan's finest" in a country badly in need of reliable, competent and respected police.

The ANCOP, one of six categories of Afghan police, is considered the brightest spot in what is largely an otherwise troubled force beset by an array of ills including corruption, drug use, illiteracy and desertion.

Tanned and wearing blue-gray fatigues, the cadets listened intently as Afghan and allied officials praised their service to country.

"Today is a day for you to stand proud," said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, NATO's head of the Afghan training mission. "Today you join an elite force: the best trained, educated and most professional element within the Afghan National Police — and the most respected by the international community."
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (12 May 2010)

Behind the fence line, NATO says
Little chance of combat for troops kept in Afghanistan, Canada told
_Ottawa Citizen_, May 12, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Somnia/3015851/story.html



> NATO is promising Canada that it's unlikely any troops it keeps in Afghanistan beyond next summer would ever face combat.
> 
> "Our mission is not to be out there in combat," U.S. Lt.-Gen. William Caldwell IV, who commands all training of Afghan army and police, said in an interview. "We operate behind the fence line ....
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (13 May 2010)

*Articles found May 13, 2010*

 Fungus hits Afghan opium poppies
By Bethany Bell BBC News, Vienna
Article Link

US soldiers on patrol near a poppy field in Shahwali Kot district, Kandahar, 11 May
A fungal disease is thought to have infected 50% of the country's poppy crop

A serious disease is affecting opium poppies in Afghanistan, Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said.

Mr Costa told the BBC that this year's opium production could be reduced by a quarter, compared with last year.

He said the disease - a fungus - is thought to have infected about half of the country's poppy crop. Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opium.

Mr Costa said opium prices had gone up by around 50% in the region.

That could have an impact on revenues for insurgent groups like the Taliban which have large stockpiles of opium, he added.

The fungus attacks the root of the plant, climbs up the stem and makes the opium capsule wither away.

It was affecting poppies in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, the heartland of opium cultivation and the insurgency in Afghanistan, he said.

Nato 'blamed'

Some local farmers believe Nato troops are responsible for the outbreak, but Mr Costa denied that this was the case.

"I don't see any reasons to believe something of that sort," he said. "Opium plants have been affected in Afghanistan on a periodic basis."

Mr Costa also said this was an opportunity for the international community to bring in support to try to persuade farmers to turn away from planting opium.

He said the amount of opium produced by one hectare (2.47 acres) had almost doubled to 56kg (123lb) in the five years to 2009.

"Nature really played in favour of the opium economy; this year, we see the opposite situation," he added.

Mr Costa said that farmers now grew opium poppies in only five or six Afghan provinces, as opposed to all 34 five years ago. 
end

 Total Force Airlift Delivering in Afghanistan
Article Link
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan – At a place where Operation Moshtarek, a NATO-Afghan joint offensive involving 15,000 Afghan, Canadian, American and British troops is still in full swing, military aircraft come in like clockwork.
Story by Tech. Sgt. Oshawn Jefferson Date: 05.12.2010 Posted: 05.12.2010 09:43

Airmen from across the force are showing the power of combat airlift and delivering supplies to warfighters on the frontlines of freedom in Afghanistan.

"MATVs are one of the most common things we deliver here," said Lt. Col. Melissa Coburm, a C-17 Globemaster III pilot from the 732nd Expeditionary Airlift Squadron at the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan. "I feel important bringing better technology to our troops on the ground. It is good to know that we're making a difference," added the Colonel who is a reservist deployed from McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J.

Airlift keeps Airmen from the 451st Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron's Detachment 1 here busy. The unit's air traffic operations center and ramp operations have uploaded and downloaded more than 40,000 short-tons of cargo from almost 3,000 aircraft moving in and out of the airfield here since January 1. Moving cargo off of airframes such as C-17 Globemaster IIIs, C-130 Hercules, Russian-made IL-76s and DC-8s, aerial port Airmen are ensuring Coalition Forces get equipment and supplies they need.
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 The Dutch, it seems, are having second thoughts. Will we?
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Article Link

For more than a year now, the Canadian government has been relying on the Dutch to help ease our own military exit from Afghanistan next year.

The Dutch are scheduled to start pulling out this fall, nine months ahead of us, and have been seen as a comforting advance guard.

But when Canadians officials, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, were in Holland last week for the Second World War ceremonies, they were clearly told that the Dutch may now dodge such a controversial advance role.

In fact, there is now growing sentiment that the Netherlands will leave behind military or police trainers, along with hundreds of combat troops to protect them.

In other words, the Dutch will do what Harper is adamant Canada won't — bow to urgent appeals from NATO and especially Washington for a continued military presence in Afghanistan.
So polite

This Dutch shuffle at the door — "No, after you, Canada" — will now leave our government as the only alliance member planning to completely abandon the current fight.

It also brings with it a chilling message for our prime minister: that the Dutch are clearly concerned about some kind of NATO-wide opprobrium cascading down on those nations who want to leave the battlefield at this critical juncture.

After all, this change of heart is really quite dramatic (and likely disappointing for Harper). It was only this spring that the Dutch coalition government fell upon the suggestion that the Afghan mission be continued.

Labour bolted the coalition with the Christian Democrat's Jan Peter Balkenende in protest, and an election was set for early June.

But the conservative Balkenende is now trying to build new alliances to return him to power and the biggest surprise in recent days is that both the Green party and a moderate liberal alliance known as D66 have reversed themselves and now favour a significant Dutch training mission backed by hundreds of combat troops.
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 Returning troops see 'real progress' in Afghanistan
Article Link
By RICHARD LIEBRECHT Edmonton Sun Last Updated: May 12, 2010

Improving conditions in Afghanistan have bolstered the spirits of Edmonton’s latest returning soldiers.

“This rotation, I can definitely say I’ve seen an improvement in how the local nationals treat us over there. More children waving at us, less rocks being thrown at us,” said Cpl. Beau Smith, arriving home at Edmonton International Airport Wednesday evening.

Lt. Col. Jerry Walsh added a broader perspective.

“My soldiers tell me, they say sir, this is the hardest tour I’ve been on, but it’s the first tour we’ve seen real progress in Afghanistan. Where people did not live, they’re now living, and we’re talking about tens of thousands. It’s a real change.”

After seven months abroad, 92 Edmonton-based soldiers returned from Afghanistan.

Among them were members of Canada’s battle group and some soldiers who helped train the Afghan National Army.

It was the first tour for Cpl. Michael Hosken, who patrolled urban roads and Canadian installations.

Hosken said the mission was so quiet he wished he saw some more action.

“It was a lot of IEDs, that’s what it turned out to be. A lot of IEDs and not a lot of firefights,” he said.

Overall, it was an experience low in danger but high in reward.

“There are a lot of good things going on,” he said.

His troopmates were able to occupy one town through his entire tour.

“We’re providing a stable life they haven’t had in a long time,” said Hosken.

Walsh said there’s a sense that the mission in Afghanistan is clicking like never before.

“There’s no question there’s still a lot of work to be done. But what we’ve set in motion, and when I say we I mean ... the Afghans themselves, NATO, military, civilians, all the NGOs, everyone coming together now with a real focus and things are really coming together like they haven’t been in previous years,” he said.
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 Afghan officer did not suggest shooting prisoner, diplomat says 
Article Link

Steven Chase

Ottawa — Globe and Mail Update Published on Wednesday, May. 12, 2010 12:37PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, May. 12, 2010 5:54PM EDT

A Canadian diplomat is denying an allegation by a former military interpreter that he transferred a prisoner to Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service even after it proposed executing the detainee.

Ed Jager, a Foreign Affairs officer, featured prominently in troubling allegations leveled by a former military translator last month.

Ahmadshah Malgarai, whose former Canadian Forces codename was “Pasha,” told MPs in April that he was present in the summer of 2007 when a colonel with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security refused to take an ill captive and suggested shooting him instead.

Mr. Malgarai said Mr. Jager was there when this happened. But Mr. Jager told the Military Police Complaints Commission Wednesday he doesn’t recall such an incident.

“No ... I can say so categorically,” he told the commission hearings, which are probing allegations that Canadian soldiers knowingly handed over Afghan captives to torture at the hands of local interrogators.

Mr. Jager, who served as a political adviser in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008, is now posted to Brazil and was flown back by Foreign Affairs to attend the commission hearings.

It’s the second significant allegation made by Mr. Malgarai that the Canadian government has rejected. Last month Canada’s top soldier, Chief of the Defence Staff General Walter Natynczyk, denied the ex-interpreter’s charge the military shot an unarmed teen in the back of the head during a raid. 
More on link

 Ex-Liberal defence minister says 2005 Afghan prisoner deal was best available
Published On Thu May 13 2010
Article Link

Former Liberal defence minister Bill Graham says a flawed 2005 agreement on the transfer of Canadian detainees to the Afghans was better than no deal and dismissed suggestions torture was a big concern at the time.

“In the end the agreement was not perfect . . . but it was the best we could do at the time,” Graham told an all-party parliamentary committee. The panel is looking into whether the Conservative government transferred prisoners knowing there a chance of them being tortured or sexually abused.

Graham told the committee that for one thing, there was no monitoring provision in place to follow up on the welfare of Canadian prisoners turned over to Afghan authorities.

“It was not . . . evident to us that there was such a substantial risk” of torture, said Graham, defence minister from 2004 to 2006. Even so, he added, the government and its officials had decided it was the Afghans’ responsibility once the deal was signed to see that prisoners were not abused.

“I cannot honestly say that we foresaw all of that at the time. We didn’t or we might have acted differently.”

The 2005 agreement was replaced with a new agreement in 2007.
More on link


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## GAP (14 May 2010)

*Articles found May 14, 2010*

CANADIAN ARMY, SUPPORTED BY AIR FORCE, TRAINS FOR AFGHANISTAN DEPLOYMENT
 By Dave ******** Thu, May 13 2010
Article Link

VALCARTIER GARRISON, QC, May 13- Approximately 50 soldiers from 12e Régiment blindé du Canada, supported by the Air Force, will train in the Chaudière-Appalaches and Centre-du-Québec regions from May 17 to 21, 2010. They will practise joint planning and coordination in preparation for their deployment to Afghanistan in fall 2010.

Between Lévis (St-Étienne-de-Lauzon sector) and Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, soldiers will carry out a number of scenarios such as mounted patrols, convoy escorts including close air support, as well as landing zone set ups.

Scenarios using choppers will be limited to municipalities located between Saint-Agapit and Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes. Citizens from these municipalities will therefore notice the occasional presence of helicopters, sometimes at low altitude, in the daytime.

In addition to about 10 wheeled light armoured vehicles, two Griffon helicopters will provide tactical air support to Land Force troops (joint aspect). Flight personnel will be composed of two crews of four soldiers from 430 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, based in Valcartier.

Although the soldiers will be in the area and will interact freely with the public, residents will not be overly inconvenienced and will be able to go about their daily business. Blank ammunition and pyrotechnic material will be used safely. 
end

Top soldier in southern Afghanistan warns against Taliban 'impunity'
Major Gen Nick Carter, the top soldier in southern Afghanistan, has given a stark warning that the Taliban were acting with "impunity" in an area of "criminality and lawlessness" where British troops might next deploy.
 By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 8:26PM BST 13 May 2010
Article Link

Maj Gen Carter, the British officer in overall command of coalition troops in southern Helmand, said warlords had taken over large swathes of Kandahar province and the government was "pitifully weak".

By mid-summer it is expected that a substantial American operation will begin in Kandahar following the surge of 30,000 fresh troops into southern Afghanistan.

But by the end of July next year the Canadian force that is based in Kandahar will be leaving and high level talks have taken place in having them replaced with the British force currently in Helmand. Major Gen Carter said there were "no plans over who might backfill them" but did not quash the suggestion that the British might move in.

Speaking via videolink at a Ministry of Defence briefing he said a serious issue to be addressed was the private security companies that were roaming through the countryside unrestricted in some instances working as armed militias for warlords.

They were also taking recruits away from the Afghan Army by being paid $500 a month, double the wage of an Afghan soldier.

"We have to go after the private security companies," the officer said. He added that as the spiritual heartland of the Taliban Kandahar was the key city to secure in the country.
More on link

 Australia boosts army equipment spend
Published: May 13, 2010
Article Link

CANBERRA, Australia, May 13 (UPI) -- Australia will boost spending on its 1,550 troops in Afghanistan by an extra $391 million up to the end of 2011, the defense ministry said.

The money, announced as part of the new defense budget, will be for increased fire power and improved rocket-detecting technology mostly for soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan's dangerous Oruzgan province.

The government's shopping list includes upgraded technology to clear roads of dangerous improvised explosive devices, better armor and increased firepower for Bushmaster vehicles, improved body armor for soldiers, new night vision equipment, additional explosives detection dogs and better capabilities for intelligence and reconnaissance work.

Defense Minister John Faulkner said the money is part of an $894 million increase to the overall $20.6 billion defense budget announced by the government. The rest of the $894 million will be spent on operations in Middle East, East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
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Nato troops prepare Kandahar push
By Caroline Wyatt Defence correspondent, BBC News
Article Link

Maj Gen Nick Carter said Kandahar was essentially 'a political problem'

Nato forces in Afghanistan hope to "steal the ground" beneath the Taliban in a summer campaign to drive them out of Kandahar, a UK commander has said.

Maj Gen Nick Carter, who commands Nato forces in the south, said plans for the offensive were already under way.

Almost a decade of political and economic inequality in Kandahar city had led to lawlessness, criminality and a culture of impunity, he said.

His comments were made via a video link from Kandahar to reporters in London.

Maj Gen Carter said the situation in Kandahar was more complex than in Helmand, but was essentially "a political problem".

He described Kandahar as "culturally probably the most significant place in terms of the Pashtun people of Afghanistan".

The "shaping" part of the operation - the attempt to build up Afghan governance and security structures, as well as the number of Afghan police and soldiers - had already begun in Kandahar city, he said.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (14 May 2010)

Afghanistan–IED: “The Hidden Killer”
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, March 14
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1273857158/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (16 May 2010)

*Articles found May 16, 2010*

The media fraternity got it wrong - very wrong 
Article Link
 Christie Blatchford

Journalists are a fraternity, as one of my friends remarked the other day at a funeral for a beloved one of our own. In the hurly-burly together, we are generally loath  to publicly criticize one another.

That said, I confess to astonishment by reports which received big play in newspapers across the country last weekend, and which form part of the Afghan detainee narrative which in my view has been torqued from the get-go.

Not only were these particular reports wrong, they were so diametrically opposed to the facts that it is difficult to believe the writers read a word of the lengthy document upon which the stories were allegedly based.

This was, in the convoluted lingo of the Canadian Forces, the military Board of Inquiry into In-theatre Handling of Detainees.

Basically, it was about a June 14, 2006, incident involving a Canadian-detained prisoner who was allegedly abused by Afghan police.

The inquiry was ordered last December when Chief of Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk, a profoundly decent guy, was horrified to realize he’d never been told about the incident and actually held a news conference to correct testimony he’d given to a Parliamentary committee the day before.

That tale got plenty of play. The Globe and Mail headline – “Natynczyk in the dark on Afghan prisoner’s history: In an explosive reversal, Canada’s top soldier admits a prisoner taken into Canadian custody was abused by Afghan authorities after a report comes to light that contradicts his own testimony and [Defence Minister Peter] MacKay’s repeated denials.”

The story referred back to Richard Colvin, the diplomat who had alleged the month before that virtually all prisoners Canadians handed over were likely tortured and that most were also probably innocent farmers.

As it happens, before that same committee, Mr. Colvin’s testimony has been politely but steadily chipped away by evidence from a cast that includes three former Canadian ambassadors to Afghanistan and other senior officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade who were on the Afghanistan file, a representative from the Correctional Service of Canada (who was in Kandahar and made 47 visits to prisons, most of them unannounced) and an array of generals who were on the ground during the 2006-07 period.

Now a whistleblower, as Mr. Colvin has been painted, often stands alone. But the list of those whose evidence has sharply contradicted his is long, and includes distinguished diplomats who have worked for Liberal governments and would seem unlikely puppets of the one headed by Stephen Harper.
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  Canadian Armour in Afghanistan
Posted by Think Defence in Land Combat, Operations & Strategy on May 14, 2010

Some interesting footage of the Leopard main battle tank and Kodiak armoured engineer vehicle in Afghanistan.
Article Link

The UK has deployed the Trojan combat engineering heavy armoured vehicle but not Challenger 2 citing terrain restrictions in the Green Zone as the main reason for not deploying them There was some talk of a request being turned down on cost grounds a few months ago.

If the UK area of operations does shift to replace the departing Canadians one wonders if the UK might emulate the success of he Canadians and others with the deployment of small numbers of main battle tanks.

They certainly have an intimidatory effect but perhaps our new ‘courageous restraint’ approach might not be compatible with 70 tonnes of mobile firepower.
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 NATO Outlaws Save Lives
Article Link

May 14, 2010: Although NATO is over half a century old, and has developed many common standards, member nations in Afghanistan are finding out that their national rules on sharing intelligence prevent them from exchanging data on many enemy activities. This is particularly troublesome for information on IEDs (roadside bombs), where the enemy is constantly changing weapons design and tactics.

The problem is that the NATO alliance was set up to fight a conventional war, and there are existing protocols for sharing high level information. But this was never extended down to tactical level data. Right now, the problem is the lawyers (who draw up the agreements) and the politicians (who have to approve them). Lower level commanders, who are hurt most by the current security regulations that prevent sharing of tactical information with "foreigners", have little clout with the lawyers and politicians back home. The mid-level commanders often break (or bend) the rules informally, to share life-saving data on what the enemy is doing on a tactical level. Everyone ignores this lawlessness, but careers could be ruined if some journalists decide to make headlines over the issue. For the moment, the only one benefitting from this situation is the enemy.
end


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## MarkOttawa (16 May 2010)

U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts
_NY Times_, May 15
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/world/16contractors.html?ref=todayspaper



> Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan  and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.
> 
> Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information — some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (17 May 2010)

*Articles found May 17, 2010*

 Cdn military chaplains suffering burnout, compassion fatigue at high rates
Article Link
By: Alison Auld, The Canadian Press 16/05/2010

Chaplains in the Canadian military are suffering high levels of burnout and many are at risk of developing disorders like depression, according to documents that pin the blame on heavy workloads and compassion fatigue.

Officials in the chaplaincy office link the elevated stress to the prolonged surge in operational tempo, staff shortages and the strain of tending to families of soldiers killed or injured overseas.

Leadership in the Chaplain General's office is so concerned about the issue that it has submitted a strategic plan to the chief of military personnel outlining ways to deal with the problem.

Lt.-Col. Sylvain Maurais, director of chaplaincy services, said the initiative was prompted by the first-ever survey of morale among the Forces' 225 padres, which found all chaplains were experiencing burnout and compassion fatigue.

"We are feeling the same stresses as the rest of the Canadian Forces population," Maurais said of the survey, which was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

"The level of ministry that we are providing is quite complex. It's not at all what it used to be."

The survey, conducted under two years ago but only now being acted upon, found that 52 per cent of chaplains were at medium to high risk for anxiety or depressive disorders.

That puts them at more than double the normal levels for other Forces members and higher than the civilian population.

The questionnaire identified a handful of causes for the strain, such as work overload, poor work-life balance, lack of training, ineffective leadership and being pulled in different directions by the chaplaincy, the Forces and churches.

Much of that is compounded by the ongoing mission in Afghanistan and the difficult tasks that fall to military padres, who serve six to nine month rotations overseas with troops in Kandahar, and are ministers to families at home.
More on link

Opinion: On Being Pakistani
Updated: 14 hours 2 minutes ago
Article Link

Pakistanis are becoming the world's pariahs. Since being implicated in a steady stream of violent attacks -- from the London Tube bombings in 2005 to this month's failed attempt to bomb Times Square -- it seems almost inevitable now that when the next act of terrorism happens, a Pakistani will be involved.

As a Canadian of Pakistani descent, I've watched this pattern emerge with a rising sense of trepidation. Thirty-five years ago, when my parents decided to move to Canada, things were much different. Pakistanis were different. They were much in demand -- an intelligent, hard-working people who integrated and contributed positively to society, wherever they went.

What a terrible journey we've made since then.

Today, Pakistanis are objects of fear and suspicion. Wherever we go we must contend with the "terrorist" label and endure the scrutiny that accompanies it. Like many of my compatriots, I've been "interviewed" by the Joint Terrorism Task Force at the U.S. border, questioned at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport and scrutinized with extra efficiency by a German border control officer. Every time it happens, a piece of advice a Sufi in Saudi Arabia once gave me cycles through my mind: "When an obstacle is placed in front of you," he said, "be like water -- flow around it."

Pakistanis are being asked to flow a lot these days, and it will not get better any time soon. Many people in the world must be asking why it is that so many acts of terrorism in the West seem to lead back to Pakistan. Is there something in the Pakistani psyche that makes them susceptible to violence?

What those people might be surprised to hear is that Pakistanis are asking the same questions. 
More on link

EU has let us down on Afghanistan, says Defence Secretary Liam Fox

Article Link

New British Defence secretary Liam Fox has attacked Britain's EU "partners" for not pulling their weight in Afghanistan.

Scotsman Mr Fox, in his first interview as Defence Secretary, has said that he would make it a priority to reform Britain's riole in NATO and make sure other countries play their part.

Whilst he named no names, it was clear that Fox was talking mainly about Germany, France and Italy, saying that it was unfair for Britain to carry such a huge burden within the NATO alliance.

Mr Fox, a "NeoCon" with close links to the US Republican Party, also revealed that he will, amongst other things, put the MoD on a proper war footing to see through the job in Afghanistan; make it a criminal offence to discriminate against Britain's service personnel; and provide support for service personnel and their families.

Fox may be a bit of fresh air after a succession of former Marxists, Trotskyists and CND activists as Defence Secretary under the left-wing Labour Government.
More on link

 Afghan-Canadian performing tightwire act of governing Kandahar
Tooryalai Wesa left his Canadian home behind hoping to put troubled province on right path
Article Link

Three times we have marched up the steps of the Governor’s Palace in Kandahar City. Three times we have found different men behind the big desk, each promising that this time things will be different.

Maybe so. If one is to measure change by the resources at hand, never has Kandahar had a better chance than now.

Yet never have we seen fatigue like that on the face of Tooryalai Wesa, the Afghan-Canadian returnee who is serving as the latest political canary in the volatile coal mine that is southern Afghanistan.

He came back late in 2008, you may recall, tossing away a scholar’s life in Vancouver and replanting himself as Governor of his native Kandahar Province at the behest of President Hamid Karzai.

And now, 17 months and one assassination attempt later, Wesa has a bundle of bags under his woebegone eyes to show for it.
More on link

 Combat weapons in soldier's luggage

  Article Link
Canwest News Service May 17, 2010

A Canadian soldier en route back home from Afghanistan was caught with brass knuckles and throwing stars in his luggage, airport officials said. He and a comrade missed their connecting flight at the Winnipeg International Airport last week after they were held up by security.

Mathieu Larocque, spokesman for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, said a security officer detected brass knuckles and throwing stars in one of the Regina-based soldiers' checked bags.

Laroque said Winnipeg police were called to the airport where the weapons were seized them.

"These items are not only prohibited on planes, but also under the Criminal Code of Canada," said Larocque.
end

  The NATO training mission in Afghanistan shows promise
By COL. JAY D. HADEN
Article Link

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN | As an Army Reserve officer who has spent the last 11 months working with and training the Afghan National Army (ANA), I’d like to share some of my impressions.

Afghanistan is slightly smaller than Texas in area and slightly larger in population. That’s where the similarities end. The country is desperately poor. However, its people are generous with what they have. Every time I entered an ANA officer’s workplace, I was served tea and, almost always, something to eat. And this hospitality is at the personal expense of the officers, even the most senior of whom are paid less than $1,000 a month.

The poor pay of army officers and other government officials contributes to the corruption that’s been widely reported. And I don’t mean to minimize this — corruption rears its head everywhere, across all spectra of society — but the country is about more than that.

Afghans are generally upbeat and optimistic about the future. Most I have encountered feel that if the government can establish a modicum of order and security in their day-to-day lives, Afghanistan will become the country they hope for.

This would mean that the people are safe from attacks by insurgents and collateral damage inflicted by the coalition. And it would also mean they’re not routinely subject to petty indignities, such as the payment of bribes to secure necessary public services.

Society here can’t really progress far until the government addresses the corruption problem seriously. Efforts thus far have not been much more than lip service.
More on link


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## GAP (18 May 2010)

*Articles found May 18, 2010*

 Cohn: Afghan exit strategy a non-starter
Article Link

A truce has been declared in Parliament’s war of words, sparing our politicians an election battle over who tortured whom in Afghanistan four years ago. Now spare a thought for the Canadian soldiers still fighting on the front lines and the Canadian aid workers in the trenches, virtually forgotten.

Canada’s body politic is transfixed by torture. What truly excites the opposition and the press is the classic Watergate formulation: what did the minister know and when did he know it?

It matters less that the Afghan security services blindfolded Taliban prisoners than that Ottawa’s bureaucracy turned a blind eye to it. Fair enough, for we are a nation of laws, even if some feign surprise that not every other nation is. Doubtless we could have, should have, done more to bind the hands of Afghans before letting them slap around the prisoners we handed over.

More puzzling is why our focus on events in 2006-07 has crowded out intelligent discussion of any other aspect of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan in 2010-2011. Obsessed with the fate of a few dozen Taliban prisoners, we’ve become oblivious to the future of 30 million Afghan souls and the roughly 3,000 Canadians on the ground helping them.

Thankfully, we have gained a brief respite from Torturegate while MPs pore over the tortuous memo traffic buried in the bowels of our bureaucracy. That presents an opportunity for the rest of us to take our eyes off the rear-view mirror and look ahead to the deadline that is rapidly approaching for Canada to withdraw its combat troops from Kandahar starting in mid-2011.
More on link

 Kevin McKay’s family gets it: Worthington
Article Link
The sacrifice in Afghanistan is put in perspective
By Peter Worthington Last Updated: May 17, 2010

Sincere though they may be, those who think our soldiers should not be wasted in Afghanistan could learn from the parents and friends of soldiers who are killed there.

Incredible, to some, is the pride and support shown by families of soldiers killed — and their moral courage in the face of the greatest tragedy in their lives.

The family of Pte. Kevin McKay, 24, of the Princess Pats is a case in point — the 144th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan, just a couple of days short of his tour ending and his return home.

It would seem Pte. McKay did one extra foot patrol, and fell victim to an IED — the curiously named improvised explosive device that has claimed half the soldiers killed.

McKay’s family lives at Horseshoe Valley north of Barrie. His father, Fred, is a Toronto fire captain, from whom his son evidently got his values, patriotism, his sense of purpose.

Amid the family’s grief, Fred McKay could put his son’s death in perspective.

“I think every soldier there and the ones going in the next battle group would say ‘leave them there until the job is done,’” he told the Sun’s Don Peat.

“You cannot give a date to withdraw troops, it has to be based on objectives. If they haven’t completed the task ... support them 150% so they have the resources to get the job done. Then bring them home.”

That’s a pretty mature attitude, and one our political leaders (in all parties) could well consider as they bicker to make points from what’s going on in Afghanistan.

Here’s Fred McKay, who suffered an unimaginable loss — as have 143 other Canadian families — recognizing that broadcasting a time-table for withdrawing troops further endangers those troops, and encourages an already fanatic enemy.

As a firefighter, he’s in one of those jobs that can be dangerous, demands dedication and serves a public that is not always appreciative of such efforts. Like police and soldiers, firefighters risk their lives in the cause of others.

When soldiers die in Afghanistan it’s normal for comrades and commanders to praise and grieve. Regiments are also family.

Still, it’s powerful and persuasive when families at home stand tall for their sons who are killed, and urge the government to show the courage and support Canada gets from its soldiers.
More on link

Walking backward into battle: How Canada’s civilian and military deep integrationists took us to war
Article Link
May 5, 2010 in Briarpatch Articles, May/June 2010: Foreign policy | 1 comment
By Chris Shaw Briarpatch Magazine May/June 2010

August 2009, CFB Wainwright

It was well after midnight when we got off the yellow school buses and stepped into a field of thick Alberta mud. The sides of the large field kitchen tents nearby were billowing in the cold wind. Our kit had just been chucked to the ground from the buses, each item landing with a wet thump.

Two hundred metres away, half a dozen rows of modular tents would be our sleeping quarters. No one knew for sure who belonged to which tent, so hundreds of tired army reservists, me included, grabbed rucksacks and rifles and slumped into the nearest empty cot for a few hours sleep before the early morning reveille. By morning, we knew, we would no longer be in the middle of a mud field on Canadian Forces Base Wainwright, but rather on the sweltering and dusty Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan, half a world away.

Maple Defender, a week-long training exercise, was designed to give us a taste of the war in Afghanistan, as far “down in the weeds” as it was possible to get without actually being there. Some of those who got off the buses were thinking about signing up for a future tour. Others, like me, were mostly curious about Canada’s first real shooting war since Korea and here to experience the changes that had come over the military since 2006. We were all soon to be confronted by two key observations: first, Canada was truly fighting a brutal counter-insurgency war against a determined enemy. Second, perhaps surprisingly to some, the military really liked its new war. Both observations led me to ask how the Forces came to be so involved in the fighting in Afghanistan, the so-called “graveyard of empires.” Was it an accident of history or a misjudgment by ignorant politicians? Or maybe – just maybe – the Forces themselves had been a major player in the decision to go to war against the Taliban.

By week’s end, I no longer had any doubts: Canada’s front-line role in the war in Afghanistan was at least in part designed by the Forces themselves as their 21st century coming-of-age party. It had been planned and executed to this end and had, on its own terms, been a spectacular success. Meanwhile, most Canadians have no clue that their country has been backed into a shooting war through the deliberate actions of a senior group of bureaucrats and military brass pursuing a particular political agenda.

When I first visited CFB Wainwright in the early 1990s, it was a sleepy place near its namesake, a farming village in east-central Alberta, about 60 kilometres from the Saskatchewan border. The base then, as now, sprawled over hundreds of kilometres of gullies and small hills, cut through by the Battle River. Back then, Canada and its NATO allies were still training for the kind of war that would be waged against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact – a self-evident anachronism. Even those new to the Forces knew that Canada wasn’t going to be fighting the Russians in any foreseeable future. So who to fight? A military, after all, is designed to fight wars. Without real enemies, the very notion of having an army at all begins to lose its lustre. With politicians of all stripes starting to wonder aloud about the future role of the Canadian Forces, an existential angst had begun to ripple though the ranks. The Forces really needed a credible enemy, and soon.

In the years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 2001, the Canadian military used Wainwright to train soldiers for deployment to the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia. After 9/11, when Afghanistan became the Forces’ focus, the base was rebranded as the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre. Wainwright’s location, cold winters and hot summers proved a perfect training ground for the new mission of fighting the Taliban insurgency.

The new training doctrine adopted by the Forces was called the “three-block war,” lifted directly from U.S. military practice. In three-block warfare, the first block consists of low- to medium-level combat operations against generic insurgents, rather ominously known as “rest of the world enemy,” or ROWEN. Block two involves so-called stabilization operations – in other words, the mopping up phases of combat. The final block consists of reconstruction efforts in which the military works alongside civilian and non-governmental agencies to fix the things that all the fighting has so effectively broken. 
More on link

 Pakistan blast 'kills 12' in Dera Ismail Khan 
Article Link
At least 12 people have been killed in a bomb blast near a police vehicle in the north-western Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan.

Officials say the bomb was planted on a bicycle and targeted the town's deputy police superintendent, who was killed along with his guard and driver.

Nobody has yet said they carried out the attack.

Dera Ismail Khan borders tribal South Waziristan, where the army launched an anti-Taliban assault last year.

Many people fled to the town after the army launched its offensive against militant strongholds in the volatile region.

While there has been a relative lull in violence in Dera Ismail Khan since the offensive, correspondents say many insurgents simply shifted to the nearby regions of Orakzai and Khyber.

map

"The target was Deputy Superintendent Iqbal Khan," a local police official told the BBC.

DSP Khan had been leaving his house in the Kutchi Painda Khan area of the city and getting into his car when the bomb was detonated by remote control, police said.

Hospital officials said the dead included women and children. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (18 May 2010)

Afghanistan war: Kandahar offensive is now in the slow lane (?!?)
McClatchy Newspapers, May 17
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0517/Afghanistan-war-Kandahar-offensive-is-now-in-the-slow-lane



> _US officials say key military operations in the Kandahar offensive - scheduled for this summer - will be delayed until the fall. The Taliban have taken the Afghanistan war to the streets of the southern Afghan city with a campaign to assassinate key public officials._
> 
> Kandahar, Afghanistan —
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (19 May 2010)

*Articles found May 19, 2010*

 Labrador airbase limited by Afghanistan deployment
  
By Bradley Bouzane, Canwest News Service May 18, 2010
Article Link

Operations at the Canadian Forces Base in Goose Bay, N.L., will be limited this summer, as much of the base staff is in Afghanistan helping with the Canadian mission.

More than half the staff on the base's combat support squadron was deployed to Afghanistan, which eliminates Goose Bay's ability to conduct some emergency operations, including search and rescue.

Lt.-Col. Michel Brisebois said the reduction in staff is a necessity given the scale of Canada's Afghan mission, but the staffing burden is cycled between Goose Bay and two other combat support squadrons in Cold Lake, Alta., and Bagotville, Que.

"Our commitment to Afghanistan, especially from an air force perspective, is very high," said Brisebois, a search-and-rescue adviser at the air force division headquarters in Winnipeg. "The staff is being pulled to go support Afghanistan, and by doing so, it reduces the personnel at home and it affects their status.

"It comes in waves, and at this particular time, Goose Bay is the (base) that's in its lull where most of their guys are gone and obviously, it has an impact on what they can do at home."

Brisebois said the Goose Bay base, which normally has 37 personnel, will carry a staff of between 10 and 15 people this summer. He could not specify when the crew from Goose Bay will return from Afghanistan.
More on link

 Canada may turn to U.S. military to guard its aid efforts in Afghanistan
Protection needed as development projects slated to outlast Canadian combat mission
Article Link

Canada’s aid effort in Afghanistan could fall under American military protection after our soldiers leave next year, the country’s top development official says.

Acknowledging the fragility of security in Kandahar Province, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said the surge of Americans into what has long been Canada’s patch in Afghanistan includes the possibility of a U.S. safeguard for development projects — and Canadian civilians — slated to outlast the Canadian combat mission.

“(The Americans) have offered to support the ongoing efforts that we will be continuing in Kandahar. And we will be talking to them as we go on,” Oda said Tuesday.

Oda’s comment came at a briefing following a day-long helicopter tour, in which the minister heaped praise upon signs of progress in irrigation and education, two of Canada’s signature projects in the restive southern province.
More on link

 Taliban launch brazen strike on NATO base
U.S. military: 10 insurgents die in predawn attack outside of Afghan capital
Article Link

Insurgents carrying rockets and grenades launched a brazen pre-dawn attack on a giant U.S.-run base north of Afghanistan's capital on Wednesday, leaving at least 10 guerrillas dead and 7 foreign troops wounded.

The attack on Bagram air base, about an hour's drive north of Kabul, continued into daylight with sporadic fire of rockets and small arms outside. One rocket landed inside the base, causing minor damage, but no insurgents managed to get inside Bagram, according to NATO.

Helicopter gunships hovered above Bagram, the main base for the U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan with the largest airfield in the country. It was used by the former Soviet Union during its invasion of the country in the 1980s.   
More on link


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## GAP (20 May 2010)

*Articles found May 20, 2010*

Hamid Karzai’s half-brother accused over theft of Defence Ministry land
Article Link
 May 20, 2010

 Long the subject of allegations of criminality, a half-brother of President Karzai has for the first time faced public accusation from within the Afghan Government.

A dossier prepared by Major-General Sher Mohammad Zazi, the Corps Commander of the Afghan Army in Kandahar, was leaked yesterday. It accuses Ahmad Wali Karzai of using his influence to help associates in the illegal appropriation of government land around the southern city of Kandahar, where he leads the Kandahar Provincial Council and wields huge influence.

Mr Wali Karzai responded by demanding an investigation to clear his name and announced that he and the rest of the council would go on strike.

He told The Times by telephone yesterday: “I myself, with all the members of the provincial council, have today stopped working in Kandahar. I want a high-ranking delegation from Kabul to come and investigate the case. 
More on link

 Canadian general escaped suicide bombing
 Blast killed colonel in same convoy
 By Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service May 20, 2010
  Article Link

A Canadian Forces general narrowly escaped death in the same suicide car bombing that killed Canadian Col. Geoff Parker and 17 others in Kabul on Tuesday.

Brig.-Gen. Andre Corbould -- who is to become deputy commander for NATO operations in southeastern Afghanistan this fall -- two other Canadian officers and a corporal were in the five-vehicle convoy with Parker when a suicide bomber exploded a minivan loaded with nearly a tonne of explosives. None of the other Canadians were injured in the blast.

Aside from Parker, five American soldiers and 12 Afghan civilians were killed in the explosion.

Parker was to have taken up a position co-ordinating humanitarian aid and development across southern Afghanistan at the same time that Corbould was to become deputy commander of RC South, which has its headquarters at Kandahar Airfield.

Along with an American colonel killed in the same blast, Parker was the highest ranking NATO officer to have died in Afghanistan since U.S. forces invaded the country in the fall of 2001.

Parker was on a fairly typical mission in Kabul for officers soon to be deployed to Afghanistan when the convoy was hit near Canada's old base in Kabul. It was closed when the former Liberal government of Paul Martin government turned its military focus to Kandahar four years ago.

Parker was in the Afghan capital with some of those he was to work with when he took up his duties as deputy director for stability for NATO's Regional Command South. The posting at Kandahar Airfield was to have been for one year.
More on link

Photoblog: mortar attack
Article Link
 May 19, 2010

When reporter Tom Coghlan and I arrived at the remote forward operating base (FOB) “Lane” in the mountains of Zabul province, home to a platoon of US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, we found the guys in the mortar pit, preparing to carry out a mission to fire on surrounding peaks.

There were two reasons for the mortar fire: first, to target known Taleban spotter positions, and second, because they needed to practise.  I was eager to start photographing something of substance as it had taken nearly five days to get here and there had been a lot of waiting around, so I photographed them as they went about their firing, shifting position and constantly re-arranging my earplugs because they kept falling out just as the mortar was about to fire.
More on link

 Photoblog: IED attack
Article Link
Richard Pohle

Day Two of Operation Eagle Claw, and I groggily awoke from a doze inside a heavily armoured American MRAP (mine resistant ambush protected vehicle).

Reporter Tom Coghlan and I were with paratroopers of the American 82nd Airborne division as they accompanied Afghan Army soldiers to search villages that had known Taleban sympathies. We knew that these villages could have rings of defensive IEDs around them, and despite the fact we were travelling in one of the safest vehicles possible in the circumstances I was still nervous.

We were manoeuvering onto an "overwatch" position on a small hill overlooking the village of Khan Kalay. I looked out of the MRAP's small window at the village, vaguely aware of the Afghan army moving into their start positions and a humvee rumbling down a track to the side of us. The vehicle disappeared behind the lee of the hill.

Then I heard a sickening thud and saw a fountain of dust, smoke and pieces of metal fly into the air where the Humvee had just driven. "IED!" our vehicle's gunner shouted.

In the shocked seconds afterwards confusion reigned in our vehicle. I tried to find the bag I had put my cameras into the night before to protect them from the dust, but failed to locate it under a jumble of army ration boxes and backpacks. Tom leapt out of the vehicle and raced down to the scene while I pulled and wrestled with the packs. "Watch out for more IEDs!" I shouted after him. 
More on link


Photoblog: "They've just shot the tea boy!"
Article Link
 May 17, 2010 Richard Pohle

This is Sergeant Daniel Yentsch, a military police officer attached to the 82nd Airborne at FOB Lane in Zabul province, Afghanistan. Reporter Tom Coghlan and I joined him on a visit to a nearby Afghan Police compound, to do an inventory of what equipment the police had and what they needed. 

Tom went because he wanted to see how the local police worked and interview them. I went because I wanted to shoot some portraits of the different characters, and to get out of the small US base where we have been embedded for the past few days.

Our arrival triggered a flurry of activity amongst the Afghan Police. I guessed they saw this as quite an important visit. Officers were running about, pulling on bits of uniform and smoothing out the crumpled mess with their hands.
More on link


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## The Bread Guy (20 May 2010)

*A Quiet, Tense Night for a First Patrol*
Rod Nordland, NY Times, 20 May 10
Article link


> Kandahar, Afghanistan — The crescent moon had just risen as the Canadian soldiers crushed their last cigarettes out in the dust and began helping one another put on their heavy packs. There was a soft breeze in the warm night air, pleasantly and unseasonably mild. That wouldn’t last.
> 
> They were about to go on their first dismounted night patrol; their unit had just rotated in, and most of these men, from India Company, Second Royal Canadian Regiment, were on their first tour of Afghanistan. Their predecessors had over the previous year lost five service members.
> 
> ...



More on link


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## MarkOttawa (21 May 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 21

Canada's route out of Afghanistan will be bumpy
Best-laid plans could be derailed by a change in government in Ottawa
_Toronto Star_, May 21
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/812407--canada-s-route-out-of-afghanistan-will-be-bumpy?bn=1



> The Canadian military’s plans to get every last soldier and tank out of Kandahar by the end of next year are detailed and well-advanced, even as it plans for contingencies ranging from exit routes to snap elections at home.
> 
> Internal documents obtained by the Star show the highly-secretive Mission Termination Task Force is grappling with the cost of an exit strategy that could be thrown into chaos if a new government in Ottawa decides to recommit to Afghanistan.
> 
> Between July and December 2011, when the withdrawal is to be completed, the Taliban insurgency is still expected to be active – despite a series of major offensives planned this year – and a substitute force to take Canada’s place has yet to be found...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (21 May 2010)

*Articles found May 21, 2010*

Canada's route out of Afghanistan will be bumpy
Best-laid plans could be derailed by a change in government in Ottawa 
Article Link

The Canadian military’s plans to get every last soldier and tank out of Kandahar by the end of next year are detailed and well-advanced, even as it plans for contingencies ranging from exit routes to snap elections at home.

Internal documents obtained by the Star show the highly-secretive Mission Termination Task Force is grappling with the cost of an exit strategy that could be thrown into chaos if a new government in Ottawa decides to recommit to Afghanistan.

Between July and December 2011, when the withdrawal is to be completed, the Taliban insurgency is still expected to be active – despite a series of major offensives planned this year – and a substitute force to take Canada’s place has yet to be found.

Then there’s the physical path out of war-torn Afghanistan. It’s a dusty, dangerous unpaved route laden not only with roadside bombs and bandits, but despotic regimes, rough terrain and enemies.

The military is also aware of the possibility that governments could use the country’s need for a 2011 withdrawal as a bargaining chip for their own commercial gain.
More on link

 Suicide attack hits Afghan police in Paktika
Article Link

A group of suicide bombers launched an attack on a police base in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika, officials say.

At least one policemen and four militants were killed during the raid and the gun battle that ensued in Paktika's Urgun district.

It is the latest in a series of attacks on security targets across the country.

On Wednesday suspected Taliban attacked one of Afghanistan's largest and most heavily fortified US bases.

Ten insurgents were killed and seven US troops injured in a battle at Bagram airbase that raged for several hours.

That attack came one day after a suicide bomb attack in Kabul killed 18 people, including five US soldiers and a Canadian colonel.
Volatile tribal areas

Four suspected Taliban fighters were involved in the raid on the police base in Urgun. One drove a lorry carrying explosives into the entrance, killing a policeman in the blast, local officials say.

The three others militants were killed only after a prolonged gun battle with police. 
More on link

 Afghanistan: stuck
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, May 20, 2010
Article Link

Afghanistan: stuck
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, May 20, 2010 - 9:55 AM Share
Article Link

Travels with Shiloh, a good blog new to me, covers a recent conference on counterinsurgency at Fort Leavenworth and comes away with the interesting conclusion that the U.S. military is not gonna get out of Afghanistan anytime soon:

    While, current U.S. policy states that we'll begin withdrawing our forces in 2011 there was a universal recognition that any real effort to apply COIN in Afghanistan would take a very long time. While the subject wasn't addressed (except for one question at the final Q&A roundtable) my impression was that all of the speakers (British, Canadian and U.S.) were operating under the assumption that forces would be in place well beyond 2011. I heard no discussion about how to conduct any sort of hand off to the Afghans within 18 months, alterations to COIN theory or doctrine or trains of thought about alternate ways militaries could support/conduct COIN without significant numbers of forces on the ground. I would interpret that to mean that the military has been given the word (explicitly or implicitly) that that 2011 deadline is NOT set in stone. I would, in fact, go further and predict that barring some unforeseen change in the operating environment we will almost definitely have a significant presence in Afghanistan for some time.

I agree with this, and feel worse about it than I do about Iraq. I never thought invading Iraq was a good idea, but I thought (and still think) that invading Afghanistan was a correct response to 9/11.

He also offers this worrisome report:

    We most definitely do NOT own the night. Just because we have night vision goggles doesn't mean that much. We're not generally active at night and initiative goes to those who move at night.
More on link

 Web Exclusive: The Pakistan mess
Article Link
Saul Landau | May 20th 2010

Washington’s national security elite seethe and fume with resentment and frustration. Pakistan receives billions of U.S. aid dollars and remains a training ground for terrorists targeting the United States.

On May 1, Faisal Shahzad tried unsuccessfully to detonate his explosive-ridden car in Times Square. He subsequently revealed his Taliban training roots.

Washington complained that Pakistani governors in the militant’s operations areas have not cooperated in eliminating terrorists. On May 6, General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, urged Pakistan’s General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in Islamabad to rapidly begin an offensive in North Waziristan, Al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds.

After all, U.S. diplomats whined, after Congress has authorized more than $11 billion to Pakistan, that ungrateful President Asif Zardar dared grumble about Pakistan not receiving its proper share of the money. Is this extortion? An insider Muslim joke on Christians?

According to Pakistani writer Pervez Hoodbhoy, President Zarder gets approval for anti-American posturing. Even the attempted Times Square terrorist attack received substantial support from the Pakistani public because it represented a prevailing notion: “the U.S. is responsible for all ills, both in Pakistan and the world of Islam”.

Routine U.S. drone bombings of “suspected militants” have not won wide approval. Instead, the droning assassinations of supposed Taliban or Al Qaeda leaders have killed lots of civilians. This has led some Pakistanis and Muslims elsewhere to hear more credibly the jihad-preaching Imams calling for revenge.
More on link

US investigates Afghanistan civilian deaths
US soldier in Afghanistan
Article Link

The US military has opened a criminal investigation into allegations that American soldiers were involved in the unlawful deaths of Afghan civilians.

A statement released by the US Army in Afghanistan says that a small number of US soldiers were responsible.

It said that "as many as three Afghan civilians" were killed.

A spokesman for the US military in Kabul told the BBC's Mark Dummett that there had been "no other similar cases as serious as this one".

The spokesman said that he could not give more information because he did not want to jeopardise the investigation.

The statement released by the military said that there were also allegations of illegal drug use, assault and conspiracy. So far no charges have been made.

However the statement says that one soldier has been placed in pre-trial confinement.

Source of tension

"The army's Criminal Investigation Command initiated their investigation after receiving credible information from the soldiers' unit earlier this month," the statement said. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (21 May 2010)

NATO Agrees to Split of Regional Command South, Afghanistan
International Security Assistance Force HQ Public Affairs, May 21
http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=news/news_show.php&id=50065#



> AFGHANISTAN - On May 21, 2010, the North Atlantic Council in consultation with non-NATO International Security Assistance Force Troop Contributing Nations, gave final authorization for the reorganisation of ISAF's Regional Command South and the establishment of an additional Regional Command South-West – RC(SW) – in Afghanistan. This new organisation will be effective later this summer.
> 
> The new RC(SW) will have responsibility for the Helmand and Nimruz provinces and will be placed initially under the command of the United States. *Regional Command South, which is under the command of British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, will retain the provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul and Daikundi* [emphasis added].
> 
> ...



Afghanistan: “Taliban Flexing Muscles” 
Conference of Defence Associations'media round-up, May 21
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1274455544/0#0

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (23 May 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 23

U.S. troops, Afghan police sweep through Taliban stronghold
Military and civilian teams search homes and offer reconstruction aid in a Kandahar district. The operation is a preview of a wider summer campaign.
_LA Times_, May 23
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-kandahar-sweep-20100523,0,1825801.story?page=1&utm_medium=feed&track=rss&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20latimes%2Fasia%20%28L.A.%20Times%20-%20Asia%29&utm_source=feedburner



> Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan
> 
> U.S. soldiers and Afghan police early Saturday swarmed a dense Taliban stronghold of mud-brick homes on the western shoulder of Kandahar, conducting searches and promising aid in a preview of a planned summer campaign to control the insurgent movement's spiritual home.
> 
> ...



Aussie troops build presence in Kandahar ahead of NATO push 
_The Australian_, May 17
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/full-recovery-for-injured-aussie-troops/story-e6frg8yo-1225867853449



> _AUSTRALIAN special forces have begun ramping up their presence in Kandahar ahead of a major NATO-led push to oust Taliban insurgents from the key southern province._
> 
> The increasing troop numbers was confirmed today in a briefing by Defence head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who said the offensive would involve Australian special forces, Chinook transport helicopters and possibly Afghan National Army kandaks (battalions) mentored by Australian forces...
> 
> ...



*Update*:

Taliban networks targeted in Special Forces operations
Australian Department of Defence, May 17
http://www.defence.gov.au/media/DepartmentalTpl.cfm?CurrentId=10303



> Taliban insurgent networks have suffered a series of blows with three commanders killed in Oruzgan in the past week.
> 
> Mullah Jalil, an insurgent commander known to be responsible for Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks against Coalition soldiers operating from Multi-National Base Tarin Kowt, has been shot and killed in an Afghan National Security Force led operation supported by the Special Operatons Task Group (SOTG).
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (24 May 2010)

*Articles found May 24, 2010*

 Canadian patrol illustrates difficulty figuring out friend from foe in Panjwaii
By: Tara Brautigam, The Canadian Press 23/05/2010 
Article Link

BAZZAR-E-PANJWAII, Afghanistan - Gunfire rings out less than a kilometre away from the Panjwaii district centre, shattering the silence that hangs over this small village southwest of Kandahar city.

Hours later under the shadow of night, men mill about roadside culverts, a popular hiding spot for improvised explosive devices.

That makes Cpl. Christopher Turk suspicious.

The next morning, the 29-year-old Hamilton man leads a small section of soldiers and Afghan National Police to talk to the Kuchis, a nomadic agrarian people who have remained neutral in the conflict with the Taliban. They also live in the vicinity of where the gunshots were fired and farm near the roadside during the relative cool of night.

The patrol illustrates the challenges members of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment face in identifying friend from foe in Panjwaii, known as the birthplace of the Taliban.

The march is slow, each footstep gentle. On this parched stretch of land eyes fixate on a bottle cap, a piece of cloth, a clump of dirt — anything that appears unusual.

Families piled onto bicycles and motorcycles are stopped along the way. Master Cpl. Chad Vincent delivers the same message each time.

"Be careful when you're around the roads at nighttime and make sure to stay away from the culverts especially," the 29-year-old native of Corner Brook, N.L., tells them.

"If you do work at nighttime you should report to the (district centre) and let them know what you're doing exactly because of the activity that's been happening."

At one point, a man cradling his toddler-aged son pleads with a NATO interpreter and journalist to provide medication — any kind of medication will do, he emphasizes. Master Cpl. Sergio De Franco, a medic, gets the boy to stick out his tongue and then examines his pupils.

De Franco tells the father his boy likely has diarrhea and encourages him to see a doctor. But the father says he doesn't trust local doctors as much as those from the West. He hops back onto his motorcycle with his son and moves on.
More on link

 Afghan peace conference delayed for 2nd time
Article Link
(AP) – 20 hours ago

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan official says a conference to discuss peace prospects with the Taliban has been postponed for a second time.

The gathering of tribal elders and other community leaders had been expected to begin this coming Saturday. But the spokesman for the conference, Gul Agha Ahmedi, says the meeting will be begin June 2 and last three days. No reason for the delay was given.

The conference, known as a loya jiga (LOH-yah JER-ga), was postponed from early May to allow President Hamid Karzai to discuss his peace plans during a visit to Washington earlier this month.

No representatives of the Taliban are due to attend. Instead the conference will focus on economic incentives for insurgents willing to give up the fight.
More on link

 Taliban blows up two suspected spies
Article Link
Haji Mujtaba, Agence France-Presse; With Files From Reuters  Published: Saturday, May 22, 2010

Taliban operatives strapped explosives to two men accused of being U.S. spies, then blew them up at a public execution in northwest Pakistan.

The killings took place Thursday evening in North Waziristan, a lawless al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary on the Afghan border where the United States has stepped up attacks with missile-firing drone aircraft, fuelling the insurgents' fears of spies.

Five masked Taliban paraded the hand-cuffed prisoners before dozens of people in the Datta Khel area and accused them of passing information to the United States on targets for the pilotless drone aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
More on link


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## armyvern (24 May 2010)

Another ISAF soldier killed in Afghanistan today. No nationality has been released.

Prayers and thoughts to family, friends and fellow soldiers of all the Fallen. Spring is definitely here.

ISAF Joint Command



> ISAF Joint Command - Afghanistan
> 
> 2010-05-CA-091
> For Immediate Release
> ...


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## MarkOttawa (25 May 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 25

An earful after a military operation in Kandahar
Afghan tribal elders in Kokaran, invited to discuss governance and development, turn the focus instead on security, especially complaining about not receiving advance notice of military raids.

_LA Times_, May 25
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-kandahar-20100525,0,683009,full.story



> Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan
> 
> It was supposed to be a meeting about governance and development — two of the three pillars of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Kandahar province this summer.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (26 May 2010)

*Articles found May 26, 2010*

Taliban Haunt Nights in a Kandahar Village
Fear-Struck Afghans Turn Away Troops Who Come Seeking Their Confidence
Article Link

Three days before the first American patrol rolled into this village in Kandahar province, the Taliban paid a visit to farmer Ismail Khan. They kidnapped his son, who worked on a government road project, beat up Mr. Khan, and torched the family's prized possession, a white Toyota Corolla.

Yet, when American soldiers asked Mr. Khan and his neighbors about the vehicle's charred hulk in the courtyard, the villagers initially feigned ignorance.

After realizing the soldiers already knew about the incident, Mr. Khan explained. "Today, you come here. Tonight or tomorrow, once the Taliban find out I've been talking to ... 
end

 Cda finally processing entry requests for Afghan interpreters, but few make cut
Article Link
By: Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press 25/05/2010

More than a year after Ottawa promised to fast-track immigration applications for Afghan translators, a narrow list of applicants who meet the criteria to come to Canada has been compiled.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney originally announced the program for Afghans who face "extraordinary personal risk" because of their support to Canada's mission in Kandahar. At the time, Kenney said he expected "a few hundred'' successful applicants to qualify by the time the mission and the program ends in 2011.

But out of 114 applications only 25, or roughly 21 per cent, have been approved to come to Canada by the committee made up of officials from the departments of National Defence, Foreign Affairs, International Development and Immigration and Citizenship. The committee works in conjunction with the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency.

"We're beginning to process some of the approved applications. There was a delay because we need to work as well through the International Organization for Migration and they removed all their staff for security reasons in Kandahar," Kenney said in a recent interview.

"The security situation has made it go slower than I would have liked but we're finally starting to process some of those positive applications and some of those people should be settling in Canada shortly."

Neither Kenney nor officials in his department could say exactly when the successful immigrants, who are allowed to bring along two family members each, would arrive in Canada.

Opposition critics say that bureaucratic foot-dragging is risking the lives of Afghan interpreters.

"It's been a long time and they face danger and their families face danger. Don't have them bogged down with bureaucratic red tape," said NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow, who was surprised that even 25 had been approved.
More on link

 Undercover CSIS agents carry guns in foreign flashpoints
Article Link
Spies get only few weeks training; 'amateurs with guns are dangerous to everyone,' says critic
Colin Freeze
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, May. 25, 2010

Ottawa’s spies are carrying guns in Afghanistan, a new practice for the clandestine civilian agents who are not authorized to bear arms inside Canada.

In response to Globe and Mail questions, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service confirmed for the first time that intelligence operatives can carry firearms in overseas hot spots.

That revelation shocks many long-time spy-service watchers, who say Parliament never contemplated this power. CSIS’s request for firearms was never publicized or debated publicly.

The authorization is to use force as a last resort, and only when facing dire circumstances. No CSIS agent is yet known to have fired a bullet.

This development comes as CSIS, increasingly constrained within Canada, looks to expand its horizons abroad. In Afghanistan, it already claims to have disrupted terrorists and safeguarded soldiers.

“We have saved Canadian lives,” CSIS director Dick Fadden told a parliamentary committee this month, testifying about Afghanistan. He did not reveal details.
More on link

Suicide bomber targets Canadian base in Afghanistan
  Article Link
 By Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service May 26, 2010

A car bomb blew up outside Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team base in Kandahar City on Wednesday morning.

The attack occurred in front of Camp Nathan Smith where Afghan workers on the base sometimes gather or pick up lifts.

The abortive attack in front of Camp Nathan Smith was a vehicle borne improvised explosive device. One local national was injured in the attack according to Canadian and Afghan sources.

"Camp Nathan Smith's Quick Reaction Force responded, assisted by the Afghan National Police," Lt. (N) Michele Tremblay, the military spokesman at the KPRT, said in a statement. "To ensure the safety of local Kandaharis, the immediate vicinity was evacuated."

It was unclear whether the bomb detonated prematurely or what, exactly its intended target was.

The incident was the first of its kind to target Kandahar's PRT. The base is home to hundreds of Canadian and American troops as well as scores of Canadian and American diplomats, police trainers and aid workers who assist with development projects, train local security forces and help bring governance to the province.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (27 May 2010)

U.S. puts hopes in bedraggled Afghan police
If the U.S. is to succeed in seizing control of Kandahar — the country's second-largest city — from the Taliban this summer, improving the performance of the police will be at the heart of the effort.
_LA Times_, May 26
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-cops-20100527,0,6481245.story



> Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan — Afghan national police checkpoint No. 4, substation 3, is a blighted shell of a building ringed by garbage and shaded by scruffy trees whose leaves are coated with fine gray dust. Here, nine police officers have the task of protecting the Shinghazi Baba neighborhood of southern Kandahar.
> 
> Sometimes they can't even protect themselves. Two months ago, an officer was fatally shot by an insurgent who escaped on a motorcycle.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (28 May 2010)

*Articles found May 28, 2010*

Liam Fox flies to Afghanistan seeking to speed up troop withdrawal
Article Link
 May 22, 2010

The Government hopes to speed up withdrawal of thousands of British troops from Afghanistan and has ruled out any move from Helmand province to neighbouring Kandahar.

In a significant shift from Labour’s foreign policy, Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said that Britain was not a “global policeman” and emphasised that the mission in Afghanistan was about making British streets safer rather than sending Afghan girls to school.

His comments, in an interview with The Times, came as the Ministry of Defence announced yesterday that 8,000 British troops in southern Afghanistan would come under the control of the US, a change that underlines Britain’s diminished role in the region.

Dr Fox, who is due to visit Afghanistan this weekend, plans to use the trip to explore ways to accelerate the departure of some 10,000 British troops. “We need to accept we are at the limit of numbers now and I would like the forces to come back as soon as possible,” he said. 
More on link

 Hold ground, then push forward, Canadian commander declares
Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service May 27, 2010

As "tantalizing" as it is "to close with the enemy and kill them," Canada's new battle group commander says his troops must first consolidate gains in eastern Panjwaii, an area that was seized from the Taliban a few months ago and long dubbed 'the Wild West' by NATO forces.

"That is the easy part," Lt.-Col. Conrad Mialkowski said when asked if his soldiers intended to hunt down the Taliban in their western sanctuaries. "The hard part is to live among the people and have a positive impact on their lives.

"Before we go west, the Canadians, Americans and Afghans must hold what we have, and, if we are to go west, we must do it with the Afghan army and Afghan police. The days are gone when we would sally forth on our own."

The priority of British Maj.-Gen. Nick Carter, the International Security Assistance Force's commander in southern Afghanistan, has been to firm up "a ring of stability" around Kandahar City, which the alliance and the Taliban have both declared is the vital, possibly decisive ground in their long war. Achieving stability to the immediate southwest of the provincial capital has fallen to Mialkowski's Petawawa-based 1st Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (28 May 2010)

US, NATO Gear Up for Major Offensive in Kandahar (note new RC South commander)
VOA, May 26
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/U-S-and-NATO-Forces-Plan-Kandahar-Offensive--94916094.html



> ...
> *U.S. Major General James Terry [10th Mountain]
> http://www.drum.army.mil/sites/cmdgrp/
> will take command of southern Afghanistan forces in the fall* [emphasis added]. He is visiting Kandahar to get a sense of what is happening and describes what the coming weeks will bring.
> ...



Taliban Score Publicity Coup
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, May 28
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1275068419/0#0



> ...
> Matthew Fisher for The National Post calls the recent Taliban attacks, “militarily insignificant,” but nevertheless a “spectacularly successful publicity coup” for the insurgency.
> http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=3067325
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (29 May 2010)

Taliban Leave Pakistan, but Afghans Repel Them
_NY Times_, May 28
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29afghan.html



> After five days of fighting, the Afghan border police, supported by American helicopters, repelled a force of Pakistani Taliban who appeared to have crossed the border to try to carve out a new haven in Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province, according to Afghan officials.
> 
> Meanwhile, in Paktia Province in southeastern Afghanistan, the Taliban ambushed a joint force of Afghan National Police and NATO soldiers, killing at least five Afghan police officers, provincial police officials said.
> 
> ...



Options studied for a possible Pakistan strike
_Washington Post_, May 29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804854.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead&sid=ST2010052801870



> The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.
> 
> Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.
> 
> ...


  

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (29 May 2010)

*Articles found May 29, 2010*

 This Week at War: The Forgone Conclusion in Kandahar
What the four-stars are reading -- a weekly column from Small Wars Journal.
BY ROBERT HADDICK | MAY 28, 2010
Article Link

Can't we already write the December Afghanistan strategy review?

The "battle" for Kandahar is now underway. But don't call it a battle, says Gen. Stanley McChrystal, think of it as a "process." According to a recent gloomy assessment by the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung, administration officials view the Kandahar operation as the "go for broke" culminating effort of the war. McChrystal will commit 10,000 U.S. soldiers and 80 percent of USAID's budget for Afghanistan to the Kandahar offensive. In DeYoung's words, "The bet is that the Kandahar operation, backed by thousands of U.S. troops and billions of dollars, will break the mystique and morale of the insurgents, turn the tide of the war and validate the administration's Afghanistan strategy. There is no Plan B."

Are Barack Obama and McChrystal really gambling on achieving a clear and convincing victory in Kandahar? The battle against the Taliban insurgents is a battle for perceptions. And there are numerous audiences whose perceptions the administration and McChrystal must alter. These audiences include Kandahar's leaders and population, the U.S. public, and the rest of the world, which will render its judgment about U.S. strength and effectiveness.

How do U.S. officials define success in Kandahar? According to DeYoung, the definition is vague, relying on "atmospherics reporting," public opinion polling, and levels of street commerce. When defining success, U.S. officials are in a logical trap; they must keep their definitions secret in order to prevent the Taliban from targeting the measurements. But without stating their goals in advance, they will have a difficult time convincing the various audiences that they are achieving them.

According to DeYoung's article, the Kandahar operation will be the centerpiece of the Obama administration's December strategy review. That review will presumably result in a decision confirming the plan to begin a withdrawal the following summer. 
More on link
 
 Taliban Leave Pakistan, but Afghans Repel Them
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK Published: May 28, 2010
Article Link

After five days of fighting, the Afghan border police, supported by American helicopters, repelled a force of Pakistani Taliban who appeared to have crossed the border to try to carve out a new haven in Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province, according to Afghan officials.

Meanwhile, in Paktia Province in southeastern Afghanistan, the Taliban ambushed a joint force of Afghan National Police and NATO soldiers, killing at least five Afghan police officers, provincial police officials said.

The attacks not only indicated that the summer fighting season had begun, but also provided a reminder of the permeability of Afghanistan’s rugged border, which is difficult for NATO vehicles to patrol but well traveled on foot and donkey by insurgents who know their way over the high mountain passes.

In Nuristan, the fighting in the Barg-e-Matal district ended with two border police officers dead, three wounded, at least three houses burned and at least 25 Taliban dead, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the head of the Afghan Border Police for the country’s eastern region.

An American military spokesman in Jalalabad, Maj. T. G. Taylor, confirmed that helicopters had provided some close air support overnight.

“Large numbers of Taliban” were involved in the fight, General Mamozai said. He estimated that more than 600 insurgents were in the area. He said they came to Barg-e-Matal from the Pakistani areas of Swat, Bajaur and Chitral and included Chechens and Arabs as well as Pakistanis.

Though it was impossible to confirm the presence of such a large contingent of Pakistani Taliban and fighters with Al Qaeda, the fighting underscored the difficulty of denying havens to militant groups when borders are so permeable. Many of the Pakistani Taliban and others appeared to have felt that they could no longer operate freely in some of their bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas because of military operations by the Pakistani Army, and so were apparently testing nearby areas where there is no little or no presence of NATO troops. 
More on link

 Afghanistan a perfect storm for the worst of modern warfare
Reviewed by: George A. MacLean 29/05/2010
Article Link

Sebastian Junger, best known for A Perfect Storm, his vivid telling of the massive storm that hit the Eastern seaboard in 1991, spent a good deal of 2007 and 2008 embedded with American troops in eastern Afghanistan for Vanity Fair magazine.

There, in the Korengal Valley, he and photojournalist Tim Hetherington worked on a documentary, called Restrepo, which depicted the harrowing daily routine of U.S. infantry soldiers fighting in what has been called the "Afghanistan of Afghanistan:" the worst of a very dangerous place. That film has won several awards, including the Grand Jury Prize for best film at Sundance 2010.

While filmmaking, Junger worked on this book, which turns out to be riveting. It follows the lives, and deaths, of the men of Second Platoon, Battle Company of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division.

Second Platoon was the "tip of the spear" of the U.S. war in Afghanistan at the Korengal outpost, named Restrepo after the platoon's medic who was killed in a firefight there.

The Korengal was called the "Valley of Death" by U.S. soldiers. More than 40 died there between 2006 and 2010, and hundreds were wounded.

In its time, the Korengal Valley saw more active fighting than any other part of Afghanistan, making it the most dangerous posting for anyone in the U.S. military. Soldiers came to hate the place. "Damn the Valley," or DTV, was a short-hand reference for everything that went wrong for the U.S. troops there.
More on link

Soft target for militants in Lahore
 Friday, 28 May 2010 16:41 UK
Article Link
By M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad Scene outside an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore, 28 May Ahmadi mosques have been targeted

The pattern of attack in Lahore is by now all too familiar for the residents of Pakistan's cultural capital.

There has been something of a lull in the grand co-ordinated assaults. The last major attack was in March when a double suicide bombing killed dozens.

But militants have now for the first time targeted the Ahmadi religious minority. Shia Muslims have been targeted over the past year.

As a minority Islamic sect, the Ahmadis are also a soft target.

Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim and follow all Islamic rituals. But they were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan in 1974 and in 1984 they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.

The are the most suppressed of all minority communities in Pakistan and are not free to perform all their desired religious functions. 
More on link

 US reprimands six over deadly air strike in Afghanistan
Article Link
The US military has reprimanded six operators of an un-manned drone, which mistakenly attacked a civilian convoy in Afghanistan killing at least 23.

Warnings that the convoy was not an attacking force were ignored or played down, while the ground-force commander was not sure who was in the vehicles, an investigation found.

The deadly assault took place in Uruzgan Province in February.

Civilian deaths in strikes have caused widespread resentment in Afghanistan.

A Nato statement at the time said it was thought the convoy contained Taliban insurgents on their way to attack Afghan and foreign military forces. 

However, troops then found "a number of individuals killed and wounded", including women and children.

A US military investigation said the order to attack was based on inaccurate information from the crew monitoring the convoy from an Air Force base in Nevada and on flawed analysis by Nato commanders.

The reports said poorly functioning command posts "failed to provide the ground-force commander with the evidence and analysis that the vehicles were not a hostile threat".

The commander of the international forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, said letters had been issued reprimanding four senior and two junior officers in Afghanistan.

He said: "Our most important mission here is to protect the Afghan people; inadvertently killing or injuring civilians is heartbreaking and undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.

"We will do all we can to regain that trust." 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (30 May 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 30

Training of Afghan military, police has improved, NATO report says
_Washington Post_, May 30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903172.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead



> A U.S. military review in Afghanistan has concluded that the addition of more than 1,000 new U.S. military and NATO troops focused on training has helped stabilize what had been a failing effort to build Afghanistan's security forces, but that persistent attrition problems could still hinder long-term success.
> 
> "We are finally getting the resources, the people and money," said Army Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who heads the NATO training effort in Afghanistan and oversaw the review of his command's past 180 days. "We are moving in the right direction."
> 
> ...


  

Taliban Push Afghan Police Out of Valley
_NY Times_, May 29, by Dexter Filkins
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30afghan.html?ref=todayspaper



> KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters took control of a remote district near the Pakistani border on Saturday, scattering the forces of the Afghan government, who said they had run out of ammunition.
> 
> A force of Taliban attackers entered the district of Barg-e-Matal around 8 a.m. Saturday, after the local police retreated, Colonel Sherzad, the deputy police chief, said in an interview.
> 
> ...



Life lessons the Afghanistan war taught me
_Washington Post_, May 30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052803860.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead&sid=ST2010052805439



> Late last year, after eight months of service halfway around the world, I decided to take stock of myself: I had not been monitoring my stock portfolios and investments closely. I was not current on the machinations of the faltering economy or what the health-care debate meant for my insurance. I had never heard of the finalists on any of the reality shows.
> 
> Was I unenlightened and out of touch with reality? Perhaps, by a conventional definition of being connected, informed and up-to-date, I was woefully ignorant.
> 
> ...


  

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (31 May 2010)

ARTICLES FOUND MAY 31

Battalion among hardest hit in Afghan war
AP, May 30
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gXENSA8ou6ckzv1mw5jK7TFsmZswD9G198C00



> FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan — It was Aug. 10, 2009 in the Arghandab River Valley, a hot and dusty day full of unknowns.
> 
> An American battalion was swapping in with a Canadian garrison. As the Stryker troop carrier rumbled toward the riverside orchards, a Canadian soldier warned 1st Lt. Vic Cortese, 24, of East Quogue, New York: "We don't go in there."
> 
> ...



Insurgents in Kandahar's undergrowth drag Nato forces into 'green hell'
Spring brings renewed risk from IEDs, and political solutions seem a long way off. Julius Cavendish reports from Pashmul
_The Independent_, May 31
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/insurgents-in-kandahars-undergrowth-drag-nato-forces-into-green-hell-1987511.html



> Under a baby-blue sky Sgt Michael Ingram was bleeding his life into the Afghan dirt. Explosives hidden in a mud house had taken off both his legs, and as the call went out for a medic, it took a moment to realise that the medic was also hurt, along with a third US soldier who had taken shrapnel in his shoulder.
> 
> One of the most popular men in Charlie Company, First Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, Sgt Ingram died from massive blood loss. "There is no way to comp-rehend an IED (improvised explosive device) until you see someone hit one," Lt Mark Morrison, a platoon leader in the same company, said later. "Then everything changes."
> 
> In the half-deserted village of Pashmul – as much a front line as any in southern Afghanistan's indefinite war of ambush and IED – Taliban fighters are stepping up the fight. With fighters arriving from Helmand and Pakistan, and budding vegetation providing ample cover, the Taliban are using bolder tactics in an attempt to suck foreign forces into a battle of attrition. "The Taliban want to pull us into the grape fields," Charlie Company's commander, Capt Duke Reim, said. "Slowly take a company from 130 [men] and bring it down to 115. That's what they're looking to do, because the more we focus here on the grape fields the less we focus on Kandahar [City]," – which, with its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, is the prize in Nato's population-centric campaign...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (31 May 2010)

*Articles found May 31, 2010*

 Kandahar offensive further delayed
By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target Mon. May 31 - 4:53 AM
Article Link 

The recent news from the Afghanistan theatre has been anything but encouraging. Four Canadian soldiers killed in as many weeks, and all were victims of separate attacks.

While still relying on improvised explosive devices along the roads in Kandahar province, the Taliban are also launching bolder conventional attacks and suicide bombings against NATO targets across the country.

Although these were relatively pinprick attacks that were easily defeated, the Taliban attempts to penetrate the U.S. base in Bagram and the Kandahar airfield mark a significant shift in the insurgent tactics. At the very least, it is clear that the unexpected resilience of the Taliban has thrown the U.S. timetable well behind schedule. Last February, NATO mounted a much publicized offensive against a tiny insurgent stronghold in the town of Marjah, Helmand province. The concentration of overwhelming force and superior technology meant that the outcome of the Marjah battle was never in doubt.

However, as the last of the Taliban fighters slipped away and hid their weapons, NATO unveiled their new counterinsurgency tactic. Described by senior officials as "government-in-a-box," the defeat of the Taliban military force was to be immediately cemented with the provision of civil services.

The plan was to rush in police forces, medical personnel, teachers and civil administrators who would soon demonstrate to local Afghans that the government of President Hamid Karzai was able to make significant improvements to their day-to-day lives.

The belief was that when the Taliban instigators slunk back into Marjah, the now happy and prosperous residents would run them out of town on a rail, while proudly displaying presidential portraits of Hamid Karzai on their mud brick living room walls.
More on link

Afghanistan: David Cameron calls Chequers summit as strains grow
Article Link
Military, Tory MPs and National Security Council members summoned to country house amid signs of split
Toby Helm and Peter Beaumont     * The Observer, Sunday 30 May 2010 

David Cameron has convened a secret meeting of military experts, ministers and Tory MPs at Chequers this week to review strategy on Afghanistan amid growing signs of division over the mission's objectives.

The meeting on Tuesday at the prime minister's country residence will also be attended by members of the new National Security Council, who include Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, Liam Fox, the defence secretary, William Hague, the foreign secretary, and George Osborne, the chancellor.

Government officials stressed last night that they were not anticipating any dramatic change of policy. The meeting would be an opportunity to "brainstorm" and pool ideas so the coalition could speak as one on tactics and the overall purpose of a mission now involving more than 9,000 UK troops.

The US military is expected to begin next month a much-telegraphed operation in and around the southern city of Kandahar, regarded as the Taliban's birthplace and one of its key centres.
More on link

 NATO general in Afghanistan: Taliban train in Iran
Article Link
(AP) – 20 hours ago

KABUL, Afghanistan — The commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan said Sunday there is "clear evidence" that some Taliban fighters have trained in Iran.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters in the Afghan capital that Iran - Afghanistan's western neighbor - has generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group.

"There is, however, clear evidence of Iranian activity - in some cases providing weaponry and training to the Taliban - that is inappropriate," he said. McChrystal said NATO forces are working to stop both the training and the weapons trafficking.

Last month, McChrystal said there were indications that Taliban were training in Iran, but not very many and not in a way that it appeared it was part of an Iranian government policy. He did not give details on how many people have trained in Iran at Sunday's news conference.

The U.S. command confirmed that an American service member was killed Sunday in a small arms attack in southern Afghanistan. May is already the deadliest month this year for U.S. troops with 33 deaths - two more than in February when American, NATO and Afghan forces seized the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province.

The month also brought the 1,000th U.S. military death in the Afghan war since it began in 2001 when Marine Cpl. Jacob Leicht was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb in Helmand.

The AP's figures are based on Defense Department reports of deaths as a direct result of the Afghan conflict, including personnel assigned to units in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan. Non-U.S. deaths are based on statements by governments that have contributed forces to the coalition.

The Taliban have spread out beyond their heartland in the south in recent years to increasingly launch attacks countrywide.
More on link

 Battalion among hardest hit in Afghan war
Article Link
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA (AP) – 21 hours ago

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan — It was Aug. 10, 2009 in the Arghandab River Valley, a hot and dusty day full of unknowns.

An American battalion was swapping in with a Canadian garrison. As the Stryker troop carrier rumbled toward the riverside orchards, a Canadian soldier warned 1st Lt. Vic Cortese, 24, of East Quogue, New York: "We don't go in there."

The American troops clambered out of the Stryker's cramped confines into the raw sunlight. The soldiers spread out, started walking.

Less than 20 minutes later, snap, snap, snap in the air. A Taliban ambush. Cortese's first firefight, and he went numb. "For a split second, I was like: 'Oh man!'" he recalled. Then training took command. He pushed against the earth, lifted his M-4 rifle and pulled the trigger.

Twenty-two men in the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of 800 died in a yearlong Afghan tour ending this summer. Most were killed last year in the Arghandab, a gateway to the southern city of Kandahar. About 70 were injured, all but two in bomb blasts.

The death toll was one of the highest in the Afghan war, and the tough fight in the Arghandab drew the attention of America's leaders. President Obama was photographed saluting the coffin of one of the soldiers on arrival in the United States. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told soldiers at their base in March that their efforts had helped push back the Taliban.

However, the battalion failed to dislodge insurgent cells entirely. A similar outcome is emerging in the southern town of Marjah after a bigger operation led by U.S. Marines in February. An even larger campaign is unfolding in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (31 May 2010)

Controversy Over Afghanistan Remarks
German President Horst Köhler Resigns
_Spiegel Online_, May 31
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,697785,00.html



> German President Horst Köhler, under fire for controversial comments he made about Germany's mission in Afghanistan, resigned with immediate effect on Monday in a shock announcement that comes as the latest in a series of blows to Chancellor Angela Merkel.
> 
> German President Horst Köhler announced his resignation on Monday in response to fierce criticism of comments he made about Germany's military mission in Afghanistan...
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,697302,00.html
> ...


  

Friendly Fire Casualties in Afghanistan
German Military Criticized for Deadly Mistakes
_Spiegel Online_, May 31
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,697803,00.html



> In April German troops killed six Afghan soldiers in a friendly fire incident. The ISAF investigation has found that there were significant failures on the part of the Bundeswehr on that fateful night.
> 
> When the commander of the German camp in Kunduz drove to the Afghan soldiers' mud huts at the other end of the airport in mid-May, he took along six dead sheep and about $12,000 (€9,680) -- blood money to make amends for an irreparable offence. On Good Friday, his soldiers had accidentally killed six soldiers in the Afghan National Army (ANA) in a friendly fire incident.
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,687267,00.html
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## armyvern (6 Jun 2010)

Four ISAF soldiers killed today; my condolances to their family, friends & fellow soldiers.



> ISAF Joint Command - Afghanistan
> 
> 2010-06-CA-020
> For Immediate Release
> ...


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