# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread May 2013



## GAP (14 May 2013)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread May 2013  *               

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


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## GAP (14 May 2013)

*Articles found May 14, 2013*

 Four U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan's Kandahar
Tue May 14, 2013 By Sarwar Amini
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's Kandahar province on Tuesday, the coalition and officials said, a day after three Georgian soldiers were killed in nearby Helmand.

The soldiers were in a vehicle on patrol in Kandahar's Zhari district when they were killed, provincial spokesman Jawid Ahmad Faisal said.

May has proved particularly bloody for members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is preparing to withdraw most combat troops by the end of next year.
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 Afghan Border Police celebrates International Women’s Day
Article Link
May 6, 2013

By Captain Ingrid Walker

In the Canadian Armed Forces, it’s common to see women working in areas formerly thought to be the domain of men, whether in the field as a combat arms soldier, on the bridge of a warship or in the cockpit of an aircraft.

While International Women’s Day often comes and goes with little notice in Canada, members of the Afghan Border Police (ABP) Advisor Team, serving in Afghanistan, marked the day with a group of women who are building the future of their country.

The team is part of Operation Attention, Canada’s contribution to the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan and all are members of the Royal Canadian Air Force. They observed International Women’s Day with their female Afghan counterparts, a significant portion of the male executive leadership of the ABP and coalition partners. The event took place on March 10 at ABP headquarters in Kabul.

While the history of International Women’s Day goes back almost a century, many of the issues that led to the day’s establishment are a living reality in the Afghanistan of today. Afghan women are still working hard to participate in the security processes of a country where they are only now regaining their voices in government as well as the right to participate on an equal footing with men in all aspects of life in this still-fragile nation.

This group of RCAF officers offers a concrete model to the ABP; 50 per cent of the team is female. The “ops normal”, egalitarian attitude of all members of the team serves as a plain message –that women can and will do the same job and face the same dangers as men.
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 Breaking Bread dinner fights for literacy in Afghanistan
  Article Link
 By Bill Brooks, Calgary Herald May 9, 2013

Col. Jamie Cade with the Canadian Armed Forces put it best when he stated, “The real enemy in Afghanistan is illiteracy.” This astute observation was made after 10 months in Kandahar. Illiteracy is at epidemic proportions for women and girls in this war-torn country. Yet, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, more than $4.8 million has been raised since its inception in 1997 to train more than 4,000 teachers, who have in turn have brought literacy to roughly 400,000 men, women and children.

A large part of these funds have been raised through Breaking Bread dinners held across the country.
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  Car Bomb In Afghanistan Kills 3 Coalition Troops
Article Link
By KATHY GANNON 05/13/13 

KABUL, Afghanistan — A truck bombing Monday killed three coalition service members in southern Afghanistan, NATO said in a statement. A local official said the attack targeted a base operated by troops from Georgia.

Omer Zawak, spokesman for the governor of the southern Helmand province, said the truck bomb exploded at the entrance to the Georgian outpost in the Musa Qala district of the province, one of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan.

The deaths brought the number of soldiers from the former Soviet republic of Georgia killed in Afghanistan to 22. Georgia has about 1,600 troops in Afghanistan, the largest non-NATO contingent there. Georgian soldiers are under NATO's command.

Also in southern Afghanistan Monday, a roadside bomb ripped through a bus, killing 10 civilians, most of them women and children, officials said.
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  Afghan Finance Minister accuses MPs of corruption
Article Link
KABUL — Agence France-Presse Monday, May. 13 2013

Afghanistan’s Finance Minister, speaking in parliament on Monday, named several lawmakers he said were guilty of corruption, triggering wild cheering and applause during a televised session of the lower house.

Corruption is one of the key challenges facing Afghanistan as it tries to establish a functioning state system before U.S.-led combat troops depart next year. The government of President Hamid Karzai is often accused of failing to tackle the issue.
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## GAP (15 May 2013)

*Articles found May 15, 2013*

Afghan soldiers take fight to Taliban 'brothers'
By David Loyn BBC News, Paktika 
Article Link

In the near future, probably June, Afghan security forces will take responsibility for the whole country for the first time since the collapse of the Russian-backed army in 1992.

In the last areas still to be handed over by international forces to Afghan control, security advisers are taking a back seat as the Afghan army leads its own operations against insurgents.

The BBC was given unique access to the dawn battle update briefing at Camp Thunder in Paktika, the HQ of 203 Thunder Corps, responsible for much of the east of the country, including a long stretch of the border with Pakistan.

Banks of computers, maps and competent briefings were the new face of an army that can now mount complex operations on its own.

The Afghans are also bearing more of the casualties as Nato deaths fall.

During 2012 at least 1,170 Afghan troops were killed - nearly three times more than Nato, which has seen combat losses steadily decline since 2010. Afghan police casualties were even higher last year, with 1,800 dead.

The commander at Camp Thunder, General Mohammad Sharif Yaftali, was trained as an officer by the Russians a generation ago, and is proud of the new army that is emerging.

"The Taliban do not have the ability to retake Afghanistan. They cannot fight face to face. If they are so strong then why do they need to poison girls' schools?" he asked.
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## GAP (17 May 2013)

*Articles found May 17, 2013*

 Afghan suicide bombing kills 15 people, including two American soldiers and four civilian contractors
Article Link
Associated Press | 13/05/16 

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber rammed his car into a U.S. convoy in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people including two American soldiers and four civilian contractors, officials said. The brazen attack made May the deadliest month this year for coalition forces.

Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Secretary, confirmed that the two soldiers from the NATO military coalition who were killed in the bombing were Americans. He would not comment on the nationalities of the civilian contractors.

It was the bloodiest attack in the Afghan capital since March 9, when suicide bombers struck near the Afghan Defense Ministry while U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was visiting.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, saying it was the work of “terrorists and enemies of Afghanistan’s peace.”

An Islamic militant group, Hizb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for the early morning bombing, saying its new “martyrdom” unit stalked the convoy for weeks. The announcement could signal escalation by the movement, based in northeastern Afghanistan, which has fought against the American-led coalition but is also a fierce rival of the Taliban.

Body parts littered the scene of the blast, and one U.S. vehicle was reduced to a mangled pile of metal. The explosion was powerful enough to rattle buildings on the other side of the city.

Nine Afghan civilians died in the blast, including two children, said Health Ministry spokesman Kanishka Beektash Torkystani, and 35 people were wounded.
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 Edmonton troops ready themselves for last deployment to Afghanistan (video)
  Article Link 
By Jodie Sinnema, Edmonton Journal May 16, 2013

EDMONTON - Sharp, clear shots echoed across a field at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton as a group of soldiers practised close-range pistol shooting in preparation of the last Canadian deployment to Afghanistan.

“Threat ready!” shouted Sgt. Ian Adams to the soldiers, lying or kneeling in various positions with their arms in full extension, pointing their pistols toward the grey human targets a short distance away.

“You’re getting ready for the guy around the corner,” said Adams, with the 3rd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. “You gotta have that gun up. … Five rounds to the body!”

As the shots pierced the paper targets and sprayed up sand from the hill behind, Col. Lee Hammond spoke about the last 700 troops to be deployed to Afghanistan over the next six weeks, replacing the contingent largely from Quebec. Of those leaving, 300 or so will be from Edmonton, the others from Shiloh, Man., all of whose jobs will be to advise, mentor and train the Afghan police and army with skills they will need once the world retreats.

“Afghanistan has come a long way, but there are still elements out there that would do us harm if they had the chance so our soldiers have to be ready for any circumstance that may arise,” said Hammond, deputy commander for the Canadian Contribution Training Mission Afghanistan, or Task force 213 in Kabul.

The danger wasn’t far from mind on Thursday, after a suicide bomber rammed his car into a NATO-led convoy in Kabul, killing at least 15 people including two American soldiers and four civilian contractors. Nine civilians were killed and another 35 injured, said news reports.
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 Soldier pretends to be Rays catcher, surprises daughter throwing first pitch
Article Link
National Post Staff | 13/05/17 

It was an emotional night at the Rays game on Thursday night, and not because Tampa Bay lost to the Red Sox.

Lt. Col. Will Adams, who was returning home from Afghanistan, decided to surprise his family at the game by disguising himself as the Rays catcher. His 11-year-old daughter Alayna only found out at school earlier that day she would be throwing the ceremonial first pitch at Tropicana Field, when she was called into the principal’s office with her mother.

“Stay focused, throw the ball and I love you,” he said, dressed in his army gear. The family expected him back on Monday after spending the past two years abroad, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

After the pitch, Alayna started walking to home plate to greet the catcher, when he suddenly took off his mask. It was her father. She jumped into his arms while his wife Dana sobbed during an emotional reunion. The elaborate scheme was planned by the United Service Organizations and the Rays — and Adams arrived back in town on Wednesday, but had to spend the night in secret at a local hotel.

“That was the hardest part,” he said to the Times. “Being back home and not being able to see them.”
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## GAP (22 May 2013)

*Articles found May 22, 2013*

Hundreds of Canadian military supplies stuck in Afghanistan
Article Link
Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press Sunday, May 19, 2013

 OTTAWA - A team of 15 Canadian soldiers has been dispatched to Kandahar on a month-long assignment to assess whether dozens of military containers are still seaworthy enough to be brought home.

Over 375 shipping containers full of military supplies remain stranded at Kandahar Airfield nearly 18 months after Canada's withdrawal from the war-torn province, and almost two years since combat operations ceased.

National Defence says the material is considered low priority and that all high-value and sensitive equipment has been returned to Canada.

 A spokeswoman for the country's operational command, Capt. Jennifer Stadnyk, said certification of as many as 150 of the containers has expired and the technical assistance team will have to access whether they can still meet the standards set out by international shipping companies.

Defence sources said if the containers don't pass, the military will have to find a way to dispose of the material.

The seemingly endless delay in repatriation of the containers, which were supposed to travel overland, was brought on by the extended closure of the Afghan border with Pakistan.

It has turned into a long, costly logistics nightmare for the military, which had intended to have everything home to fully re-equip and refurbish the army.

The equipment includes tires, spare parts, tents and other gear, and officials say their absence does not directly impede the army's regeneration.

Last fall documents obtained by The Canadian Press under access-to-information legislation showed the Canadian government has faced increased withdrawal costs because the containers still have to be stored and guarded.
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Afghan interpreter’s family killed by Taliban near Kandahar
Article Link
 By: Hamida Ghafour Foreign Affairs reporter, Bismillah Khushal in Kandahar, Published on Tue May 21 2013 

Sayed Shah Sharifi fought to come to Canada, saying the Taliban threatened to kill him and his family because he was an interpreter for Canadian forces. This month, five of his relatives were killed by a roadside bomb. Three were children.

When Sayed Shah Sharifi’s family heard that distant relatives had been killed in a roadside bomb attack, they decided to pay their condolences to the survivors. On the morning of May 13, seven of them set off from Kandahar for their ancestral village of Maruf, a remote and violent district about 100 kilometres away.

But sometimes in Afghanistan, tragedy begets tragedy. As they reached an area local residents call “horror valley,” their 4x4 vehicle hit a roadside bomb. Five were killed. Two were injured.

The improvised bomb was set up by the Taliban to punish Sharifi for once working as a combat interpreter for the Canadian military in Kandahar.

Sharifi is safe in Canada. Instead the militants took their revenge on his beloved sister, on his brother’s wife, and on his niece and two nephews, aged between 8 months and 4 years. His nephew Sharif Khan, 5, was badly hurt. 
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Afghan Army engineers quickly learn construction skills, finish tactical operations center unassisted
Article Link

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — In early April, the 859th Vertical Construction Company sent a mobile training team to Finley Shields, near Jalalabad, to assist Afghan National Army (ANA) engineers from 4th Brigade, 201st Corps in expanding their tactical operations center (TOC).

When the team from the 859th met their Afghan partners, they knew they were in for a challenge.

The Afghan soldiers who joined them on the job site were all horizontal engineers, trained in building roads and earthmoving operations, and were unfamiliar with constructing buildings. The 859th team set out first to teach vertical construction techniques to the Afghans, who quickly learned the new skill set.

“It was a cakewalk really,” said Sergeant Keiane Magee, a native of Hattiesburg Miss., commenting on how fast the Afghan engineers learned the trade. “They would direct me to where the right cuts were.”

As the non-commissioned officer in charge at the job site, Magee frequently met with the 4th Brigade leadership to ensure the construction was being built to their specifications.
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 Afghan soldiers train on demolition, continue clearing roadside bombs
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LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – “Infaja! Infaja! [Blast! Blast!]” Afghan Nation Army soldiers called out as they hurried quickly towards the concrete bunkers to seek cover. A demolition charge of several blocks of C-4 plastic explosive was about to detonate. The soldiers crowded into the bunkers in anticipation, with huge grins on their faces. They had placed it themselves.

The Afghan soldiers of the 4th Brigade, 203rd Corps, were completing a week of training at their base here in late April, learning sapper tasks, combat engineering, and basic demolition taught by the 57th Sapper Company, out of Fort Bragg, N.C.

The 57th soldiers instructed the Afghan students on constructing obstacles using concertina and barbed wire, as well as basic demolitions – which they had all been eagerly awaiting.

Originally, the plan for the demolition training was for a small group of soldiers from the Engineer Coy of the brigade’s 4th Kandak, as the culmination of their engineer training validation, a certification process planned out by the Afghan brigade engineer, with help from U.S. advisers. The brigade engineer, however, did not want the skills confined to just the engineer coy.

“I always enjoy training the Afghan National Army. They are very attentive and quick to learn,” said U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Eric Prescott, a native of Addison, N.Y. “This class now has soldiers from all of 4th Brigade and grew from 15 soldiers at first, to 33 soldiers. We normally work with the RCC [route clearance company]. However, this was a good opportunity to train ANA infantry as well as engineer soldiers.”
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 Afghan 203rd Corps Engineer Kandak completes final test, ready for operations
Article Link

KABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan – At Camp Blackhorse, a Canadian training team busily worked with over three hundred Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers. Carrying hammers, saws, and driving bulldozers, these soldiers were working to pass their final test at the Consolidated Fielding Center (CFC), training to become the new Corps Engineer Kandak that would provide construction support for the entire ANA 203rd Corps.

The 203rd Corps Engineer Kandak (CEK) is primarily a construction unit, to support the 203rd Corps in all manner of horizontal and vertical projects. As military engineers however, they still know how to fight. With their rifles loaded with blank rounds, their validation exercise at the CFC was two days of construction projects, all performed under war-time conditions. A group of Canadian trainers made up the opposition force, trying to stop the CEK soldiers.
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## GAP (23 May 2013)

*Articles found May 23, 2013*

  In Pakistan, the Afghan war brings jobs - and criminality on an epic scale
Article Link
MATTHIEU AIKINS The Globe and Mail Thursday, May. 23 2013

My journey of a thousand miles began with a single bribe. I was riding in a Pakistani truck hauling a shipping container from the port city of Karachi to the Afghan capital of Kabul, along one of the two main routes used to supply U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. I was accompanied by the truck driver and his brother, and a friend who served as a translator. We were still on the outskirts of Karachi when we were first stopped by the police, two tubby traffic cops on white Suzuki motorcycles. After paying the equivalent of $4 to the cops, we set out again, but for the next six days, bribery, along with breakdown and the threat of militant attacks, would be a constant impediment to our journey, culminating in a barrage of police “tolls” on the final stretch through the Khyber Pass on our way into Afghanistan.

But I couldn’t blame the Pakistani cops for wanting to get into the vast feeding frenzy that has accompanied the tens of billions of supplies that have surged through the country since 2001. Pakistan is one of two ground routes used to supply landlocked Afghanistan, with the other, much longer and more expensive, winding its way through Central Asia. This route is so vital that when it was shut down for a seven-month period in 2011 and 2012 following a dispute between the United States and Pakistan, the U.S. military estimated that the closure cost $100-million a month.

After more than a decade, this improvised system has become not only the lifeblood of the Afghan war but a major force in its own right inside Pakistan – a vast industry that has grown to encompass everyone from the rural Pashtun families who send their sons to drive the trucks to the millionaire Punjabi businessmen who hire them, from crane operators and gangsters in Karachi to international contractors and Western lobbyists. It has linked the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands to the heart of the global economy, and its complex and volatile development offers a dramatic example of how a foreign military intervention alters the economic and social fabric in the region around it.
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Afghan interpreters offered refuge in Britain, Denmark
Move come after interpreter who came to Canada, Sayed Shah Sharifi, loses five relatives in Taliban attack. Immigration minister expresses his condolences.
Article Link
 By: Hamida Ghafour Foreign Affairs reporter,  Wed May 22 2013 

Britain and Denmark announced plans to give refuge to hundreds of Afghan interpreters, as the fate of Afghans who worked for NATO becomes a pressing political issue for the alliance as it withdraws its combat troops from the war-torn country.

The offer of asylum to protect translators from Taliban reprisal attacks comes after five members of former interpreter Sayed Shah Sharifi’s family were murdered by the militants in Kandahar on May 13. Among the victims were three small children.

Britain, which has 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, plans to give 600 Afghan interpreters who worked on the front line with its soldiers for more than a year the chance to settle in the U.K. with a five-year visa, Prime Minister David Cameron said.

Denmark, which will pull out its combat troops in August, said Afghans who have worked with Danish soldiers would be given visas and allowed to apply for refugee status, although Defence Minister Nick Haekkerup did not specify how many.

“We do not have a judicial responsibility but a moral obligation to help,” he said, according to Reuters. 
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## GAP (30 May 2013)

*Articles found May 30, 2013*


 Taliban attack int'l compound in Afghan capital, killing 2 guards and wounding 4 aid workers
Article Link

KABUL - In the latest militant strike on the Afghan capital, Taliban gunmen backed by a suicide car bomber attacked an international aid group's compound on Friday, killing two guards and setting off an hours-long street battle with police in the heart of Kabul .

The attack, the second in the city in just over a week, also left four International Organization for Migration workers wounded including an Italian woman badly burned by a grenade. Thirteen police were wounded while all six attackers died in the assault, authorities said.

The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack on a guest house used by the IOM in an upscale neighbourhood of Kabul, a relatively uncommon operation by the group targeting an international aid group.

At the chaotic scene of the siege, dozens of Afghan police took cover behind blast walls and rushed around through a thick cloud of smoke made by the bomb. At least one wounded officer was seen being helped away by his comrades.
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 New Canadian online marketplace seeks to aid artisans from developing nations
  Article Link 
By Lauren La Rose, The Canadian Press May 24, 2013

TORONTO - Hedvig Alexander sits in a quiet coffee shop steps from Toronto's bustling financial hub, a markedly different landscape from the war-ravaged nation where she spent seven years.

But despite the vast physical distance currently separating the Ontario resident from Afghanistan, her connection to the country has perhaps never been stronger — and her clothing of choice offers a tangible reminder why.

Alexander delicately smoothes her Afghan-made azure blue blazer, with old coins fastened in place of buttons and a colourful cotton print adorning the inner lining. Through her newly launched site, she is looking to bring similar goods created by artisans in Afghanistan and other developing nations to North American consumers.

Alexander is founder of the Far and Wide Collective, an online marketplace for items including clothing, jewelry and home decor made by craftspeople in post-conflict and emerging economies.
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  Balloons bring smiles in Afghan capital
by The Canadian Press May 25, 2013 
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Artists and activists handed out 10,000 bright pink balloons to residents in Afghanistan's war-weary capital on Saturday, bringing smiles to surprised Kabul residents a day after a major Taliban siege on an international compound in the city.

Each balloon contains a written message of peace from volunteers around the world, said Colombian-American artist Yazmany Arboleda, who organized the "We Believe in Balloons" day.

More than 100 Afghan artists and other volunteers were up before dawn Saturday to put the messages inside and fill the balloons with helium. Then they took to the streets of downtown Kabul's riverfront to distribute them to passers-by.

The colorful spectacle clearly delighted many Afghans, even as the war with Taliban insurgents grinds into its 12th year since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban's hard-line regime.
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Major-General Milner Takes Command of Canada's Training Mission in Afghanistan
Article Link

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--(Marketwired - May 24, 2013) - Major-General Dean J. Milner took command of the Canadian Contribution to the Training Mission - Afghanistan during a change of command ceremony here today at Camp Phoenix.

Major-General Milner assumed command from Major-General Jim Ferron, who completed a year-long tour commanding the Canadian Armed Forces mission in Afghanistan. Like his predecessor, Major-General Milner will also hold the position of Deputy Commander for Operations of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan.

"Through our training mission, Canada is committed to helping Afghans rebuild Afghanistan into a stable, secure, and democratic country," said the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence.
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Matthew Fisher: In Afghanistan, drones proved to be a useful and life-saving tool for Canada
  Article Link 
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News May 27, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama responded last week to criticism of his government’s heavy reliance on drones to carry out targeted killings — and the legal and ethical justifications for such attacks — by taking away the CIA’s right to use such weapons and promising that such lethal assaults would henceforth be carried out solely by the U.S. air force under more stringent rules.

It is not widely known that Canadian troops in Afghanistan sometimes called in U.S. air force drones when they found themselves under fire or in otherwise dangerous situations. However, I never saw any evidence to suggest that Canadians were involved in targeted assassinations.

A few years back, I watched graphic video taken by a U.S. air force Predator drone as the unmanned aerial vehicle eliminated a group of Taliban fighters frantically burying a large number of weapons in a compound while soldiers from a Canadian patrol spoke with a local on the far side of the compound wall who claimed he had not seen any Taliban in the area for weeks. The Predator attack took place only after discussions among a group of Canadian officers, including a lawyer, about whether such an attack was justified.
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 Ex-Gitmo detainee transferred after threat
By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Article Link

ORONTO (AP) — The lawyer for a Canadian man who spent 10 years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo says his client has been transferred from a prison in Ontario to one in Western Canada after another inmate threatened his life.

Omar Khadr, the last remaining Western detainee at Guantanamo, was repatriated to Canada last September to serve out the remaining six years of his sentence. The Toronto-born son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a U.S. solider in Afghanistan when he was 15.

Attorney Dennis Edney says Khadr was serving meals at Ontario's Millhaven prison when an inmate threatened to stab him after he refused him more butter than he was entitled to.

Alberta-based Edney says Khadr was transferred to an Alberta prison Tuesday.
end

Afghan farmers worry crucial dam project will be left unfinished
Repairs to Dahla Dam were uncompleted when Canada pulled out of Afghanistan; now farmers in Taliban heartland fear U.S. will desert project.
Article Link
 Paul Watson Star Columnist, Bismillah Khushal in Kandahar, Published on Wed May 29 2013

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—Anger is growing among desperate Afghan farmers in the Taliban heartland, as are fears that U.S. forces will leave before making crucial repairs to a dam left unfinished when Canada pulled out.

Tens of thousands of poor desert villagers depend on the Dahla Dam’s heavily silted reservoir for water.

They complain irrigation canals run dry during the hottest summer months and feed resentment toward the Afghan government and its Western backers.

Last summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the Star it planned to award a contract this spring to solve the crisis by raising the dam wall five metres to increase the reservoir’s capacity — if it could find the money.
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## GAP (31 May 2013)

*Articles found May 31, 2013*


 Pakistan army battles militants in NW, killing 19 
Article Link
2 hours ago  •  Associated Press

The Pakistani military killed 19 militants in a late night battle for control of strategic mountain peaks in an area near the Afghan border, the army said Friday.

The fighting also claimed the lives of three soldiers, a military statement said.

The army said its troops captured two important mountain-top positions in an operation against Islamist extremists in the Para Chamkani area of Kurram tribal region and the Maidan area of Khyber tribal region.

The latest fighting, which took place on Thursday night, also wounded 12 militants and three soldiers, the military said. The statement added that local civilians cooperated fully with security forces and that village defense committees have been formed in the cleared area.

The Pakistani army has carried out many operations against militants in the northwest tribal regions, but the insurgents often regroup.
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 Pakistan may be next in line for an IMF bailout 
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With foreign reserves diminishing fast, Pakistan is on the brink of an economic crisis that may force its new government to ask for an unpopular bailout from the International Monetary Fund requiring a sweeping overhaul of the country's economy.

The troubles could inject a new element of instability into the nuclear-armed nation of 180 million people that Washington is relying on to combat Islamic militants at home and to help negotiate an end to the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan's foreign currency reserves stood at just $6.4 billion as of May 17, down from more than $14 billion two years ago. That is only enough to cover about 1.5 months' worth of imports while the IMF considers adequate foreign reserves for any country enough to cover three months of imports.

Bottoming out could bring painful consequences: A run on the banks by panicked citizens anxious to convert savings into dollars amid fears of a devaluation, a withdrawal from the stock market, a collapse of economic activity and higher unemployment.

The presumptive head of the new government, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has made fixing the economy his main priority. But even though a crisis may be only six to nine months away, his incoming government appears hesitant about taking IMF money. They know it will come with conditions attached that would likely stir discontent on the streets, such as raising energy prices and broadening tax collection significantly.

"If we manage for six months, then of course we don't have to go" to the IMF, said Sartaj Aziz, a key economic adviser to the government about to take power. He told The Associated Press that in his view, the country might not need a bailout if it moves quickly enough to boost growth and gets help from key allies such as Saudi Arabia, which would come with fewer strings attached.
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 Kyrgyzstan rocked by protest at Canadian gold mine 
Article Link

Hundreds of stone-throwing protesters besieged a Canadian gold mine in Kyrgyzstan on Friday, clashing violently with riot police and prompting the president to declare a state of emergency.

Over 50 people were wounded and 80 detained in the clashes, authorities said.

The protest also triggered widespread unrest in the southern city of Jalal-Abad, where hundreds stormed the governor's office.

The twin developments threatened further turmoil in this impoverished Central Asian nation of 5 million, which hosts a U.S. base supporting military operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Protesters want the northeastern Kumtor gold mine to be nationalized and the company to provide more benefits.

The mine, operated by Toronto-based Centerra Gold, is the largest foreign-owned gold mine in the former Soviet Union. It accounts for about 12 percent of the nation's economy and has been at the center of heated debate between those favoring nationalization and officials who believe that would deter much-needed foreign investment.
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