# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (July 2007)



## GAP (1 Jul 2007)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (July 2007)* 

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

*Articles found July 1, 2007*

*Soldiers celebrate Canada Day in Kandahar*
Updated Sun. Jul. 1 2007 10:20 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan retired their camouflage fatigues today and sported some red and white in celebration of Canada Day.

Troops gathered around the boardwalk in Kandahar to raise a mug of Tim Horton's coffee and eat a few donuts.

After an afternoon of sports events and contests, soldiers will gather for a barbecue and the coveted prize of the day -- two cold beer.

During a Canada Day address, Governor General Michaelle Jean reminded Canadians of the opportunities and freedoms Canada offers and how important it is to protect them.

"To say what we think without fear or repercussion, to walk down the streets without fear, to give our children every possible means of flourishing. To have dreams as big as Canada is. That is the freedom we have in this country," Jean said during a televised address on Sunday.

"We can not take this freedom for granted and it is our responsibility to spread this freedom around us and around the world. The commitment of our soldiers in Afghanistan is an excellent reminder of this."

Jean stressed that Canada's "very presence in the world represents hope" and Canadians should not take their freedoms and opportunities for granted.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper echoed Jean's sentiments and stressed the importance of Canada's role on the international stage
More on link

Three soldiers buried as family, friends recall their sacrifices
 TheStar.com - July 01, 2007 Melanie Patten Canadian Press
Article Link


While Canadians prepared to celebrate Canada Day with concerts and parties, families and friends said goodbye yesterday to three soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Funeral services for Sgt. Christos Karigiannis, Cpl. Stephen Bouzane and Pte. Joel Wiebe were held in Quebec, Newfoundland and Alberta, respectively.

"(Karigiannis) knew the stakes that (lay) ahead," Sgt. Dwayne MacDougall, who commanded troops alongside Karigiannis, said before the service in Laval, Que., north of Montreal.

"But (he was) more than willing to sacrifice and put his life down for his country and for any member of his section."

Verses of "O Canada" echoed from the open doors of Sainte-Rose-de-Lima Church as more than 500 mourners and military personnel showed up to remember the 30-year-old soldier.

Karigiannis, like Bouzane and Wiebe, was a member of the Edmonton-based 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

The men were killed June 20 when their unarmoured vehicle, known as a Gator, struck a roadside bomb west of Kandahar as they travelled between checkpoints.
More on link

Air strike kills 62 Taliban, 45 Afghan civilians  
Updated Sun. Jul. 1 2007 7:33 AM ET Associated Press
Article Link

AHAR, Afghanistan -- An investigation into airstrikes that slammed into Afghan homes where Taliban fighters sought shelter found that 62 insurgents and 45 civilians were killed, two Afghan officials said Sunday.

An investigating team was sent to Helmand province's Gereshk district, where fighting took place between insurgents and Western forces late Friday, said Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Helmand province's Gereshk district, and Mohammad Hussein Andewal, the provincial police chief.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force has acknowledged some civilians were killed in the southern battle but has said the death toll was nowhere near as high as Afghan officials have claimed.

Because of the battle site's remote location, it was impossible to independently verify the casualty claims. Afghan officials said fighter jets and ground forces were still patrolling the region and that the fighting continued into Saturday.

Meanwhile, a suicide attacker on foot blew himself up near a convoy of British forces in Gereshk district on Sunday, wounding several Afghans, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.

The battle on Friday began when Taliban fighters tried to ambush a joint U.S.-Afghan military convoy, then fled to Hyderabad village for cover, said Helmand provincial Police Chief Mohammad Hussein. Airstrikes then targeted the militants in the village.
More on link

Aid battle for flood-hit Pakistan   
Article Link 

Rescuers in Pakistan are struggling to bring aid to more than a million people hit by storms that have also struck many other areas in south Asia. 
Army helicopters and transport planes are dropping aid to the homeless in Pakistan's Balochistan province. 

Officials say fewer than 20 people died when Cyclone Yemyin struck on Tuesday but poor communications and remoteness mean an accurate figure is unavailable. 

A key Hindu pilgrimage in Kashmir has been suspended due to heavy rain. 

More that 140 people have been killed in storms and floods over the past week in India. 

In flooded parts of Afghanistan, more than 80 people have died in recent days. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (1 Jul 2007)

Britain to throw extra troops into Afghan front line
_Sunday Times_, July 1
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2010088.ece



> Military commanders plan to increase Britain’s frontline fighting units in Afghanistan by at a least a quarter amid signs the war against the Taliban is intensifying.
> 
> General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, has ordered an extra infantry battalion of frontline troops including Gurkhas to take on the Taliban in war-torn Helmand province, according to sources.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (2 Jul 2007)

Another excellent source of news regarding Afghanistan

*CANinKandahar *   
Webpage Link


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## GAP (2 Jul 2007)

Canada’s finest revel in life at the end of the world
Don Martin CanWest News Service Sunday, July 01, 2007
Article Link

PATROL BASE WILSON, Zhari District, Afghanistan - The temperature crested 50 C degrees before noon here on my first day at Afghanistan's most isolated outpost overlooking the birthplace of the Taliban. 

I know it's hot in parts of Canada, but this swelter was so intense the cribbage pegs were melting and a soldier's cigarette lighter blew up in a display of spontaneous combustion. 

As sweat soaked every shred of clothing in an environment without air conditioning or even a fan, the only comforting thought was that it couldn't possibly get any worse. Well, yes it could. 

A wind-howled dust storm whacked the camp in late afternoon. The mess tent started to lift off. Everything and everybody was sand-blasted with a brown film of what my soldier roommates insist is two parts dried fecal matter to one part regular dust. 

Finally, just in time to catch everyone trying to find relief in sleep between mosquito bites, came the first downpour in five months. Thunder. Lightning. Gushing through tent windows, it drenched unsuspecting sleepers in their bags. (This freak monsoon hit on and off for the next four days, flooding trenches around the base, washing away part of the security perimeter and bringing on, perish the thought, intense humidity.) What else could hit? Frogs? Locusts? 

"We've already had the locusts," wryly observed Warrant Officer Jim Hunter. "They hit in the spring." 

That leaves only the camel spiders, poisonous snakes and, yes, the odd frog. Welcome to the end of the world, Afghanistan style. Patrol Base Wilson is the last 'austere forward operation base' in this untamed district - and that's truth in advertising.  That means no fresh food, no air conditioning, no flush toilets. Water, powerful coffee and packaged American military rations, that's it. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (2 Jul 2007)

A major piece summarizing the security situation, too long to excerpt fairly--do read it (good maps and graphs too):

As more blood spills, the military sees progress
Civilian deaths rise and danger zones spread, but officials point to a stronger Afghan army and weakened Taliban  
_Globe and Mail_, July 2, by Graeme Smith
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070702.wafghan02/BNStory/Afghanistan/

How Taliban exploit civilian casualties
Armed militants are quick to offer rudimentary care in hopes of winning support 
_Globe and Mail_, July 2, by Graeme Smith
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070702.wafghanhelman02/BNStory/Afghanistan/



> The scene of Afghanistan's latest civilian bombing was still smoking, the injured still moaning in the dust, when villagers witnessed the Taliban's unnerving ability to exploit the carnage for propaganda.
> 
> Armed insurgents arrived almost immediately at the blasted patch of desert near Hyderabad in Helmand province, villagers say - speaking in grateful tones about the gunmen who helped them recover the bodies and ferry the injured to hospitals.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## The Bread Guy (2 Jul 2007)

These ARE very good pieces - am including permalinks in case they're already off G&M site when you try lreading them



			
				MarkOttawa said:
			
		

> As more blood spills, the military sees progress
> Civilian deaths rise and danger zones spread, but officials point to a stronger Afghan army and weakened Taliban
> _Globe and Mail_, July 2, by Graeme Smith
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070702.wafghan02/BNStory/Afghanistan/


Permalink here



			
				MarkOttawa said:
			
		

> How Taliban exploit civilian casualties
> Armed militants are quick to offer rudimentary care in hopes of winning support
> _Globe and Mail_, July 2, by Graeme Smith
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070702.wafghanhelman02/BNStory/Afghanistan/


Permalink here


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## GAP (2 Jul 2007)

Red and white all over
By STEPHANIE LEVITZ, CP Mon, July 2, 2007
Article Link[/url]
     
Our troops in Afghanistan take a day off from war to fondly remember their country

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A ray of red and white burst through the monochrome of army life at Kandahar Airfield as soldiers swapped their camouflage for Canadian colours to celebrate our national birthday half a world away. 

Gone were the digitized uniforms with their flecks of brown and grey, replaced by a smorgasbord of T-shirts proclaiming pride in everything Canadian. 

Soldiers and support employees alike tossed aside the usual muted patriotism that characterizes the military's work here in favour of some pure Canadian spirit. 

"It's like finally getting a little taste of home, being surrounded by all this," said Cpl. James Nickerson, 34, of Canso, N.S., as he strolled the boardwalk at the airfield decked out with strings of Canadian flags on the banister. Bigger flags hung from the ceiling. "Now if it could only just snow." 

Indeed, one of the only regular things about Canada Day in Kandahar was the scorching sun, beating down on the soldiers and civilians who took part in July 1 activities at the sprawling airfield. 
More on link


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## GAP (2 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 2, 2007*

British soldier killed in Afghanistan
Posted Mon Jul 2, 2007 6:22am AEST 
Article Link

Related Story: Afghanistan strike killed fewer than dozen civilians: NATO A British soldier serving with NATO was killed on Sunday in a Taliban attack in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said.

The soldier, from the 19 Regiment Royal Artillery, died around 9:30am local time after his patrol was engaged by small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades as they left the town of Girishk in Helmand province.

"After the initial engagement a vehicle suffered an explosion and there were five casualties. The injured were flown to an ISAF medical facility in Camp Bastion, and sadly, one soldier was pronounced dead on arrival," the MoD said.

The soldier's next of kin have been informed, the ministry added in a statement.

The death brought to 63 the death toll of British troops killed in Afghanistan since late 2001 when a US-led force ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
More on link

West looks at "law and order" in Afghanistan
Sun Jul 1, 2007 5:47PM BST
Article Link

ROME (Reuters) - The leaders of the United Nations, NATO and Afghanistan gather in Rome this week for a conference aimed at shoring up Kabul's "law and order" agenda, even as the nation slips deeper into conflict.

Widespread corruption and violent crime in Afghanistan are feeding disillusionment with the government of Western-leaning President Hamid Karzai, nearly seven years since U.S.-led forces removed the Taliban from power.

There is also growing outrage over civilian killings -- a theme off the official agenda, but one which is expected to be raised at least privately after as many as 45 civilians died on Saturday in a U.S.-led air strike.

The July 2-3 "Conference on the Rule of Law in Afghanistan" is meant to map out a strategy -- particularly a financing strategy -- to address the perceived failings of Afghan justice.

Beyond Karzai, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the conference will be attended by senior diplomats from more than 20 nations.

"The era of lawlessness and corruption and unprofessional police and an unreliable justice system must end," the U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, said in Kabul last month, looking ahead to the conference
More on link

Canada Day kicks off in Kandahar
STEPHANIE LEVITZ  Canadian Press July 1, 2007 at 10:49 AM EDT
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A ray of red and white burst through the monochrome of army life at Kandahar Airfield on Sunday as hundreds swapped their camouflage for Canadian colours to celebrate Canada Day in Afghanistan.

Gone were the digitized uniforms with their flecks of brown and grey, replaced by a smorgasbord of T-shirts proclaiming pride in everything Canadian. Soldiers and support employees alike tossed aside the usual muted patriotism that characterizes the military's work here in favour of some pure Canadian spirit.

“It's like finally getting a little taste of home, being surrounded by all this,” said Corporal James Nickerson, 34, of Canso, N.S., as he strolled the boardwalk at the airfield decked out with strings of Canadian flags on the banister. Bigger flags hung from the ceiling.

“Now if it could only just snow.”
More on link

New Zealand soldier wins top bravery award for actions in Afghanistan  
The Associated Press Sunday, July 1, 2007 
Article Link

WELLINGTON, New Zealand: A 35-year-old corporal who carried a badly wounded colleague to safety across a battlefield in Afghanistan has been awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military honor among British Commonwealth countries.

Cpl. Bill Apiata became the first New Zealander to win the medal since World War II, Prime Minister Helen Clark said Monday, announcing the award and heralding Apiata's actions.

"Cpl. Apiata carried a severely wounded comrade over 70 meters (yards) across broken, rocky and fire-swept ground, fully exposed to the glare of battle, heavy opposing fire and into the face of return fire from the main New Zealand troops' position," Clark told reporters.

"This brave action saved his comrade's life," she said.

Three other members of Apiata's squad, from the Special Air Services commando unit, were awarded lesser gallantry medals for actions in the battle, in Afghanistan in 2004. They were not named for security reasons, Clark said.

Apiata was a member of the SAS squad that won a Presidential Citation from U.S. President George W. Bush in 2004 for their actions in Afghanistan
More on link

The Taliban’s Opium War
The difficulties and dangers of the eradication program.
by Jon Lee Anderson July 9, 200
Article Link

In the main square in Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan, a large billboard shows a human skeleton being hanged. The rope is not a normal gallows rope but the stem of an opium poppy. Aside from this jarring image, Tirin Kot is a bucolic-seeming place, a market town of flat-topped adobe houses and little shops on a low bluff on the eastern shore of the Tirinrud River, in a long valley bounded by open desert and jagged, treeless mountains. About ten thousand people live in the town. The men are bearded and wear traditional robes and tunics and cover their heads with turbans or sequinned skullcaps. There are virtually no women in sight, and when they do appear they wear all-concealing burkas. A few paved streets join at a traffic circle in the center of town, but within a few blocks they peter out to dirt tracks. 

Almost everything around Tirin Kot is some shade of brown. The river is a khaki-colored wash of silt and snowmelt that flows out of the mountain range to the north, past mud-walled family compounds. On either side of the river, however, running down the valley, there is a narrow strip of wheat fields and poppy fields, and for several weeks in the spring the poppies bloom: lovely, open-petalled white, pink, red, and magenta blossoms, the darker colors indicating the ones with the most opium.

One afternoon this spring, at the height of the harvest, I drove through the area with Douglas Wankel, a former Drug Enforcement Administration official who was hired by the United States government in 2003 to organize its counter-narcotics effort here. Wankel, who is sixty-one and has piercing blue eyes, was stationed in Kabul as a young D.E.A. official in 1978 and 1979, during the bloody unrest that led up to the Soviet invasion. “I left on a flight to New Delhi a couple of hours before the Soviets rolled in,” he said. “People thought it was because I knew it was coming. I didn’t; I just happened to be leaving on a trip. But the Soviets branded me a C.I.A. agent, and so I couldn’t come back—until now, that is.”

Working first with the D.E.A. and then with the State Department, Wankel helped create the Afghan Eradication Force, with troops of the Afghan National Police drawn from the Ministry of the Interior. Last year, an estimated four hundred thousand acres of opium poppies were planted in Afghanistan, a fifty-nine-per-cent increase over the previous year. Afghanistan now supplies more than ninety-two per cent of the world’s opium, the raw ingredient of heroin. More than half the country’s annual G.D.P., some $3.1 billion, is believed to come from the drug trade, and narcotics officials believe that part of the money is funding the Taliban insurgency.

Wankel was in Uruzgan to oversee a poppy-eradication campaign—the first major effort to disrupt the harvest in the province. He had brought with him a two-hundred-and-fifty-man A.E.F. contingent, including forty-odd contractors supplied by DynCorp, a Virginia-based private military company, which has a number of large U.S. government contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world. In Colombia, DynCorp helps implement the multibillion-dollar Plan Colombia, to eradicate coca. The A.E.F.’s armed convoy had taken three days to drive from Kabul, and had set up a base on a plateau above a deep wadi. With open land all around, it was a good spot to ward off attacks. 
More on link

7 killed as bomb destroys a police vehicle in southern Afghanistan
Mon Jul 2 08:16:00 CDT 2007
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — A roadside bomb has destroyed a police vehicle patrolling in southern Afghanistan, killing all seven policemen in it. 
Officials say the police truck, a Ford Ranger, was travelling through the Zhari district of Kandahar province when the bomb exploded. 

Provincial Police Chief Fayed Agha Faqid says Zhari, the scene of one of NATO’s largest-ever battles with Taliban rebels, remains a dangerous region. 

NATO says it killed between 500 and 1,000 Taliban insurgents in Zhari last fall
More on link

Bomber’s End: Flash of Terror, Humble Grave  
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 30 
Article Link

 The two men had come to the common end of all human journeys. Their bodies, swathed in bloody white sheets, lay on a rocky hillside. Awaiting them were two thin rectangles of shallow graves. The city of Kabul was responsible for the burial. No mullah had been asked to preside over this earthly farewell

“One of these guys needs a smaller hole,” one gravedigger said, laughing.

The bigger of the bodies belonged to an old man, Khan Mir. His body had gone unclaimed, and the obligations of an Islamic funeral were forgone because he was a pauper. The identity of the other man was unknown. He was only half a body really, a headless torso with but a right arm and a right leg. His interment was meant to be ignominious because he was a suicide bomber, or yak enteher kunenda. 

“Cover them with rocks and throw on the dirt,” the chief gravedigger called out.

In Kabul, the burial of a suicide bomber occurs at a secret time in a secret place, the forgettable end to what most here consider an unforgivable act. Of course, it is easier to bury the remains of a bomber than the fearsome consequences of the bombing. At least 193 suicide attacks have been reported in Afghanistan during the past 18 months, enough to contaminate much of the nation with the persisting malady of terror. 
More on link


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## The Bread Guy (2 Jul 2007)

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

*Friendly fire killed Canadian soldier: U.S. report*
Associated Press, via Toronto Star, 2 Jul 07
Article link - MILNEWS.ca Media Summary, to 2 Jul 07

 MONTPELIER, Vt. – A U.S. army report says friendly fire was responsible for the death of a Canadian soldier and an American soldier in Afghanistan last year.  The report says friendly fire from behind killed Canadian Forces Private Robert Costall and Sgt. John Thomas Stone of the Vermont National Guard.  The report, released to The Associated Press today, says a number of U.S. and allied soldiers were wounded.  The report is collection of witness statements assembled by U.S. investigators. One statement says a gunner opened fire at two allied positions in quick succession on March 29, 2006.  Costall, a 22-year-old machine-gunner, was born in Thunder Bay, Ont., and grew up in Gibson, B.C.  The possibility of him being killed by friendly fire was raised earlier by his wounded comrades.  Stone, the American killed, was shot once in the back and once in the head while he and allied soldiers were repelling a major, night-time attack.



_- edited to add latest Media Summary .pdf -_


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## The Bread Guy (3 Jul 2007)

*Friendly fire killed Canadian*
Investigators find U.S. Special Forces machine-gunned local soldier
CanWest News Service, 3 Jul 07
Article link

An Edmonton-based army private who became the first Canadian soldier to lose his life in combat since the Korean War was killed by friendly fire, U.S. investigators have concluded.  Machine-gun fire from U.S. Special Forces was responsible for the March 2006 death of Canadian Forces Pte. Robert Costall in an Afghanistan firefight with insurgents, The Associated Press reported Monday.  Costall, 22, was a gunner with the First Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. He was born in Thunder Bay, Ont., and raised in Gibsons, B.C.  Also killed in the nighttime battle was Sgt. John Thomas Stone of the Vermont National Guard. Both were shot from behind.  One witness, a sergeant referred to as Witness 1, reported that a gunner quickly opened fire on the fateful night.  "When the majority of the firefight took place (at) approximately 02:15, the (Special Forces) security element in the northeast corner began shooting out toward the perimeter, I immediately realized the S.F. was shooting at the Canadian position," Witness 1 said.  He immediately signalled the Special Forces position to cease fire. "The S.F. Security then turned his weapon 100 to 140 degrees from its original position and began firing in the direction of the American ETT compound," the witness said, referring to the location where Sgt. Stone, an embedded tactical trainer, was hit ....



*Canadian was shot in back, U.S. army confirms*
Long-awaited report points to friendly fire in Pte. Costall's death
OMAR EL AKKAD AND UNNATI GANDHI, Globe & Mail, 3 Jul 07
Article link

Canadian soldier Robert Costall was shot to death from behind in Afghanistan last year by American troops, who opened machine-gun fire on him and then another friendly position during an insurgent attack, a newly released U.S. army report says.  Private Costall, 22, and Vermont National Guard Sergeant Tom Stone were killed during a prolonged and fierce gun battle in southern Afghanistan on March 29, 2006.  Pte. Costall was part of a 38-member Canadian quick-reaction force dispatched to assist a convoy under Taliban attack. During a larger battle that ensued, as Taliban forces attacked a forward operating base, two soldiers lost their lives.  In the weeks following Pte. Costall's death, Canadian and U.S. forces would not rule out friendly fire as a possible cause. A month after the Afghanistan battle, both forces launched an inquiry into the incident. The newly released U.S. army report, given to the Associated Press yesterday, all but confirms that Pte. Costall was shot and killed from behind by his allies.  However, the report does not include any statements from the Canadian soldiers present at the fight, nor does it say whether anyone has been disciplined as a result of the deaths.  In the version of the report made public, all names other than those of the two dead soldiers are blacked out.  Also apparently missing from the report is a statement from the soldier believed to have fired the M240 machine-gun that killed Pte. Costall and Sgt. Stone ....



*Friendly fire killed Canadian: U.S. Army*
Soldiers hit from behind by machine-gun bursts in 2006, report finds
Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, 3 Jul 07
Article link

While Canadian military authorities continue to drag their heels, the U.S. Army says Pte. Robert Costall was killed by friendly fire – apparently American special forces.  The 22-year-old machine-gunner, born in Thunder Bay and deployed to Afghanistan with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, was the first Canadian firefight casualty in that country.  He was slain during a fierce battle March 29, 2006, after his rapid-response platoon was sent to a forward operating base in support of Afghan and special forces troops who had come under siege.  The possibility of potential friendly fire arose almost immediately and Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, then head of Regional Command South, Task Force Afghanistan, promptly requested a board of inquiry investigation.  Canada, the United States and Afghanistan all launched probes.  Yesterday, the U.S. Army released its investigation results to Associated Press, asserting that Costall and an American sergeant, also killed that night, were shot from behind in a burst of machine-gun fire that originated from within the compound at Forward Operating Base Robinson, some 110 kilometres northwest of Kandahar City.  American investigators interviewed U.S. troops at the scene, with several accounts mentioning that the gunner shot at two "friendly positions'' in quick succession.  The witness statements said Sgt. John Thomas Stone of the Vermont National Guard was shot once in the back and once in the head as he crouched behind a wall atop a building where he and other allied troops were repelling the major nighttime attack ....



*Military: Friendly Fire Killed Guardsman*
WILSON RING, Associated Press, 2 Jul 07
Article link

A Vermont National Guard soldier and a Canadian private who were killed in Afghanistan last year were hit by friendly fire, according to an Army report released Monday to The Associated Press.  Sgt. 1st Class John Thomas Stone, 52, was shot once each in the back and head on March 29, 2006, while crouching behind a wall atop a building where he and other U.S. soldiers were repelling a major nighttime attack.  He had joined the Army in 1971 in part to try to learn what happened to his brother, a freelance photographer who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970 with Sean Flynn, the son of the actor Errol Flynn.  The machine gun rounds that killed Stone were fired from inside a compound operated by U.S. Special Forces soldiers, according to the report, a collection of witness statements assembled by American investigators.  The friendly fire also killed Canadian Forces Pvt. Robert Costall and wounded a number of American and allied soldiers, the report said. It does not indicate whether anyone was disciplined .....


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## GAP (3 Jul 2007)

German Court Rejects Bid to Halt Jet Deployment to Afghanistan  
By Karin Matussek July 3 (Bloomberg) 
Article Link

 Germany's top constitutional court rejected a bid to block the deployment of Tornado fighter jets to Afghanistan, bolstering the country's ability to commit to international military engagements. 

The opposition Left Party had asked the Federal Constitutional Court to find that Germany's participation in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan violated the rights of Parliament. The mission goes beyond the 1955 NATO treaty as ratified by lawmakers and German troops are participating in illegal actions, the party argues. 

The Karlsruhe-based court today rejected the case in proceedings broadcast live on German television. 

Six Tornados, deployed in April, are engaged in reconnaissance to help the North Atlantic Treaty Organization counter Taliban insurgents. Germany currently has about 3,000 soldiers and other staff in Afghanistan. 

The party, with 53 lawmakers in the 614-member lower house of Parliament, had claimed NATO's worldwide crisis-intervention missions are an unauthorized shift in policy. 

The mandates to participate in the mission and send jets expire on Oct. 13. NATO has asked Germany to extend the Tornado mission beyond that date. The government said yesterday that it wishes to grant the request. 
More on link


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## GAP (3 Jul 2007)

Afghan army carries out first major operation
Updated Tue. Jul. 3 2007 2:41 PM ET Associated Press
Article Link

ANDAR DISTRICT, Afghanistan -- Two Black Hawk helicopters swooped down into the makeshift base in the middle of a Taliban hotbed, and U.S. soldiers snapped salutes to the mission's top general -- an Afghan, not an American.

Afghan officers, with a big assist from U.S. counterparts, planned and executed their first major operation as part of a monthlong offensive, taking a key step forward in the U.S. effort to build up Afghanistan's army so it can secure the country on its own and let foreign troops leave.

Operation Maiwand, which officially ended Tuesday, did not see heavy fighting. But Afghan and U.S. soldiers held some of their first meetings with tribal elders and opened schools and markets in Andar district, which is a Taliban stronghold in the southern province of Ghazni.

About 800 Afghan soldiers, 400 American soldiers and 200 Afghan policemen took part in the operation. Afghan soldiers raided houses of suspected militants, something U.S. troops can't do without a cultural uproar.

"We bring a lot of skills to the table and they have a lot of expertise on the human terrain, the people, and when you put that together it's a powerful combination," said Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Col. Martin P. Schweitzer, the lead American officer during Operation Maiwand, said the Afghan army would take even greater control of operations in the next several months and that U.S. soldiers were training their way out of a job.
More on link

Canada to commit $30M to Afghan legal system
Updated Tue. Jul. 3 2007 8:26 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Canada is committing $30 million to help reform Afghanistan's legal system. The announcement was made Tuesday in Rome by Helena Guergis, Secretary of State, Foreign Affairs and International Trade, who is representing Canada at a two-day conference.

Guergis is among representatives from more than 20 countries who are meeting in Rome to formulate a plan Afghanistan can implement to reform its justice system after 30 years of tyranny. 

"What we hope to accomplish here is, first off, the launch of the process where we can revitalize or strengthen the rule of law in Afghanistan," Guergis told CTV Newsnet from Rome on Tuesday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer were also expected at the summit. The conference has been organized by the Italian and Afghan governments with the help of the United Nations.
More on link

Clashes at Pakistan mosque leave nine dead
Updated Tue. Jul. 3 2007 12:36 PM ET Associated Press
Article Link

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Security forces clashed with militants Tuesday outside a radical mosque where students have carried out a string of kidnappings of police officers and alleged prostitutes, killing at least nine people, a senior official said.

The battle marked a major escalation in a standoff at the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, whose clerics have challenged the military-led government by mounting a vigilante anti-vice campaign in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad for the past several months.

Deputy Interior Minister Zafar Warriach said the dead included four students, three civilians, one soldier and a journalist. However, clerics at the mosque claimed that 10 of their supporters had died, according to a lawmaker sent to mediate the dispute.

The minister said 148 were injured, most of them by tear gas fired by security forces.

By nightfall, the city's top security official, Khalid Pervez, said a cease-fire had been reached with the militants. But Warriach said the government was "considering all options" when asked what steps would be taken to defuse the standoff with the students.

The trouble began when student followers of the mosque, including young men with guns and dozens of women wearing black burqas, rushed toward a nearby police checkpoint. Police and paramilitary soldiers fired tear gas and, as the students retreated, an Associated Press photographer saw at least four students, some of them masked, fire shots toward security forces
More on link

Suicide bomber hits U.S.-led convoy in Afghanistan
Tue 3 Jul 2007, 10:47 GMT KABUL (Reuters) 
Article Link

 A Taliban suicide bomber targeted a U.S.-led coalition convoy on Tuesday in Afghanistan, but there was no immediate report of any casualties.

The attack, part of rising violence in recent months by Taliban insurgents, happened in Logar province which lies to the south of the capital, Kabul.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesman for the coalition confirmed the raid, but had no further information
More on link


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## The Bread Guy (4 Jul 2007)

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

*U.S. investigators recommend no charges in friendly-fire death of Canadian*
WILSON RING, Associated Press, 3 Jul 07
Article link

A U.S. Army investigator recommended that no charges be filed against the U.S. Special Forces machine-gunner who killed Canadian Pte. Robert Costall and an American soldier during a heated night-time battle last year in Afghanistan.

The recommendation is in documents released by the army on Tuesday about the friendly-fire deaths of Costall and Vermont National Guard 1st Sgt. John Thomas Stone.

Their deaths, "while regrettable, are understandable in the context of this firefight," said one document, a report written by an American army officer whose name was blacked out.

The officer said Costall and 37 other Canadian soldiers were sent to reinforce Forward Operating Base Robinson for an expected attack on March 28, 2006.

They were moved into the field of fire of the machine-gunner, who was at a Special Forces compound inside the base, the report said.

It said an "inaccurate target identification" that night by the gunner, who was not identified in the report, caused him to fire at the rooftop position where Stone and other soldiers were crouched behind a wall, fighting off an attack by Taliban forces.

In the report and a second one released Tuesday, the army said an inadequate base defence plan and fatigue contributed to the tragedy, as did a lack of communication from headquarters and significant supply problems at the base in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.

In the new reports, one investigator said he spoke with the two Special Forces soldiers manning two machine-guns in the area where the fatal shots were fired. Neither acknowledged firing the fatal shots, but their statements "lack credibility," the investigator said.

The Special Forces report said the small base, established about a month earlier, had been under near daily attack. It had acute supply problems and its soldiers were exhausted, the report said.

At one point in February, soon after the base was established, the Americans had to use their own money to buy food for the Afghan soldiers with them, the report said.

The Canadian reinforcements arrived by helicopter after dark at the same time an 80-vehicle supply convoy arrived, creating confusion about where the vehicles and soldiers should be placed, the reports said. The attack began about 1:45 a.m. March 29 with mortars followed by rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire.

Stone went to the roof of the building where he was staying and was hit in the back by a machine-gun bullet that travelled through his body and into his head, according to the reports. He was not wearing body armour.

Costall and other Canadian soldiers were on a berm outside the gate. Costall was hit by two shots, either of which would have been fatal, the report said.

Costall, 22, was a machine-gunner with 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. He was born in Thunder Bay, Ont., and grew up in Gibsons, B.C. The possibility of him being killed by friendly fire was raised earlier by his wounded comrades.

The battle effectively ended when coalition forces called in an air strike, the U.S. Army reports said.

Both reports are executive summaries of investigations into the tragedy. One was done for the U.S. Department of Defense command in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The second was prepared for the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Both were inadvertently excluded from a compact disk delivered to The Associated Press on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The documents released Monday marked the first official confirmation that friendly fire caused the deaths.

The U.S. investigation into possible friendly fire began the day after Stone and Costall were killed.

The Canadian military has also conducted an investigation but its report had not yet been released.

Stone, 52, of Tunbridge, joined the military after high school, but was in an out of the service several times over the course of 35 years.

He was on his third tour in Afghanistan.


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## The Bread Guy (4 Jul 2007)

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

*Family of fallen soldier frustrated with U.S. military*
Tb News Source, 4 Jul 07
Article link

The family of a Thunder Bay-born soldier killed in Afghanistan doesn't feel satisfied with the U.S. report into his death.

The American investigation has revealed that Private Robert Costall died by friendly fire on March 29, 2006.

Costall's Aunt, Colleen McBain, says that her family is still waiting for an apology from the U.S. military.

'In any mistake that is made in life, you learn from it, or you can learn. Apologies even for mistakes haven't, to my knowledge, been issued by the U.S. military to the family members.'

McBain also feels that the report isn't fair.

'The report informed us, the public, that there were not any statements taken from Canadian witnesses. I don't know where they are collecting there information from, when the Canadian witnesses were the first to go forward with the information that it was friendly fire that caused the death of those two soldiers.'

A U.S. Army investigator has recommended that no charges be filed against the U.S. Special Forces machine-gunner who killed Costall and an American soldier.


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## GAP (4 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July  4, 2007*

Afghanistan fight winding down for India Company
Updated Tue. Jul. 3 2007 8:03 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Soldiers with the Royal Canadian Regiment conducted one of their last firefights on Tuesday during a sweep west of Kandahar City.

The troops of India Company are in their last month on the ground in Afghanistan.

They reported two insurgents killed and two wounded.

"The most important part of this stage of the tour is not a body count on either side," said Maj. Dave Quick, the company's commanding officer. "My soldiers are staying focused to keep themselves alive so we can set the conditions for the next battle group to come in." 

Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, popularly known as the Van Doos, will be the battle group rotating into Afghanistan.

Military officials reported no casualties among the Canadian and Afghan troops who took part in the search-and-destroy operation codenamed Operation Drag-On.

The fighting took place at Ma'sum Ghar in Zhari district, the scene of very intense fighting last fall. On Monday, seven Afghan police officers died in the district, killed by a roadside bomb.

The soldiers moved into an attack zone under cover of darkness, then waited for the enemy.
More on link

New Zealand makes fresh aid grant to Afghanistan rural communities
Wednesday July 4, 2007
Article Link

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP): New Zealand will give 800,000 New Zealand dollars (US$626,000; euro460,000) to aid rural projects in Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said Wednesday. 

The latest aid grant will go toward helping local communities in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province build or repair irrigation systems, improve local roads and extend electricity supply to villages, he said. 

New Zealand currently has some 120 troops deployed on provincial reconstruction work in Bamiyan, northeast of the capital, Kabul, where they had created "a secure environment,'' Peters noted. 

Bamiyan is where the Taliban in 2000 destroyed two ancient Buddha statues carved into a hillside cliff. 

"Ongoing conflict, political instability and severe periods of drought have caused extreme poverty in Afghanistan, especially in rural communities in provinces such as Bamiyan,'' he said. 

The aid would go to the Afghan government's national solidarity program, which was improving the lives of millions of rural citizens, Peters said. 
More on link

Clashes kill 20 suspected militants in Afghanistan
Updated Wed. Jul. 4 2007 6:24 AM ET Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Twenty militants and one policeman are dead after three separate clashes in southern Afghanistan.

Officials say militants battled Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops.

The provincial police chief of Ghazni province says militants attacked at least three police checkpoints in Ghazni Tuesday, and ensuing gunbattles left 13 militants and one officer dead.

A spokesman for Zabul province's governor says Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces there clashed with suspected Taliban militants Tuesday in Shahjoy district, leaving seven militants dead and six others wounded.
More on link

Norway to send more Afghan refugees back home 
Wednesday July 04, 2007 (1753 PST)
Article Link

 STOCKHOLM, Jul 4 (Online): Between 700 and 800 Afghan asylum seekers have had their application turned down, and will have to face returning from Norway to their homeland, said reports reaching here on Wednesday. 

Last weekend, 13 Afghan refugees were returned, and on Monday another seven were sent back after their final appeal had been turned down, Aftenposten reported. 

"These are single men. Others, more vulnerable groups, like single women and children, families with children, or people with serious illness have been allowed to stay," said head of the Aliens Board, Terje Sjeggestad. 

Police inspector Knut Oevregaard said it is impossible to say when all who have had their application for asylum turned down, will be sent out of the country
More on link

Troops not to withdraw from Afghanistan: German  
Wednesday July 04, 2007 (1752 PST)
Article Link


 BERLIN, July 04 (Online): German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said here that the country would not withdraw troops from war-ravaged Afghanistan. 

While attending a symposium, Jung said it is necessary to prolong the stationing of German troops in Afghanistan under the U.S.-led anti-terrorist peace mission. 

"As long as there are terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, the mission has to continue," Jung said. 

He said that in order to achieve stability and carry out reconstruction work in Afghanistan, the international force first needs to tackle terrorism. 
More on link

Dutch defense minister proposes cutting number of tanks, F-16s  
Wednesday July 04, 2007 (0645 PST)
Article Link

 NETHERLANDS: The Dutch defense minister announced the government plans to reduce the number of its tanks and F-16 fighter jets as part of a package of spending cuts. 
The cuts, which must be approved by lawmakers, come as Dutch armed forces are running up huge bills in Afghanistan, where 2,000 troops are involved in a reconstruction operation in the southern province of Uruzgan. 

The government will debate with lawmakers in coming months on whether to extend the two-year mission, which is scheduled to end in August 2008. 
More on link

Pakistan closes two camps for Afghan refugees  
Monday July 02, 2007 (1616 PST)
Article Link

GENEVA, July 01 (Online): Pakistan this weekend is closing two camps for Afghan refugees. The U.N. refugee agency is urging the government of Pakistan to make sure the closure goes peacefully. Violent clashes occurred in mid-May when Pakistan tried to close another camp for Afghan refugees.. 

The U.N. refugee agency says it does not want a replay of what happened in May, and it is calling for continued dialogue between the government and the refugees in the camps that are being closed. 

U.N. refugee spokesman Ron Redmond tells VOA the camps host more than 82-thousand registered Afghans, most of whom are women, children and the elderly. "Overall, there has been a pretty good response from the Afghan community to the decision to consolidate camps in Pakistan. And a lot of the Afghans took the opportunity in advance of these camp closures to take advantage of various assistance programs being offered by UNHCR to actually go back to Afghanistan itself," he said. 
More on link

Herat Bank robbed of more than six million afghanis  
Wednesday July 04, 2007 (0645 PST)
Article Link

 HERAT CITY: Over six million afghanis were stolen from a National Bank branch in the western Herat province, officials said. 
Col. Nisar Ahmad Paikar, head of investigation department at the provincial police headquarters, told Pajhwok Afghan News initial investigations suggested no outsider was involved in the bank robbery. 

The bank staff could be complicit in the theft, he said, adding some of them had been quizzed. A joint team comprising officials from the attorney office, bank officials, governors house and security personnel was looking into the case.
More on link


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## GAP (4 Jul 2007)

Six NATO soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan
Globe and Mail Update July 4, 2007 at 11:05 AM EDT KABUL — 
Article Link

Six soldiers with the NATO-led force and their Afghan interpreter were killed Wednesday when their vehicle struck a bomb in southern Afghanistan, NATO says.

The 37-nation International Security Assistance Force did not release the nationalities of the foreign troops, leaving such announcements to their home nations.

The attack happened in a volatile region of Kandahar province. The majority of NATO troops there are Canadian.

The deaths took to 105 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them in combat.


The Canadian Defence Ministry said there had been an "incident,"according to AFP. 

"We are aware of an incident but it's still being investigated. We don't have any further details," spokeswoman Lieutenant Carole Brown said.
More on link


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## geo (4 Jul 2007)

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070704/afghan_soldiers_070704/20070704?hub=TopStories

*Six Canadian soldiers killed in roadside blast*
Updated Wed. Jul. 4 2007 12:46 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

A roadside bomb has killed six Canadian soldiers in the volatile Panjwaii district of Afghanistan, as well as an Afghan interpreter.

Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant, commander of Task Force Afghanistan, confirmed the deaths during a news conference Wednesday in Kandahar.

He said the soldiers -- who have not been identified pending notification of next of kin -- were travelling in a RG-31 Nyala armoured vehicle with the interpreter when the attack occurred.

"We're greatly saddened by the loss of these great young Canadians, exceptional young men," Grant said. 

"The attack on us and our Afghan colleagues, however, will not diminish our resolve and our determination to bring to Afghanistan a peaceful land for the children of this country."

The attack happened about 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar while the soldiers returned from a joint operation they had conducted with the Afghan National Army.

With the most recent deaths, 66 Canadian military personnel have now been killed in Afghanistan.


Earlier violence 

Earlier Wednesday, AP reported that three separate clashes left 20 militants and one police officer dead in Afghanistan.

The gun battles were sparked after militants attacked several checkpoints in Ghazni province in Afghanistan's south, the province's police chief told The Associated Press.

The fighting left 13 militants and one police officer dead.

In separate gun battles in Zabul province on Tuesday, U.S.-led coalition forces fought with suspected Taliban militants in the province's Shahjoy district.

Seven militants were killed and six others were wounded in those battles, according to a spokesperson for the province's governor.

More than 2,400 people have been killed so far this year in Afghanistan, including civilians, militants and troops according to an AP tally.


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## MarkOttawa (5 Jul 2007)

CAUSE OF DEATH (end of link)
_Globe and Mail_, July 5
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070705.AFGHANIED05/TPStory/?query=%22cause+of+death%22

MILITARY VEHICLES: NONE CAN GUARANTEE SAFETY
_Globe and Mail_, July 5
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070705.AFGHANVEHICLES05/TPStory/?query=g-wagon

Deaths by province (end of link)
_Globe and Mail_, July 5
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070705.AFGHANPOLITICS05/TPStory/National

The Human Toll (deaths by country and number of troops in theatre)
_Globe and Mail_, July 5
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070705.HUMANTOLL05/TPStory/?query=%22human+toll%22

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (6 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July  6, 2007*

Soldiers' bravery earns praise
Article Link
Military officials extol their dedication, while families begin to speak of their dependability.
By BOB WEBER, CP 

EDMONTON -- A Canadian military leader says the army grieves for the soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan this week, but will also steel itself for future challenges. 

Brig.-Gen. Mark Skidmore says the six who died were dedicated to their jobs and committed to the task Canada had set before them. 

"We're proud to have known these soldiers. We are privileged to have served alongside them and we would be honoured to replace them in their noble cause in the accomplishment of our shared mission," Skidmore, commander of Land Force Western Area, said yesterday. 

"The army was their life, the army is our life and Canada is No. 1. And with those anchor points in our thoughts, we'll tend to our fallen and steel ourselves for the future challenges." 

Skidmore called on Canadians to honour the memory of the young soldiers who "have given so much and asked for so little." 

Col. Jon Vance, commander of the 1st Canadian Mechanized Brigade, echoed those thoughts, saying the most important thing right now is for all Canadians to stand behind the families who have lost their loved ones. 

Vance said the families are well aware that there is a debate about Canada's mission in Afghanistan, but the most sensitive and mature approach right now is to send out a "clarion call" of love and support. 

The six soldiers and an Afghan interpreter died Wednesday in a roadside explosion as they were returning from a mission southwest of Kandahar. 

Cpl. Jordan Anderson, Capt. Matthew Dawe, Cpl. Cole Bartsch and Pte. Lane Watkins were all members of the 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton. 

Master Cpl. Colin Bason was a reservist with the Royal Westminster Regiment based in New Westminster, B.C., and Capt. Jefferson Francis was with 1 Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, based in Shilo, Man. 

The family of Dawe, one of the highest-ranking Canadian officers to be killed in Afghanistan, remembered their son, brother and husband as a dedicated soldier who wouldn't let something as minor as a ruptured Achilles tendon get in his way. 

Family members were not speaking to the media, but released a statement praising his love for the soldiers who worked under him. 
More on link

Suicide attack kills 10 Afghan police; NATO soldier killed
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP)
Article Link

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, killing 10 police and wounding 11, while a roadside bomb in the east left one NATO soldier dead, authorities said.

Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers participate in a joint US-Afghan military exercise, on the outskirts of Kabul.

 In the west, kidnappers released an abducted German man and his translator on Thursday, hours after demanding US$40,000 (euro29,300) for their freedom, officials said.

The latest violence brought to over 3,000 the number of people -- mostly militants -- killed in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press tally of numbers provided by Western and Afghan officials.

The suicide attacker walked into a room full of policemen eating lunch at a checkpoint near the Pakistan border before blowing himself up, said Sayeed Agha Saqib, the provincial police chief. The incident occurred near Spin Boldak, a town in the southern province of Kandahar.

The blast killed 10 policemen, wounded 11 and destroyed two rooms, Saqib said. Spin Boldak's district police chief was among those wounded.

Grisly suicide attacks have become a prime tactic of Taliban militants, who have dramatically stepped up their campaign of violence against the government of President Hamid Karzai and its Western backers.
More on link

Convicted soldier barred from serving time in Afghanistan
CanWest News Service Published: Thursday, July 05, 2007
Article Link

QUEBEC - A Valcartier-based Canadian Forces soldier was denied an absolute discharge that would have allowed him to serve in Afghanistan. Instead he was sentenced Thursday to 15 months to be served in the community for sexual assault. 

The sentence could end the two-year military career of Pierre-Olivier Boulet, 22, but defence attorney Richard-Philippe Guay said there would be an appeal in the case and noted that he remains a member of the military in the mean time.

Mr. Guay had asked for the absolute discharge so Mr. Boulet could serve in Afghanistan, but Quebec Court Judge Carol St Cyr said that would have meant trivializing the crime.
More on link

Afghan, Turkmen leaders discuss trans-Afghan natural gas pipeline  
The Associated Press Thursday, July 5, 2007 ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan
Article Link

The leaders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan on Thursday discussed prospects for a pipeline that would carry natural gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan.

Reaching out to Turkmenistan's violence-plagued southern neighbor in talks with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, new President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov also promised to provide Afghanistan with electric power worth US$300,000 (€220,000) at no cost.

"This is a big gift from the Turkmen people to the Afghan people," Berdymukhamedov, who came to power after the December death of autocratic longtime leader Saparmurat Niyazov, told a joint news conference with Karzai after talks.

Karzai said the discussions focused on a potential trans-Afghan gas pipeline — an idea raised more than a decade ago, but stymied by violence and political instability in Afghanistan. Turkmenistan, Central Asia's largest gas producer, now depends on Russian lines for its exports.

"Afghanistan is interested in receiving income from the transit of Turkmen gas to Pakistan and India," Karzai said. Speaking through an interpreter, he said that "one of the main conditions of the project" is the issue of how much money Afghanistan would make for the transit of gas.
More on link

Two NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan  
Kabul, July 06, 2007
Article Link

Two NATO soldiers were killed on Thursday in eastern Afghanistan, the alliance said on Friday.

"ISAF soldiers throughout Afghanistan today are mourning for the fallen soldiers and their families," said International Security Assistance Force spokesperson Maria Carl.

A third soldier with the NATO-led force was also killed on Thursday when a bomb struck a vehicle in southeastern Afghanistan.
end

Why our Afghan sacrifices matter
JAMES APPATHURAI  July 6, 2007 at 12:04 AM EDT
Article Link

A few days ago, six Canadian soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb during an operation in the province of Kandahar. This was a heavy blow for Canada, whose forces have already paid a very high price in Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, this tragic event has renewed calls for Canada to either abandon the mission immediately or confirm to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that in February, 2009, it is definitely out of Kandahar. It is for Canadians alone to have that debate; as they do, there are a few key points to keep in mind.

It might seem that this mission is all about fighting, but it isn't. Billions of dollars are being spent on development projects, on improving health care and education, on building a government that works for Afghans. And it is paying off. Compared to six years ago, 10 times as many Afghans have access to health care. Six times as many are in school, more than 30 per cent of them female. And they have an elected parliament that robustly challenges the elected President. Canada, and the many other countries investing in Afghanistan and its people, should be proud and encouraged.

But that development needs security. Aid workers cannot go where their lives are at risk unless there are soldiers there to create a secure environment. It is a fiction to suggest that we can invest solely in reconstruction and development without investing in security. It is also a fantasy to imagine that security can take firm root unless development is taking off. These are two sides of the same coin.

We must also imagine what would happen if our soldiers were not there. A few weeks ago, a major battle took place in the province of Uruzgan, next to Kandahar. Dutch NATO troops suddenly faced about 500 Taliban fighters who were trying to overrun the district. The Taliban committed the most profound war crimes: burning and cutting the throats of civilians, forcing civilians to fight with them, using civilians as human shields. The Dutch, heavily outnumbered, stood and fought, and regained control of the district.
More on link

Kidnapped German released in Afghanistan, government says
The Associated PressPublished: July 5, 2007
Article Link


KABUL, Afghanistan: Kidnappers released a German man and his translator on Thursday, a week after they were seized in western Afghanistan, officials said.

The two men were brought to the police chief of Delaram district of Farah province and then passed to the custody of NATO forces, Afghan and German officials said.

The men were released hours after the kidnappers, using tribal elders as intermediaries, demanded US$40,000 (€29,300) for freeing them. However, it was not immediately clear if any money had changed hands.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the pair were in the care of NATO troops and on their way to Kabul, where the German ambassador awaited them.

"I am very glad that this kidnapping came to such a quick end," Steinmeier said. He offered no details of how they were freed, but praised Afghan authorities and NATO troops, "in particular the British units, who were very helpful."
More on link

Berlin confirms release of German hostage in Afghanistan Berlin, July 6, IRNA 
Article Link

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier here Thursday confirmed the release of a German national who was abducted in Afghanistan a week ago. 

"He is in the safe custody of ISAF troops," German television quoted Steinmeier saying. 

The ex-German hostage who reportedly worked for a foreign company in Afghanistan, was on his way to Kabul after being kidnapped in the western Afghan province of Farah. 

Kidnappers had initially demanded a 40,000 US dollar ransom for the release of the German man and his Afghan translator. 

It is the first kidnapping case of a German citizen in war- stricken Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001. 

Germany has presently deployed around 3,000 forces in northern Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). 
More on link


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## Colin Parkinson (6 Jul 2007)

All the polish, none of the blood
 TheStar.com - columnists - All the polish, none of the blood

July 06, 2007 
Rosie DiManno

Afghans were right all along. The West can't be trusted.

They had the wrong impression, exposed essentially to soldiers, who are a different breed and mean what they say, putting their lives on the line for ideals as espoused by their fair-weather political bosses.

Of course, soldiers don't often speak of ideals, the geopolitical framework of the Afghanistan mission, and when they do, to journalists, it sounds stilted or corny, as if rehearsed or reading off a teleprompter. They know the sound bytes that are required of them and getting to the pith of the thing requires a level of trust that must be earned. But even beneath the patina of propaganda, and despite the quietly expressed doubts that some troops might harbour about the assignment – not self-doubt; rather, suspicion of politicians and shifting public opinion – there is sturdiness and confidence in their sense of purpose.

Their governments, too many of which have paid mere lip service to the rehabilitation of Afghanistan as a functioning state, are made of weaker stuff.

Only Canada, Britain and the United States – selectively, Holland, and a small Romanian contingent – have genuinely put their shoulders to the wheel. The failure of most NATO countries to fulfil their Bonn Conference promises has severely jeopardized, perhaps outright doomed, the bold undertaking. By this impotence, the very concept of NATO has been invalidated.

There's no reason to believe other member-nations will step up if Canada abandons Afghanistan in 2009, or retreats to the relative safety of Kabul as an urban cantonment. The likes of France, Italy and Germany won't fill the combustible gap in Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan. Easier for them to stay beyond reach in Kunduz or Herat, where insurgent attacks are rarities and showcase reconstruction humming alone nicely: All the brass polishing with none of the blood.

And this façade of deployment is what many Canadians want for their troops.

The British will likely stay and the Americans aren't leaving. But southern Afghanistan will probably collapse, further imperilling the central government in Kabul while simultaneously affording Al Qaeda a huge operating sanctuary in Central Asia: Afghanistan as terrorist state redux.

The neo-Taliban are not the Mongol hordes, sweeping across the plains of Afghanistan. They are a localized and heavily infiltrated – by Arab and Pakistani fighters – phenomenon, stubborn and fanatical, effective in tactics disproportionate to their numbers, but far, far from an undefeatable opponent. They can plant roadside explosives and crank out suicide bombers from here till Armageddon without ever gaining either political or strategic control of Afghanistan. But they do have patience and the West doesn't.

It behooves defeatists – in their weird upside-down triumphalism – to conflate Afghanistan and Iraq. Calamities such as Wednesday's dreadful attack against a Canadian convoy, killing six troops and an Afghan interpreter, suck the ballast out of a nation and buoy the political ambitions of opposition parties.

But Afghanistan isn't Iraq, most especially in this one core factor: There is no religious schism driving the madness and exploited to fuel the barbarity. In Iraq, religion is politics is power. Al Qaeda involvement aside, minority Sunnis (40 per cent) seek to reassert their paramount political eminence and the majority Shiite (60 per cent) have little willingness to share, not after the oppression they long suffered.

Afghanistan is 88 per cent Sunni. Most Shiites are in the distant west, along the border with Iran. The Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan may be more fundamentalist, and intractably resentful of Kabul, thus widely supportive of the Taliban, but this is still a religiously homogenous country.

It is not preordained to implode unless the international community – and Canada – forsakes Afghanistan again.
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/233027 * (impressive for the Star)*


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## Colin Parkinson (6 Jul 2007)

John Robson • We win peace by winning the war
  
John Robson 
The Ottawa Citizen 


Friday, July 06, 2007



CREDIT:  
German Gen. Wilhelm Keitel "negotiates" a peace agreement on behalf of the shattered Nazi regime on May 8, 1945. NDP leader Jack Layton insists on pretending that the yet-uncrushed Taliban can be treated the same way, John Robson writes. 

The British doctors' plot certainly helps clarify things. I am glad the operation was a failure and the patients did not die for the obvious reasons. But also because it helps me discuss the merits of this botched atrocity.

First, its sheer incompetence. One of our advantages in the war on terror, albeit unearned, is that we are fighting people who have difficulty setting themselves on fire in a car full of propane. The Globe and Mail claimed Saturday that British police were "hunting for at least three other suspects and a mastermind," but I doubt they'll find the latter in this affair. Despite the defeatist tone of much western news coverage, our enemies are often as clueless as they are vicious.

Second, that this comically inept villainy was apparently the work of educated people with lucrative, prestigious jobs underlines that our problem here is not poverty, social exclusion or racism but an idea. Specifically, the belief that we should be blown up as promiscuous intoxicated unbelievers. "Death to infidels" is the root cause of Islamist terrorism, as more and more people realize.

That's why the third piece of good news was the blase public reaction. The usual suspects feigned horror that such terrorist acts should have been attempted by highly paid professionals honoured by the host society, but few others were fooled. To call terrorism a product of poverty is, as Chesterton said of crime, a slander on the poor, many of whom live decent, honourable lives. It is also a slander on all mankind, a pernicious denial of free will, for materialists to claim we can buy off our enemies with big salaries, fancy offices and high-definition TVs.

Ultimately we are accountable for our choices, not our circumstances, and deep down we all know it. Life is never easy, though tribulations vary. But adversity crushes some and strengthens others. And while poverty can contribute to despair and rage, as indeed can wealth, both are at best partial explanations, not legitimate excuses. If you believe in a merciful God, you must prepare one day to explain to Him why you chose terrorism, not why you had no choice.

In public policy, too, choices and ideas matter far more than circumstances. Islamists try to blow us up not for refusing them attractive jobs or for our foreign policy misdeeds, but because they think we should die for being happy, tolerant people who do not claim to love the Creator while despising His creation and His creatures. And unless we convert to their way of thinking, they will not relent.

Not everyone gets it. At a Wednesday press conference, NDP leader Jack Layton said we should label civilian casualties in Afghanistan "unacceptable," distance ourselves from the Bush administration, withdraw our troops and initiate a "comprehensive peace process" because "nobody could advance the idea that there's a military solution ultimately in Afghanistan."

Since the Taliban see an obvious military solution, shooting their way back into power and killing everybody who taught girls, I asked him: "When you talk about your comprehensive peace process, what's the offer to the Taliban?" Mr. Layton blithered that "Students of history will know that all major conflicts are resolved ultimately through peace-oriented discussions ..."


Unfortunately for him I am a student of history with three university degrees in the subject from two different countries, so I said: "And by the armies marching into Berlin and an atomic bomb dropped on Japan. That's how World War II ended and students of history know that." He responded: "Well I beg to differ that if you study the precise processes that took place most of the conflicts in the world you'll see that there are always negotiations that take place. And that's what needs to happen here."

His response was insolently stupid. Of course at some point in almost any war someone staggers forward to sign an instrument of surrender, but other obvious historical examples of major conflicts that ended by crushing victory include World War I, the Napoleonic Wars and the Cold War. I didn't have time to make this point, but it didn't matter because most other journalists present, including from francophone media, were openly incredulous about Mr. Layton's proposal. They might not support the Afghan war. But even the press grasp that you can't sign useful treaties with people who dream of waving your severed head at a cheap webcam.

As students of history know, John Maynard Keynes was right that "soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good and evil." It's why doctors try to bomb nightclubs and airports. Clearly.

John Robson's column appears weekly
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=f2f0d8e4-4822-4efc-b46f-97b64782bc8d


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## GAP (6 Jul 2007)

French General Says NATO Holding Back In Afghanistan  
 July 6, 2007 
Article Link

The top French commander in Afghanistan says NATO could rout the Taliban but has held off using full force in order to spare civilians.

General Pierre-Richard Kohn said if NATO applied "blind force," it would "defeat the Taliban quickly." 

But he said the alliance, under criticism for civilians recently killed in its anti-Taliban operations, is not using cluster bombs or weapons that endanger civilians. Kohn accused Taliban insurgents of "barbaric methods," including using civilians as human shields.


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## GAP (6 Jul 2007)

Politics of war; Layton's yapping gives Harper some fodder for Afghanistan mission  
Den Tandt, Michael Editorial - Friday, July 06, 2007 @ 09:00 
Article Link

'Students of history will know that all major conflicts are resolved ultimately through peace-oriented discussions," Jack Layton smugly intoned at a press conference Wednesday, with the bodies of six Canadians, who are heroes, not yet cold. 

Once again, Layton called on the government to pull the troops out, now. Every new tragedy - every Canadian loss in combat - gives Layton cause to renew his demand that Canada should abandon its allies and leave the people of Afghanistan to their bleak fate. He doesn't bother to wait until the news has even hit home, really. He leaps for the microphone like a trout for a fly. 

All major conflicts are resolved through peace-oriented discussions? That's funny. The invasion of Normandy was not a peace-oriented discussion. Nor were the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nor, for that matter, was the American arms-spending spree that bankrupted the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War. But never mind that. Jack Layton, the Great Peace Maker, has spoken. 

Then there's Stephane Dion. The Liberal leader apparently realizes that a precipitous pullout would be disastrous for NATO and for Canada. Among Liberal heavyweights, Dion was always one of those who strongly backed the Paul Martin-inspired notion of the "responsibility to protect." The same goes for deputy leader Michael Ignatieff. The Afghan mission was a Liberal baby. So, the party can't quite bring itself to disown it. 

But neither can the Liberals resist turning tragedy into political fodder. 
Wednesday Dion held a press conference of his own, during which he said the Liberals will never support an extension of the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan beyond its current mandate, which ends in February of 2009. Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ruled out any extension without Parliamentary approval, that appears to be that. 

Here too, as in Layton's rhetoric, there's comfort for the ignorant fanatics who are killing Canadians. For if Canada is leaving in February of 2009, come hell or high water, the insurgents need only redouble their efforts. It's a moral victory for them, a public-relations bonanza, and ample reason for them to continue with the tactics that are serving them so well. This is not an easy thing to acknowledge, but it is true. 
More on link


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## tomahawk6 (7 Jul 2007)

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070707/kandahar_ied_070707/20070707?hub=TopStories

Roadside bomb injures four soldiers in Afghanistan

Updated Sat. Jul. 7 2007 5:24 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

A suicide bomber near Kandahar has attacked four Canadian soldiers, hours after a ramp ceremony honoured six men who died in another explosion last week. 


"The injuries sustained by the soldiers are not serious. The soldiers notified their next of kin themselves," said Maj. Dale MacEachern, spokesperson for Task Force Afghanistan. 


The four soldiers were transported by helicopter to hospital, where two were treated and released. 


The attack happened about eight kilometers west of Kandahar city, when a suicide bomber struck their vehicle with an improvised explosive device. 


Last Wednesday, six soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a massive bomb. 


Military investigators at the scene said the explosion left a huge crater measuring three metres wide by one-and-a-half metres deep. 


The blast ripped through the group's heavily armoured RG-31 Nyala, killing everyone inside. 


The slain soldiers have been identified as Cpl. Jordan Anderson, Capt. Jefferson Francis, Capt. Matthew Johnathan Dawe, Cpl. Cole Bartsch, Pte. Lane Watkins and Master Cpl. Colin Bason. 


An Afghan interpreter also died in the attack.


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## GAP (7 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 7, 2007*

Fatal Afghan blast was biggest seen, bomb experts say
No vehicle could have withstood such a powerful explosion, investigation into deaths of six soldiers concludes as bodies return home 
GRAEME SMITH From Saturday's Globe and Mail July 6, 2007 at 8:00 PM EDT
Article Link

Kandahar, Afghanistan — The explosion was the biggest ever seen by Canada's bomb experts in Afghanistan, and last night the scale of its damage was paraded across the warm tarmac at Kandahar Air Field.

A line of coffins stretched into the darkness as pallbearers walked six of their comrades into the belly of a transport plane. The padre chose only a few words of farewell to the men who died instantly on Wednesday when their troop carrier was blown into the air.

Reading from Psalm 121, Captain Steele Lazerte's voice echoed from loudspeakers across the straight lines of troops, more than a thousand soldiers standing at attention.

The jagged hills stood invisible beyond the airstrip. These soldiers are coming to the end of their six-month tour. Their comrades were driving on a road that winds alongside the rocky hills of Panjwai district when an enormous bomb detonated directly under their RG-31 Nyala. An initial investigation has concluded that no vehicle could have withstood the blast, Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Walker said.

Even the military engineers who responded to the blast said they had never seen the aftermath of such a large improvised explosive device, the battle group commander said.

"They've never seen an explosion, an IED, this big in their experience on this tour," Col. Walker said. "By looking at the crater, it was quite huge, over three metres across, and a metre and a half deep." He continued: "There's no vehicle — and the RG is one of the best vehicles in the world — there is no vehicle that was going to survive that."
More on link

100 Militants Killed in Afghanistan  
Friday July 6, 2007 9:16 PM AP By JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press Writer 
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Fierce fighting broke out around Afghanistan on Friday, with battles in three separate regions killing more than 100 militants, part of a cycle of rapidly rising violence five years into the U.S.-led effort to defeat the Taliban. 

The governor of northeastern Kunar province said villagers were claiming that airstrikes had killed dozens of civilians, though he said he could not confirm the report. 

The fighting - in the south, west and northeast - continues a trend of sharply rising bloodshed the last five weeks, among the deadliest periods here since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion 

More than 1,000 people were killed in insurgency-related violence in June alone, including 700 militants and 200 civilians. More than 3,100 people have been killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count based on information from Western and Afghan officials. Around 4,000 people died in violence last year. 

U.S.-led coalition and NATO spokesmen on Friday emphasized that ground commanders had evaluated the terrain to prevent civilians casualties, though Kunar Gov. Shalizai Dedar said villagers had reported that 10 civilians were killed in an initial airstrike, and that a second strike killed about 30 people who were trying to bury the dead. 
More on link

Afghan mission complex, but vital
The Edmonton Journal Friday, July 06, 2007
Article Link

How do we honour the six Canadians who died on a gravel road in southern Afghanistan this week? First, by appreciating how terribly dangerous the Canadian mission is, and how much we're asking of our soldiers. Sixty-six dead in just a few years, all of them young people with their lives ahead of them and families who loved them.

Members of the 3rd Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry made up most of the 250 Edmonton troops that headed to Kandahar in February for their six-month rotation.

This battalion, just 570 people in all, has suffered heartbreaking losses.

Four of the six killed this week were from this group, as were three soldiers killed June 20.

It's hard to imagine what the members of 3PPCLI are suffering.

Second, let's think of the mission itself.

It's not enough to put a Support Our Troops bumper sticker on our car. Canadian soldiers aren't served well by citizens who unquestioningly accept what their government says about our need to have troops in this faraway nation.

There may be a point in which our soldiers are dying for no good reason, and when that happens, Canadians need to recognize it and demand a troop withdrawal. That point hasn't happened yet, but it could.

Similarly, it's not enough to say, "I'm against war, bring the troops home." We all need to do our homework, try to understand what's going on and what our duty as a nation is.

This is a complex, confusing mission because the modern world is complex. When terrorists in southern Afghanistan were able to plot and execute the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, we all learned that this is a small planet in which one out-of-control country can cause global problems.

Today, thanks to the NATO mission, much of Afghanistan is gradually recovering from decades of warfare and brutal Taliban rule.
More on link

British PM Brown pledges continued commitment for Afghanistan  
The Associated Press Saturday, July 7, 2007 
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged continued commitment and involvement in Afghanistan during a telephone conversation with President Hamid Karzai, the president's office said in a statement Saturday.

Brown, who replaced Tony Blair as the head of the British government last week, told Karzai during their conversation Friday that the "security in Afghanistan means security for the world," the statement from Karzai's office said.

Brown also emphasized continued British assistance with reconstruction and the peace process in Afghanistan, it said.

There are some 6,700 British troops in the 36,000-strong International Security Assistance Force, which is led by NATO. Most of those troops serve in the volatile southern Helmand province, which is the world's largest producer of opium poppy.
End


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## GAP (7 Jul 2007)

*War is won, lost at home*
Sat Jul 7 2007
Article Link 

ON Aug. 19, 1942, more than 900 Canadian soldiers were killed during a nine-hour battle on the beaches of Dieppe in France. It was not one of Canada's greatest moments in war, but it was one of its most heroic. The loss of life, the casualties, were huge -- more Canadian prisoners, about 1,300, were taken by the Germans at Dieppe than during the rest of the war in all of northwest Europe. 
Dieppe may or may not have served a useful purpose -- historians are still debating that. And in a nation that was not at the time 100 per cent behind a far-away war in a far-away land, it might have served as a rallying cry to bring the boys home, particularly in Quebec, where support for the war was at its lowest. That did not happen. In fact, 65 years after Dieppe, you would be hard-pressed to find a Canadian who thinks that Canada should have quit in 1942 because the losses were high, who thinks that the Second World War was not worth fighting. 

This week, 65 years later, six Canadian soldiers were killed in a flash by a bomb on a roadway in Afghanistan. That has fuelled an already heated debate over whether the war is worth fighting, whether we should bring the boys and girls home now before another life is lost. 

Just as the Second World War was not lost on the beaches of Dieppe back then, the war in Afghanistan will not be lost on the battlefields of Kandahar today. Canadian troops and their NATO allies have an extraordinary record of success in fighting the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies. Hardly any coalition troops have been killed in open warfare -- terrorists try to avoid combat. 

Neither will it be lost on the bloodier roadsides of the highways and dirt tracks of Afghanistan where the terrorists plant the improvised explosive devices that have been the chief cause of Canadian casualties and where, this week, an IED brought the total of Canadian soldiers killed in the war to 66. 

The Afghan war, if it is eventually lost, will be lost instead in the House of Commons, in the hallways of Parliament Hill, in the kitchens and living rooms of Canadian homes.    
The defeatist reaction to the war is most obvious in Ottawa. The deaths of more soldiers this week predictably prompted Jack Layton's New Democrats to once again surrender to the Taliban, with Mr. Layton issuing one more demand that the troops be brought home immediately. 

Stéphane Dion's Liberal party is less precipitous, but still insists that the federal government tell the Afghans and NATO immediately that, after this country's commitment to the war expires in 2009, Canada will quit the field, regardless of the progress of the war or the plight of the Afghan people. 

The Bloc Québécois anticipates the Liberal surrender, while reinforcing the NDP's demand for immediate withdrawal, even as, or perhaps especially because, Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, the legendary Van Doos, is preparing to depart for the war. 

Alone among the nation's political parties, the Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, remain committed to the war on terror as it is being played out in Afghanistan, but even the government appears now to be wavering. Mr. Harper says that a continued Canadian combat presence in Afghanistan will only be possible with the support of the opposition parties, all of which are against it.
More on link


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## GAP (8 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 8, 2007*

Tories soften stance on Afghan mission extension
Jason Fekete, CanWest News Service Published: Saturday, July 07, 2007
Article Link

CALGARY - As the bodies of six Canadian soldiers killed this past week in Afghanistan return home, Conservative MPs said Saturday extending Canada's combat assignment in the war-torn country beyond February 2009 will depend on "consensus" in Parliament.

But Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, in Calgary for the Stampede, insisted there won't be majority support to prolong a mission that's already killed 66 Canadian soldiers since 2002 - most of them in the past 18 months.

While Tory MPs maintain the government is completely committed to the Afghan effort, political analysts said the Tories have undoubtedly softened their support for extending the mission beyond February 2009.
More on link

'Vikings' lead the way in Sangin clearance operation
5 Jul 07 
Article Link

Soldiers from 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment have been taking part in a difficult and dangerous operation aimed at clearing Taliban elements from Jusyalay, the area between Sangin and Putay in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan.


Lieutenant Toby Woodbridge, Royal Engineers, takes cover from the sun as the temperature rises 
[Picture: Cpl Jon Bevan RLC] 
Several hundred 1 Royal Anglian soldiers, known as the 'Vikings', worked alongside Afghan, Danish and Estonian soldiers in this initial stage of the ongoing UK-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Operation 'Ghartse Gar'. The objective of the operation is to track down Taliban positions, taking the fight to the Taliban and clearing them out of Sangin. 

The operation aims to provide the safe conditions to enable the essential task of digging irrigation ditches which will prevent crops, needed to sustain hundreds of villages, from drying up and decaying in the intense Afghan sun.

To maintain the element of surprise, soldiers from ‘A, Norfolk’ Company set off on the operation overnight and on foot from their base in Sangin to cover the 16 kilometre distance to their starting position, carrying up to 80lbs worth of equipment and supplies.

At dawn the following day the Royal Anglian soldiers approached the Taliban positions blocking their escape routes, with the Afghan National Army used to draw out the Taliban so that the Royal Anglians could engage them and push them further north and out of the Sangin Valley area.
More on link

Why military might does not always win
 TheStar.com July 08, 2007 Andrew Chung Staff Reporter
Article Link

A new study suggests that involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan might be doomed from the outset

Does this sound familiar? "A war with no visible payoff against an opponent who poses no direct threat will come under increasing criticism as battle casualties rise and economic costs escalate .... "

It was written more than 30 years ago, after the end of the ill-fated Vietnam War, in one of the first analyses of battles between states and insurgents or guerrillas who are weak in military might but pumped up on resolve. Experts call them asymmetrical wars.

But, of course, it could very well have been written today, about Iraq – or about Afghanistan, where Canadian soldiers keep dying along dusty roadsides, blown up in their armoured vehicles by improvised yet powerful bombs. Six on Easter Sunday. Three more on June 20. Another six last Wednesday.

The total number of casualties since Canada joined the Afghan mission in 2001: 66 soldiers, plus one diplomat. 

Criticism is increasing. Public sentiment about the war is primarily negative, polls show. Politicians are ratcheting up their opposition. "It's the wrong mission," NDP Leader Jack Layton argued last week, insisting troops leave the war-ravaged country now. "It's not working; it's not going to accomplish the goals."

What's happening in this country is familiar among nations that carry out military interventions – and, new research shows, a prime factor in why they fail.

Since World War II, the world's most powerful nations have failed 39 per cent of the time, according to a study by Patricia Sullivan, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. Despite overwhelming military superiority, mounting human and material costs compel them to pull out their troops without achieving their political aims.

Since Vietnam, researchers in the complex field of conflict studies have focused on the outcome of wars, and have looked at how even low-budget insurgents can defeat the world's greatest powers by taxing their political will to fight.
More on link

Have you noticed ...  
Article Link

… that news of British activities in Iraq and Afghanistan has all but dried up since Gordon Brown became prime minister? "Blair's wars", it seems, are no longer of interest, as they cannot be used with the same effect in attacking the current administration.

That is not to say, of course, that nothing is happening in either theatre, although today's report of a major operation in Basra, involving 1,000 troops, undoubtedly hit the media only because a British soldier died after his Warrior had been hit by an IED – the third such fatal attack in so many weeks.

Equally, the tempo of operations in Afghanistan is not slackening – the MoD website reports continuing operations near Sangin as the Royal Anglians, working alongside Afghan, Danish and Estonian soldiers, keep up the pressure on the Taliban.

But the most significant news of the week – not that we got anything more than perfunctory reports of it from the British media - was the death of six Canadian soldiers and their Afghan interpreter in their RG-31 mine-protected vehicle after being hit by an IED which left a crater 10 feet wide and three feet deep.

This is not the first time an RG-31 has been completely destroyed but this is the first time it has happened in Afghanistan. Thus, the event, widely reported in the Canadian press (as you would expect) is of some considerable concern to British forces as it signals several important developments. Firstly, it points up a long-heralded shift in Taliban tactics, from outright confrontation with NATO forces to the hit-and-run attacks favoured by Iraqi insurgents.
More on link

'05 mission to get al Qaeda in Pakistan aborted, Times says
Article Link

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A secret 2005 mission to capture senior al Qaeda members in Pakistan's tribal areas was aborted at the last moment when Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Citing intelligence and military officials, including a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning, the Times said in a story posted on its Web site that the target was a meeting of al Qaeda leaders. That conference was thought by intelligence officials to have included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy, who was believed to run the group's operations, it said.

The classified mission was scotched even as Navy SEALs in parachute gear had boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan after then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected a last-minute appeal by then-CIA director Porter Goss, the Times said, citing the officials and the former intelligence official, all of whom requested anonymity.

Rumsfeld felt the mission, which grew from a small number of personnel to several hundred, would risk too many U.S. lives, and he was also concerned about possible repercussions on U.S.-Pakistan relations, the Times said.

But that decision also frustrated some top intelligence officials and members of the military's secret special operations units. Some said the United States missed a significant opportunity to possibly nab senior al Qaeda members, the newspaper reported.

Another concern was his determination that the United States could not carry out the mission without Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's permission, which was unlikely given its size and scope, the officials said.

The former intelligence official involved in the mission's planning said it grew to the point where "the whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan," which he nonetheless felt was still worth the risk.
More on link

Afghanistan: Violence leaves leader, gunman dead
By ASSOCIATED PRESS Jul. 8, 2007 12:38 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan 
Article Link

A clash between police and insurgents left one suspected gunman dead in the southeast, while Taliban operatives kidnapped a local leader from his home and shot him to death, officials said Sunday. 

The insurgents took Mullah Ahmed Akhunzada, the director of a provincial clerics council, from his home and killed him Saturday night in Tirin Kot, said Uruzgan provincial police chief Gen. Qasim Khan. 

Mullah Obaidullah, the Taliban's regional commander from Uruzgan, claimed responsibility for the incident in a call to The Associated Press and said Akhunzada was killed because he supported the Afghan government.
end of article

In Afghanistan, both sides wage information warfare
By Associated Press  |  July 8, 2007
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan elders yesterday said that 108 civilians were killed in a bombing campaign in western Afghanistan, while villagers in the northeast said 25 Afghans died in airstrikes, including some who were killed while burying dead relatives.

US and NATO leaders, however, said they have no information to substantiate the reports of civilian deaths, and a US official said Taliban fighters are forcing villagers to say civilians died in fighting -- whether or not it is true.

Government officials who reported the deaths yesterday could not confirm the reports, which came from dangerous and remote regions inaccessible to journalists and independent researchers.

The assertions and denials of civilian casualties are part of an increasing campaign of information warfare the Taliban and Western militaries have engaged in alongside conventional fighting.

Adrian Edwards, the United Nations spokesman in Afghanistan, said the reliability of government reports is crucial to addressing the very real problem of civilian casualties. The UN also has not been able to confirm the most recent casualty reports.

"If figures are coming up quickly, it's my sense that they probably need to be taken with a pinch of salt," Edwards said. "But it also doesn't help if it's two or three weeks before the information comes out."

Civilian deaths are a recurring problem that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly deplored. The latest reports come at a time of increasing concern in European capitals over Afghan casualties, an issue that threatens to derail the NATO mission here.
More on link

Britain assures Afghanistan of support against terrorism
Article Link

KABUL: Britain’s new Prime Minister Gordon Brown called President Hamid Karzai overnight to reiterate his country’s commitment to the fight against “terror” in Afghanistan, a statement said on Saturday.

“Mr Brown, assuring his country’s continuous support to Afghanistan, said Afghanistan’s security is the world’s security,” Karzai’s office said in a statement.

“He said the struggle against terror will aggressively continue and more efforts will be made in reconstruction of Afghanistan,” it said.

Brown also invited Karzai to visit Britain in the “near future.”

Britain has around 7,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, to rise to 7,700 in the coming months, which is the second-highest contribution to a NATO-led deployment fighting rebels after that of the United States.

The British soldiers are based in Helmand, perhaps Afghanistan’s most dangerous province, where Taliban insurgents are said to be teamed up with foreign fighters from Al Qaeda and opium producers helping to finance the insurgency. Brown said this week his takeover would not mean a change of policy on Afghanistan and Iraq, where Britain has 5,500 soldiers.

“This house has got to remember that Afghanistan is the front line against the Taliban,” he told MPs.
More on link

A Colombian model for Afghanistan?  
By Luis Fajardo  BBC Spanish American Service  
Article Link

Sergeant Sayed Naqib Sadat, a 27-year-old Afghan police sergeant from the province of Kunar, has spent the past 17 weeks learning commando tactics from Colombia's counter-narcotics police. 

Speaking of the gruelling training course, which included time spent in the Colombian jungle, he says it was "tough but satisfying". 
He is the only Afghan to have graduated from the US-sponsored training programme run by special forces within the Colombian National Police. 

Four of his colleagues from Afghanistan's National Interdiction Unit (NIU) dropped out during the training. 

Colombia and Afghanistan have several problems in common, including a booming drug trafficking industry and a raging insurgency. Both countries also receive substantial political and military support from the US. 

The US hopes that some of the lessons learned in Colombia can be applied to Afghanistan - sponsoring such training is part of the strategy. 

"We had good training here and good teachers," Sergeant Sadat told BBC News. 

"The best experience for me was helicopter training. In Afghanistan we need helicopters", he added. 

His final test was to take part in a simulated early morning raid against drug dealers hiding in a campsite, 2,650m (6,562ft) high in the mountains . 

Drugs and violence 

Colombia, the largest producer of cocaine in the world, has faced a four-decade guerrilla war, with government troops fighting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other armed rebel groups. Like Afghanistan, profits from the drugs trade fuel political violence. 


Since 2000, the US has implemented Plan Colombia, a military and economic assistance programme that has made Bogota the largest recipient of US aid in the western hemisphere. Around $600m a year goes to funding military operations and development projects in drug-growing regions. 
The US believes a similar approach could help solve the problems of Afghanistan. To help cement this, US ambassador to Colombia William Wood was moved in April to Kabul, where he took up the post as US envoy. 

Contacts between Afghan and Colombian police forces started in 2005. In July that year, the Afghan counter narcotics minister Habibullah Qaderi visited the Colombian capital, Bogota. 

A spokesperson from the US embassy there told the BBC that the "educational exchanges had fostered greater co-operation and understanding in countering global drug-trafficking." 

Controversy  

The Bush administration often portrays Plan Colombia as a major foreign policy success. 

In a congressional hearing last April, Charles S Shapiro, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, praised the "remarkable gains that Colombia, with US and other international support, has made". 
More on link


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## GAP (8 Jul 2007)

Afghan counternarcotics minister resigns on verge of another huge poppy crop
Sun Jul 8 10:05:07 CDT 2007
Article Link 

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghanistan's counternarcotics minister has resigned and is reported to be taking up a diplomatic posting in Canada.
Word of the resignation comes from the deputy counternarcotics minister, who says Habibullah Qaderi submitted his resignation to President Hamid Karzai about five days ago.

Gen. Khodaidad says the resignation was voluntary and was driven in part by health problems, although he says Qaderi has taken a new position in Canada as Afghanistan's consulate general.

Qaderi's resignation comes just weeks after Afghan labourers finished cultivating an opium poppy crop that is expected to equal or exceed last year's record haul.

Qaderi headed the ministry since December 2004 and survived several cabinet shuffles. But Afghanistan's poppy crop has ballooned under his watch and the country's production last year accounted for more than 90 per cent of the world's heroin supply.

Western and U.N. officials have said this year's harvest would equal or exceed last year's record crop.    
The resignation comes as behind-the-scenes negotiations take place in the Afghan government and Western embassies - notably the United States' and Britain's - about how to tackle the growing drug problem.

The U.S. has said it wants to spray the crop with herbicide like it does with coca plants in Colombia, a controversial idea that was rejected by Karzai for the 2007 growing season. Britain, whose troops are in charge of Helmand province, the world's largest poppy growing region, has said it would support a limited spraying program.

Gen. Dan McNeill, the top general in charge of NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, has said he expects Western soldiers to step up efforts to combat the drug trade, though they would not be involved in manual eradication of poppy fields.

A significant portion of the profits from the country's $3.1 billion trade is thought to flow to Taliban fighters, who tax and protect poppy farmers and drug runners
More on link


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## GAP (8 Jul 2007)

US forces in Afghanistan to use local currency
AGENCIES[ SUNDAY, JULY 08, 2007 05:48:19 PM] 
Article Link

KABUL: US troops deployed in Afghanistan will conduct all business in afghani in an effort to stabilise the Afghan currency, a local newspaper reported Sunday. 
US troops currently use US dollars for business transactions. 

Noorullah Dilawari, head of Afghanistan's central bank, said that an amount of $40 million was going to Afghan businessmen from the US forces' budget every month. 

The dollars would now be transferred into afghanis through the central bank and would be paid in local currency to the US troops, he said. 

The method would help the central bank better control the amount of dollars in the market, Dilawari said 
End of article


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## CdnArtyWife (8 Jul 2007)

New initiatives needed, Afghanistan experts say
Updated Sun. Jul. 8 2007 2:19 PM ET
Article Link

CTV.ca News Staff

The Senlis Council policy group says the work of Canadian soldiers is being undermined in southern Afghanistan because development funds aren't making it to ground level in Kandahar.


Edward McCormick, the country director in Afghanistan for the Senlis Council, told CTV's Question Period that Canada needs to do more to ensure that projects are carried out in the region.


McCormick, who lives in Kandahar, said despite what is being said in the House of Commons, he is seeing few CIDA development projects carried out in southern Afghanistan.

"There may be something going on in the north where areas are more secure, where it has been possible to have schools set up for girls, but it's not happening in the south."

"Instead when I walk into the villages and refugee camps, which I do daily, I'm seeing children dying of starvation."

That kind of desperation leads to unrest.


"When we don't enhance the excellent work that the military is doing by providing a positive environment through a variety of initiatives, we are further endangering the troops there. We are undermining their efforts," McCormick said Sunday.

More on Link


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## GAP (9 Jul 2007)

Hillier muzzles military over detainees
ALAN FREEMAN AND JEFF ESAU From Monday's Globe and Mail July 9, 2007 
Article Link

OTTAWA — The office of General Rick Hillier, Canada's top soldier, has halted the release of any documents relating to detainees captured in Afghanistan under the federal Access to Information Act, claiming that disclosure of any such information could endanger Canadian troops.

According to documents made available to The Globe and Mail, the Strategic Joint Staff, a newly created group that advises Gen. Hillier, has been reviewing all Access to Information requests about detainees since March, shortly after the detainee controversy first erupted.

The Strategic Joint Staff has given strict guidance to National Defence's director of Access to Information, Julie Jansen, on what documents should be withheld. The result is that the flow of documents about detainees has virtually dried up and the department has summarily rejected requests for the same kind of documents it released earlier.

In recent letters responding to requests filed on behalf of The Globe and Mail, Ms. Jansen has “exempted in its entirety” the disclosure of detainee transfer logs, medical records, witness statements and other processing forms. The department said the information could not be disclosed for national security reasons.
More on link


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## GAP (11 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July  10, 2007*


Afghanistan: What's fit to print?
ANTHONY WESTELL Special to Globe and Mail Update July 10, 2007 at 12:14 AM EDT
Article Link

Excuse me for asking rude questions, but aren't the news media, including this newspaper, making far too much of a few deaths in Afghanistan? Aren't they playing straight into the hands of the enemy with those big black headlines, sob-story writing and dramatic televised clips of coffins, with pipers lamenting — not once, but twice, as they leave Afghanistan and then arrive in Canada?

The Taliban know they cannot defeat us on the battlefield, but they are well on the way to defeating us on the home front as morale sags and demands rise to "bring the boys home." When we decided to go to war to root out the Taliban, which was hosting Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, didn't we know that some of our soldiers would be killed?

Our soldiers volunteer to fight if necessary, and we spend billions training and equipping them to kill those who threaten us. So why do media outlets keep saying that those who die are heroes sacrificing their lives for Canada? A very few may choose to die in order to save others, and they are heroes. But you can bet you're your boots that few go into battle actually expecting to be killed.

Actually, it's the suicide bombers on the other side who sacrifice their lives, but their motives are suspect. Apparently, they are assured they will go straight to heaven and unlimited sex, with other amenities not always available in their puritanical society at home. That's hardly heroic. In fact, if we could use psychological warfare to spread doubt about the rewards of blowing one's self up, it would do more to defeat terrorism than the entire Canadian contingent in Afghanistan.
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NATO Didn’t Lose Afghanistan  
By SARAH CHAYES Published: July 10, 2007 Kandahar, Afghanistan 
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WHEN things go wrong — touchdown passes are missed, products come out defective, wars are lost — it is typical to blame the equipment, or the help. In the case of the unraveling situation in Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has become the favorite whipping boy of American officials and military personnel. NATO countries aren’t sending enough troops, we hear. Those who do arrive are constrained by absurd caveats that prevent them from engaging in combat. NATO lost Helmand Province to the Taliban. 

In fact, after watching rotation after military rotation cycle through here since late 2001, I see NATO as an improvement over its American predecessors.

One key difference is NATO’s training program, born of the challenge of gathering troops from different countries, speaking different languages, into a cohesive fighting force. In March, I joined about a dozen civilians who had lived and worked in Kandahar for years at the final training exercise for the NATO officers who recently took over Afghanistan’s Regional Command South. We spent 10 days briefing them, fielding their questions on everything from tribal relations to the electricity supply, eating meals with them and playing roles in a simulation of three days in southern Afghanistan. 

“Uh ... we’ve got a bit of a situation here,” I heard one of my fellow teachers, an Australian who was a top United Nations security official, say calmly into the phone. He threw me a wink. He was starting the simulation by reporting the sounds of a large detonation and small arms fire. Later, on another line to an officer training to run public information, a sociological researcher played the role of a journalist, her voice incredulous: “Are you sure you want to say that?” 

With the help of these seasoned civilians, experienced NATO officers and some Afghans, the new team was rigorously tested on the many aspects of its mission that go beyond combat tactics. Three months later, after these trainees had taken up their new jobs, the training staff traveled to Kandahar to debrief them to learn which aspects of the training had been useful and which needed improvement. 

Given the constant disruption caused by short troop rotations, competent training is key to improving officers’ effectiveness as soon as they hit the ground.

The American troops’ training, in contrast, seemed ad hoc, usually carried out by each unit on its own, rather than by a dedicated training staff. And it involved very few civilians, despite the crucial humanitarian and political aspects of the mission here. (I have occasionally been invited to address American officers, but only when a friend in the unit has convinced a commander that I might have something to offer.) 
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Afghan child killed, 5 NATO soldiers injured by militants  
Tuesday July 10, 2007 (0708 PST)
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KABUL: One local child was killed and five soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) injured by militants in Kunar province of eastern Afghanistan, an ISAF statement said Monday. 
The casualties occurred during an insurgent attack on Sunday, the statement said. "A 10-year-old boy was killed as two insurgent rounds missed their mark in a village in Nari district," it said. 

Five ISAF soldiers as well as three locals were also injured in the conflict, it added. About 37,000 ISAF soldiers are being deployed in Afghanistan to hunt down militants and keep security. 
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Villagers forced out by "Taliban" nomads 
Tuesday July 10, 2007 (0708 PST)
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 KABUL: A new dimension to Afghanistan`s troubles has emerged with reports that thousands of villagers are being forced out of their villages in the centre of the country by gunmen said to be allied with the Taliban. 

The district of Behsood, in the central province of Wardak, is now a scene of devastation with dozens of burned, looted and deserted villages. 

"Don`t go that way, the Kuchis will cut your head off," shouted one man as this newspaper`s vehicle drove into the troubled area. 

With its lofty peaks, streams and carpet of wild flowers, Behsood ought to be a tourist`s delight. Instead, refugees are pouring out in clapped-out cars and minibuses; more than 4,000 are estimated to have fled so far. In the villages, week-old plates of half-eaten food sit on abandoned tables. 

"Since the last 10 days they have taken 80 villages," claimed one local government official, who did not wish to be named. The minority Shia Muslim inhabitants of Behsood, ethnic Hazaras who suffered acute religious persecution under the Taliban regime, claim the gunmen forcing them out of their homes are nomads allied to the Taliban. 
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Taliban shift tactics against Canadians 
GRAEME SMITH  From Tuesday's Globe and Mail July 10, 2007 at 4:56 AM EDT
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MASUM GHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Taliban attacks in a remote district of northern Kandahar have lured Afghan and Canadian forces into a series of bloody rescue missions in recent days as the insurgents increasingly seize upon the political value of far-flung administrative outposts.

The latest drama started Thursday morning in Ghorak district, when insurgents besieged a government centre roughly 85 kilometres northwest of Kandahar city, according to villagers, police and military officials.

Every day since then, convoys have rolled across the barren flatlands in an increasingly costly effort to prop up the detachment of Afghan police trapped in their mud-walled compound, drawing the Canadians and their allies far away from their main goal of protecting Kandahar city.

"On the map, this isn't an important place," said Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Walker, commander of the Canadian battle group. 
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Insecurity deprives thousands of students of food aid 
Tuesday July 10, 2007 (0708 PST)
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KABUL: Thousands of students attending 40 schools in Afghanistan's central Ghazni Province have not received food assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP) for over a month due to insecurity in the area, local officials told IRIN. 
"We have been unable to distribute wheat given to us by WFP to schools in some districts due to insecurity," said Mohammad Shafiq Hemat, deputy director for the education department in Ghazni. 

Insecurity and increasing attacks on its food convoys have impeded WFP's movement in the south, west and some parts in the east of Afghanistan, WFP said. 

"In the last 12 months, WFP has lost 600 tones of food, valued approximately at US $400,000, in 25 different attacks," said Jackie Dent, a WFP spokeswoman in Afghanistan. 

The attacks have mostly taken place on a major road which traverses most of the volatile south, southwest and southeastern provinces where armed clashes between Taliban insurgents and Afghan government forces, backed by international forces, have restricted aid activities. 
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Layton wants PM to demand air strikes' end
 TheStar.com July 10, 2007 David Olive Columnist
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U.S., NATO operations have claimed more lives of Afghan civilians than Taliban insurgency

Jack Layton, the federal NDP leader, will call on Stephen Harper today to demand that U.S. and NATO forces cease air strikes in Afghanistan. 

Layton's action comes at a time of increased concern in European capitals about civilian casualties in Afghanistan, which could erode public support for NATO's mission. 

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO secretary-general, expressed a similar warning last month. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has repeatedly condemned civilian deaths by Western forces.

Afghan elders and villagers in two regions, in western and northeastern Afghanistan, claimed on Saturday that 133 civilians were killed in recent air strikes. "Canada should lead the way in demanding a halt to these air strikes," Layton told the Star.

U.S. and NATO officials, while acknowledging that air strikes were called in to support Afghan forces in the western province of Farah, say they have "no information" about civilian deaths. And the Afghan officials said they could not confirm casualty counts brought to them by villagers, because verification was impossible in the Taliban-controlled regions. 

NATO spokesperson Maj. John Thomas said a "significant effort" was made to move civilians out of Farah before the air strikes.

Independent counts by the United Nations and the Associated Press have shown that U.S. and NATO operations have claimed more civilian lives than the Taliban insurgency. 

By the UN's count, as of July 1, civilian deaths caused by international or Afghan forces this year number 314, while insurgents have killed 279 civilians. The AP reports lower numbers, but a similar ratio: 213 civilians killed by international forces, and 180 by the Taliban. 
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Dozens dead as Pakistani troops storm mosque
ZARAR KHAN Associated Press July 10, 2007 at 5:17 AM EDT
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ISLAMABAD — Pakistani troops seized Islamabad's Red Mosque on Tuesday and attempted to flush out the remaining militants entrenched inside a women's religious school in fierce fighting that left at least 50 militants and eight soldiers dead, the army said.

The troops stormed the mosque compound before dawn. Eight hours later, they were still trying to root out the well-armed defenders said to be holding about 150 hostages. Officials said at least 50 women were allowed to go free from the complex. Some 26 children had earlier escaped.

Clashes this month between security forces and supporters of the mosque's hard-line clerics prompted the siege. The religious extremists had been trying to impose Taliban-style morality in the capital through a six-month campaign of kidnappings and threats. At least 67 people have been killed since July 3.

Amid the sounds of rolling explosions, commandos attacked from three directions about 4 a.m. and quickly cleared the ground floor of the mosque, army spokesman General Waheed Arshad said. Some 20 children who rushed toward the advancing troops were brought to safety, he said.
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AFGHANISTAN: 2,000 displaced by fighting in Helmand  
09 Jul 2007 18:49:00 GMT Source: IRIN
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GHERISHK, 9 July 2007 (IRIN) - About 2,000 people, mostly women and children, have left their homes in several parts of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, fleeing heavy fighting between Taliban insurgents and NATO-led forces. 

"We left our home and immovable property in Ghezak [a village in Gherishk District of Helmand Province] because of growing armed conflicts," Mohammad Qasim, a displaced father of five, told IRIN in Gherishk. 

Another family in Lashkargah, the provincial capital of Helmand Province, said they had left their village in Sangeen District after their house was destroyed in the fighting. 

"I also lost my younger brother and my four-year-old daughter in the fighting," Abdul Samad, father of the displaced family of seven, said. 

Assadullah Wafa, the governor of Helmand, said some families had been displaced by the clashes, but did not specify their numbers. 

Also, US forces in Afghanistan have confirmed the displacement of civilians from at least one location in the province. 

"I watched hundreds of civilians walk out of the city unopposed," a US soldier who was part of a military operation against the insurgents in Nahr-e-Saraj District, was quoted as saying in a US military press release on 2 July. 

Many displaced families have set up tents and mud huts in an arid desert in Gherishk District, to the north of Lashkargah - an area long affected by drought. Others have sought refuge in Lashkargah. 

Advised to evacuate 

Maj John Thomas, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told IRIN that prior to a military operation international forces advised non-combatants, through local shuras (councils), to temporarily leave the area in order to avoid civilian casualties. 
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Education in Afghanistan: A harrowing choice 
 By Barry Bearak Monday, July 9, 2007 
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QALAI SAYEDAN, Afghanistan: With their teacher absent, 10 students were allowed to leave school early. These were the girls the gunmen saw first, 10 easy targets walking hand-in-hand through the blue metal gate and on to the winding dirt road.

A 13-year-old named Shukria was shot in the arm and the back and teetered into the soft brown of an adjacent wheat field. Zarmina, her 12-year-old sister, ran to her side, listening to the wounded girl's precious breath and trying to help her stand. But Shukria was too heavy to lift and the two gunmen, sitting astride a single motorbike, suddenly sped closer.

As Zarmina scurried away, the men took a more studied aim at those they already had shot, finishing off Shukria with bullets to her stomach and heart. Then the attackers seemed to succumb to the frenzy they had begun, forsaking the motorbike and fleeing on foot in a panic, two bobbing heads - one tucked into a helmet, the other swaddled by a handkerchief - vanishing amid the earthen color of the concealing wheat.

Six girls were shot here on the afternoon of June 12; two of them died.

The Qalai Sayedan School, considered among the best in the central Afghan province of Logar, reopened only last weekend, but even with Kalashnikov-toting guards at the gate only a quarter of the 1,600 students have dared to return. Shootings, beheadings, burnings and bombings: Those are all tools of intimidation used by the Taliban and others to shut down hundreds of schools here. To take aim at education is to make war on the government. Parents find themselves with terrible choices.

"It is better for my children to be alive even if it means they must be illiterate," said Sayed Rasul, a father who decided to keep his two daughters at home.

There has been some progress toward development in Afghanistan, but most often the nation seems astride some pitiable rocking horse, with each lurch forward inevitably reversed by the back spring of harsh reality.

The schools are one vivid example. The Ministry of Education claims that 6.2 million children are now enrolled - or about half the school-aged population. And while statistics in Afghanistan can be unreliably confected, there is no doubt that attendance has multiplied far beyond that of any earlier era, with uniformed children now teeming through the streets each day, flooding classrooms in two and three shifts.
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2 children, Taliban leader die in raid
7/9/2007, 3:10 p.m. EDT By RAHIM FAIEZ The Associated Press    
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan soldier opened fire inside a military base Monday, killing four Afghans and wounding 12 others, including an American soldier, while a U.S.-led coalition raid in the east killed a Taliban leader and two children, officials said.

Afghan authorities, meanwhile, showed off a captured 14-year-old boy from Pakistan whom officials said had intended to set off a suicide bomb against an Afghan governor.

During the coalition raid at a home in eastern Paktia province, suspected militants fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. and Afghan troops, forcing the soldiers to return fire. Two children were killed in the exchange, said Maj. Donald Korpi, a U.S. spokesman
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## GAP (11 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 11, 2007*

Two Canadian soldiers hurt by roadside bomb
Updated Tue. Jul. 10 2007 5:49 PM ET Canadian Press
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Two Canadian soldiers were injured Thursday night by a roadside bomb 25 kilometres outside Kandahar city. 

A Leopard tank travelling as the last vehicle in a convoy hit an improvised explosive device at 8 p.m. local time, said military spokesman Lt. John Nethercott. 


The convoy was then ambushed by small arms fire as it travelled east on a major highway in the region. 


The incident wasn't serious enough to disable the tank, and the convoy pushed through the ambush to Patrol Base Wilson, Nethercott said. 


The injured soldiers were evacuated by helicopter to the multinational hospital at Kandahar Air Field. 


They are expected to return to active duty. 


"Because insurgents cannot succeed in conventional operations against Canadian forces there will be a continued use of IEDs by the Taliban," said Nethercott. 


"We will look at the circumstances surrounding this incident and learn what lessons we can." 


Until June of this year, the military estimated it had evaded approximately 150 IED attacks, but fell prey to around the same number. 


There have been at least four attacks already this month. 


On Monday, another Leopard tank was struck by an anti-tank mine en route to a police checkpoint. There were no injuries. 


Over the weekend, a suicide bomber rammed into a light armoured vehicle just outside Kandahar City, sending four soldiers to hospital. 


All four are expected to recover. 


On July 4, six Canadian soldiers were killed when their RG-31 armoured vehicle hit a massive roadside bomb which engineers said was the largest they'd seen since arriving in Afghanistan. 


The military has admitted it is hard to prevent IED strikes; two-thirds of the bombs they defuse are reported to them by local Afghans. 


But they say they place their faith in the armoured vehicles carrying troops to and from missions in the field.
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Kandahar elders say Canadians setting example  
By STEPHANIE LEVITZ July 10, 2007
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Chaos created by international troops roaring through Kandahar City on military convoys needs to be reigned in, Afghan elders said Tuesday, and they're counting on Canada's military leadership to do the job. 

The elders applauded Canadian efforts to make connections with civilians on the ground, such as a simple yet profound gesture to honour the families of two Afghans killed by coalition troops. 

Canadian troops weren't involved in the men's deaths earlier this month. But a presentation made by Canadian soldiers to compensate their families won the respect of several local elders who say Canada should teach other international forces to respect Afghan customs. 

"We know that when a suicide bomb hits a Canadian convoy, the Canadians aren't going to start shooting at everyone on the streets," said Kandahar's provincial governor Asadullah Khalid. 

"But we must be able to say that of other forces as well." 

City elders, along with provincial and national politicians, met Tuesday with Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant, the commander of Canada's current mission in Afghanistan, to discuss ways to mitigate the impact of military convoys on the residents of Kandahar City. 

Soldiers are visibly tense when riding through the city, the only route available to reach several of the main highways in the region. Cluttered with traffic, the routes present all manner of potential threats. 

The sudden sight of massive military vehicles bearing down on Kandahar's rough-hewn streets sends a jumble of jingle-trucks, donkey-driven carriages and taxicabs down side alleys and into gutters. Still, despite bright-red signs warning locals to stay back, occasionally some do stray into the path of the armoured convoys. 

Convoys have been breached by suicide bombers, such as one who struck a Canadian convoy over the weekend outside the city. Four Canadians were injured in the blast. 
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Afghan girls traded to settle debts, blood feuds
By ALISA TANG July 9, 2007
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JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AP) - Unable to scrounge together the money he needed to repay a loan to buy sheep, Nazir Ahmad made good on his debt by selling his 16-year-old daughter to marry the lender's son. 

"He gave me nine sheep," Ahmad said, describing his family's woes since taking the loan. "Because of nine sheep, I gave away my daughter." Seated beside him in the cramped compound, his daughter Malia's eyes filled with tears. She used a black scarf to wipe them away. 

Despite advances in women's rights and at least one tribe's move to outlaw the practice, girls are traded like currency in Afghanistan and forced marriages are common. Antiquated tribal laws authorize the practice known as "bad" in the Afghan language Dari, and girls are used to settle disputes ranging from debts to murder. 

Such exchanges bypass the hefty bride price of a traditional betrothal, which can cost upward of about US$1,000. Roughly two out of five Afghan marriages are forced, says the country's Ministry of Women's Affairs. 

"It's really sad to do this in this day and age, exchange women," said Manizha Naderi, the director of the aid organization Women for Afghan Women. "They're treated as commodities." 

Though violence against women remains widespread, Afghanistan has taken significant strides in women's rights since the hardline Taliban years, when women were virtual prisoners, banned from work, school or leaving home unaccompanied by a male relative. Millions of girls now attend school and women fill jobs in government and media. 

There are also signs of change for the better inside the largest tribe in eastern Afghanistan: the deeply conservative Shinwaris. 
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Backlash feared after radical cleric killed
Updated Tue. Jul. 10 2007 8:27 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
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A week-long standoff between Islamic militants and Pakistan's security forces ended with the storming of Islamabad's Red Mosque and the death of its top cleric.

Military commandos backed by paramilitary fighters stormed the mosque before dawn on Tuesday. 

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the mosque's chief cleric, was among the dead, along with about 50 of his followers. Eight soldiers died and another 29 were wounded.

Officials wouldn't estimate how many people were inside Tuesday night, but the Associated Press reported that a local relief agency had said the army requested 400 white funeral shrouds.

There were small demonstrations around the country of 147 million in support of the extremists. Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of hard-line Islamic parties, announced three days of mourning in the North West Frontier Province to protest the government's attack.
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Suicide blast in Afghanistan kills 17
By NOOR KHAN July 10, 2007 
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KABUL (AP) - A suicide bomber targeted a NATO patrol in a crowded marketplace in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 17 civilians, officials said. 

At least 30 people were among the wounded, including seven western soldiers, officials said. 

The attack - one of the deadliest of the year - targeted troops patrolling on foot through a bazaar, said Gen. Qassim Khan, the provincial police chief who provided the casualty figures. 

He said school children were among the wounded. 

The Dutch Defence Ministry said in a news release that seven Dutch troops were injured, one critically. 

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said the bomber showed "no concern for the potential deaths and injuries of civilians." 

Thomas added that some Afghans were treated at ISAF medical facilities. 

"It's pretty shocking that with the recent calls by some insurgent leaders to protect civilians in this conflict that they would undertake a massacre of civilians in a market place," Thomas said. 

The attack came at the southern tip of Uruzgan province, near the border with Helmand and Kandahar - among the most violent areas in Afghanistan and the heart of the poppy-growing region. 

The bombing appeared to be the third-deadliest of the year. On June 17, a suicide bomber exploded himself on a bus carrying police instructors in Kabul, killing 35 people. 

In February, a bomber carrying explosives detonated them outside the main U.S. base at Bagram Air Field, killing 23 people, during a visit by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney
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]Article Link
More Articles available here
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http://milnewstbay.pbwiki.com/CANinKandahar
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UK MPs criticise govt failure to reveal costs of Iraq, Afghanistan operations
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LONDON:The government has been severely criticised by a group of MPs for not outlining the costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for spending in the current year without parliamentary approval.

The House of Commons defence select committee said it was 'entirely unacceptable' that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) refused to show all its estimated annual spending at the start of the financial year as other departments are required to.

The MoD asked for 33.7 bln stg for the current year, but this does not include the expected costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 'so greatly underestimates the total expected cost of the MoD's activities in 2007-08', the all-party committee said.

Operations in the two war zones were forecast to exceed 1.7 bln last year, it added.

Committee chairman James Arbuthnot stressed that the committee was not objecting to the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'Military operations cannot be done on the cheap, and our troops need to be properly supported in the difficult task that they are doing,' he said. 

'Our objection is to the fact that the MoD does not show parliament the estimated costs of these operations at the beginning of the financial year, in the way that every other Department is required to.'

Steinmeier Wants More German Soldiers in Afghanistan  
Wednesday July 11, 2007 (0620 PST)
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BERLIN: Germany's foreign minister said he wants more troops in Afghanistan to train the local army and assist in reconstruction. But it's unclear whether Germany will continue to support the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. 
Frank-Walter Steinmeier has entered the debate over the future of Bundeswehr troops in Afghanistan. The foreign minister said he wants to see the number of troops increased, a view which differs from many others in his Social Democratic Party. 

This fall, the German government will decide whether to extend the mandates for some 3,500 German peacekeeping troops taking part in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and with the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. Most German troops have been stationed in the relatively stable northern part of the country. 

The parliament will also discuss whether to keep its six Tornado warplanes, which are flying reconnaissance missions throughout Afghanistan, stationed in the Afghanistan. Both the jets and Bundeswehr troops on the ground are prohibited from participating in combat missions. 
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Listen to vets, not Layton  
By EARL McRAE July 11, 2007 
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Should Canada pull its soldiers out of Afghanistan because some are being killed? 

That's the question I asked several veterans of World War II at the Perley and Rideau Veterans' Health Centre. Not one of them said yes, not one had a good word to say about NDP leader Jack Layton, who the other day bleated once again that Stephen Harper should immediately get our soldiers to hell back to Canada -- thus abandoning the Afghan government and people -- because six more Canadian soldiers were killed and that, tsk, tsk, is just terrible. 

It matters not to Layton that our soldiers do not want to come home, that they support the mission, that they believe progress is being made, that the families of the dead are not demanding their comrades come home, that they speak supportively of their dead loved ones. 

They get it, Layton doesn't. 

Jack Layton, leader of a party that supposedly anguishes for the oppressed and exploited in society, but when it comes to Canada being one of the NATO countries fighting -- at the request of the Afghan government, and at the gratitude of the Afghan people -- the oppressing and exploiting rogue Taliban, Layton's precious social philosophy goes flying out his window. 

Layton's acting as if it's Canadian civilian tourists being murdered. No Layton, they're soldiers. Soldiers in combat. Soldiers who know in combat their job is to kill or be killed. Soldiers who, with their NATO allies, have killed more Taliban than have killed them. Soldiers, fine Canadian soldiers, who, despite the deaths, truck on willingly and bravely in the name of freedom and democracy, in the face of possible death, for fellow humans on this planet. 

Does Jack Layton, for all his alleged brains, know that for the first three years of the six-year World War II, the allies were losing the war to the Germans? Does Mr. Jack Layton -- NDP weeping heart -- know that his grandfather, Gilbert Layton, minister-without-portfolio in the Quebec government of Premier Maurice Duplessis in World War II, resigned, yes, resigned, over its opposition to conscription? 

But not all soldiers disagree with Canadian political leader Jack Layton's howling to bring the soldiers home. Nope. The Taliban love it. If Layton's views reflect the soft Canadian underbelly, goes Taliban thinking, let's keep pouring it on. Layton says he supports our troops. No he doesn't. 
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New Afghan Police Units Help Counter Aggressive Taliban Tactics
By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service
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WASHINGTON, July 11, 2007 – A senior police advisor to the Afghan government described a new more heavily armed and heavily armored Afghan police unit during a conference call with online journalists covering the military. 
Army Col. Raymond Bouchard spoke to the “bloggers” about Afghanistan’s civil order police yesterday via telephone from Camp Phoenix, Afghanistan. 

The new units will help counter new, more aggressive Taliban tactics, Bouchard said. “They are a quick, rapid-response group that would help put down a national crisis or insurgent activity,” he said. 

The units will be more heavily armed and more heavily armored than traditional police units. “A lot of the equipment is going to look similar to what our Marines are currently using in Iraq, if the plan goes through,” Bouchard said. “Those are on order, and we're expecting that equipment to arrive by the end of the calendar year.” 

Officials are looking to supply the Afghans with mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles that Marines are using in Iraq. The heavily armored wheeled vehicles have a V-shaped bottom to deflect explosions. 

The first three civil order battalions have stood up, Bouchard said. However, most of the units’ members have completed their basic training just within the last two months, so it will take some time before the units are effective against the Taliban. 

Police training overall is moving along, the colonel said. Mentor teams are moving to Afghan districts and working with police officials. 

While all this is going on, the Taliban have stepped up attacks against NATO forces, Afghan security forces and Afghan civilians, which Bouchard said was expected. One reason for the increase in attacks is that summer is the traditional Afghan season for war. 
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Polish Soldiers Help Afghan Children Experience Kite-Flying Joy
By Army Spc. Micah E. Clare Special to American Forces Press Service
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FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan, July 10, 2007 – Best-selling books have painted pictures of Afghan children flying colorful kites high in blue skies against backdrops of snow-capped mountains that tower over quaint villages, but not all Afghan children are fortunate enough to own such simple, yet wonderful toys. 

Two Polish soldiers show an Afghan boy how to fly his new kite in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, June 24, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Micah E. Clare  
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. 

However, when the Polish Battle Group arrived in Ghazni province’s Andar district near the end of June, the local children were finally able to take part in an activity shared by children in almost all countries in the world: flying kites. 

While conducting patrols throughout Andar district during Operation Maiwand last month, the Polish soldiers of 1st and 2nd platoons of the Polish Battle Group’s Company B made many humanitarian aid deliveries to the poor families living in the area. 

The extreme poverty of some of the areas was quite a shock to many of the Polish soldiers. 

“It seems like time stopped here 2,000 years ago,” said Polish Pfc. Chris Demko, a gunner on one of the giant Rosomak armored personnel carriers. “We see these kids running around with nothing, not even shoes, and we want to change that.” 

Everywhere they went, children crowded around the vehicles as the smiling soldiers pulled out boxes of shoes, clothes, school supplies and toys. But the biggest hit of all were the multi-colored kites that the soldiers unfolded for them. 
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## GAP (12 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July  12, 2007*

At the arms dealers' crossroads
Don Martin, National Post Published: Thursday, July 12, 2007
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GHORAK, Afghanistan -Canadian soldiers winced with every footstep as we followed the local Afghan army commander down a gravel path they considered a prime candidate for land mining to the spot where Taliban had attacked the district compound four nights earlier.

Commander Said Ahmad stopped every few steps to retrieve machine-gun shells and point to the black gobs of dried blood he said had spilled from 100 insurgents attacking the district office, severely injuring a handful of his soldiers and prompting a large Canadian rescue mission this week.

"Don't worry. There aren't any mines," he insisted. My military escorts did not look convinced that an area recently vacated by retreating Taliban was left without boobytraps, but I digress.

The Taliban seized Ghorak headquarters from an under-equipped and underpaid Afghan national police two weeks ago. A far superior Afghan army battalion arrived to reclaim the mud-walled offices before the Taliban regrouped and attacked again on Saturday.

Now a Hotel Company convoy, which was hit by three buried road mines and a suicide bomber on its four-day trek to this isolated outback, had arrived to resupply and rebuild the headquarters while evacuating the injured to Kandahar City.

Ironically, while Canadians rode to this high-risk rescue, a convoy of police vehicles was fleeing the mountain in a panic and not expected to return.

The corrupt police force continues to pose headaches for Canadian military brass who cannot rely on them for reliable intelligence, professional law enforcement or, it seems, even holding down their own post.
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SLAIN SON BELIEVED IN MISSION
Family Of Captain Dawe Describes His Commitment, His Frustrations
Meagan Fitzpatrick, CanWest News Service Published: Thursday, July 12, 2007
Article Link

The family of Captain Matthew Dawe remembered the fallen soldier yesterday as a dedicated military man who believed in the cause he was fighting for in Afghanistan.

"You can well imagine that it has been very difficult and it will continue being difficult for years to come. But I know that Matthew went there because he wanted to go there," said the soldier's mother, Reine, at a news conference in Kingston.

She recalled how her 27-yearold son, who was married with a child, was injured leading up to his deployment and sped through his rehabilitation so that he wouldn't miss out on the mission.

"He was absolutely distraught because there was a possibility that his men would go there without him," she said. "There was no question that for him, there was a duty to be there."

Capt. Dawe was killed on July 4 along with five other Canadian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter when their vehicle was blown apart by a massive improvised explosive device. He was with the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton. Corporal Jordan Anderson, Private Lane Watkins and Corporal Cole Bartsch, were also from the Edmonton base, Captain Jefferson Francis was from CFB Shilo, Man., and Master Corporal Colin Bason was a reservist from New Westminster, B.C.
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Soldier's father presses Dion on Afghanistan
Updated Wed. Jul. 11 2007 9:34 PM ET Canadian Press
Article Link

HALIFAX -- The father of a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan last year wants federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion to support extending Canada's mission in the troubled country until it can stand on its own.

Jim Davis, whose son Cpl. Paul Davis died when his light armoured vehicle rolled over during a patrol in Kandahar in March 2006, said Wednesday he's convinced the Taliban will return to power if Canada doesn't stay the course past 2009.

"It's difficult to set a target,'' he told reporters during Dion's campaign-style town hall meeting in Halifax.

"That would be like in the Second World War saying we're going to come home in 1941. If we had done that where would we be today?''

Davis told Dion before an audience of nearly 200 people that he believed that good work and progress is being made in Afghanistan.

"If the prime minister were able to get more information out to the people of this country, so that we can see the accomplishments we are making, would your position on the deadline of 2009 change?'' he asked the politician, who wants Canada to leave Afghanistan by February 2009.
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Military Files Left Unprotected Online
By MIKE BAKER Associated Press Writer July 12, 2007, 8:03 AM EDT
Article Link

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq. Geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad. Plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. 

The military calls it "need-to-know" information that would pose a direct threat to U.S. troops if it were to fall into the hands of terrorists. It's material so sensitive that officials refused to release the documents when asked. 

But it's already out there, posted carelessly to file servers by government agencies and contractors, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. 

In a survey of servers run by agencies or companies involved with the military and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Associated Press found dozens of documents that officials refused to release when asked directly, citing troop security. 
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Afghanistan hit by twin attacks  
Article Link

At least eight people - six Afghan policemen and two civilians - have been killed in two bomb explosions in Afghanistan, police say. 
The policemen were killed in the eastern province of Khost, when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle patrolling with foreign forces. 

There are no reports of any casualties among soldiers in the convoy. 

Two civilians were killed when their vehicle was bombed in neighbouring Paktika province, Nato officials say. 

'Tip of the spear' 

Correspondents say this year the south and east of Afghanistan have seen the worst violence since 2001. 

The police said additional troops had been sent to the area of the Khost attack for search operations. 


Neither Nato nor US-led military forces have commented on the Khost attack, and it is not clear to which organisation the foreign troops belonged. 

Reports quoted a Taleban spokesman as saying they were responsible for the attack. 

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul says that both Khost and Paktika share long borders with Pakistan and both have been hit hard by insurgency-related violence. 

The police have suffered many casualties recently, as violence across the country has intensified. 
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More Articles available here
MILNEWS.ca

CANinKandahar


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## GAP (12 Jul 2007)

Long haul fight to defeat the Taleban  
By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Afghanistan  
Article Link

The battles may be raging in Helmand province, the suicide and roadside bombs are killing people across the country, but the Taleban have been hit hard by Nato's spring offensive. 

They admit themselves that the targeted killings of some senior commanders took the thrust out of their own planned spring attacks. 

And their biggest loss was Mullah Dadullah - a ruthless military commander whose brutality repulsed even his own fellow Taleban leaders. 

The British Special Boat Service (SBS) killed him in Helmand in May after a raid on a compound where his associates were meeting. 

Success stories 

There are many stories of betrayal, of his false leg being stolen so he couldn't get away, of his body being recovered from a river by his followers, but it seems careful intelligence-gathering and a lot of luck culminated in the removal of one of the most wanted Taleban targets. 

And it came on the back of two other success stories for foreign forces
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Aid failings 'hit Afghan progress'  
By David Loyn BBC developing world correspondent, Afghanistan  
Article Link

More than five years after the defeat of the Taleban in Afghanistan, the failure of international aid to make a difference to Afghanistan is now having serious security consequences. 

A recent Red Cross report showed that the worsening conflict in the south is now spreading to the north and west, alongside an upsurge of suicide bombing in Kabul. 

The amount of money promised per head for Afghanistan was far lower than in other recent post-conflict countries, and too little of it has gone into increasing the capacity of the Afghan government to run things for itself. 

In a report more than a year ago, the World Bank warned of the dangers of an 'aid juggernaut', a parallel world operating outside the government economy, with Afghans not even able to bid for major infrastructure contracts, such as roads. 

The quality of much of what has been delivered remains very low. In schools where lots of money has been spent and the project signed off as functioning and open, girls are still being taught in tents in the mud. 

There have been some successes. President Hamid Karzai often reminds audiences that 40,000 Afghan babies would not be alive today but for improvements in Afghan health care. 
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Afghan schools try to make new start  
By Soutik Biswas BBC News, Kabul  
Article Link

A group of girls returning home from school in Afghanistan's Logar province recently did not for a moment expect what lay ahead. 
As they walked down a dirt track, insurgents sprang out of the parched farms and began firing on them. 

Some of them fled into the farm, but two girls, one aged 13, the other 10, were killed in the ambush. Three of their friends were wounded. 

This kind of attack on schoolchildren, the first incident of its kind in Afghanistan, highlights how the insurgents are trying to disrupt education in the war-ravaged nation. 

A surge in violence over the past year threatens to neutralise the gains made by the country in sending its children back to school after the fall of the Taleban. 

In the past 13 months, 226 schools, many run from tents, have been burnt down by the insurgents. A total of 110 teachers and students have been killed in incidents of indirect violence and another 52 wounded, officials say. 
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Afghans primed for mortgage revolution 
By Soutik Biswas BBC News, Kabul  
Article Link

Some 20km north-east of Kabul, a unique experiment in housing and city planning in Afghanistan's history is under way. 

The government is building 20,000 homes - a mixture of apartments, row houses and commercial property - which it plans to mortgage to people. The 2,500-acre township will be called New Kabul. 

For a country which lost 33% of its homes during a quarter of a century of war, housing millions of local and returnee Afghans from the refugee camps of Pakistan and Iran is one of the biggest challenges facing the government in Kabul. 

New Kabul is an ambitious experiment in mortgaging homes - the first time ever in Afghanistan - in a country where a $380 per capita income makes it virtually impossible for most people to afford homes. 

Banks will buy these homes from the government and then mortgage them to buyers who, officials reckon, will have to pay $100 to $150 every month for 16 years before becoming owners. 

The government is pumping in some $200m for these homes, and hopes the country's 14-odd banks will be enthusiastic in picking them up, and offering them to buyers. 
More on link


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## a_majoor (12 Jul 2007)

From the blog "Exactly Right"

http://www.exactlyright.ca/blog/



> Some Good News Reported About the Afghan Mission
> 
> Posted By Dave Hodson On July 12, 2007 @ 7:14 am In Politics, Media, Freedom, Law & Order, International | No Comments
> 
> ...


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## GAP (12 Jul 2007)

U.S. to donate 186 aircraft to Afghanistan by 2012
By Sayed Salahuddin Reuters Thursday, July 12, 2007; 6:30 AM
Article Link

KABUL (Reuters) - The United States will provide six helicopter gunships to Afghanistan's fledgling air force in August this year, part of a plan to supply 186 aircraft to the country, the head of the Afghan air force said on Thursday.

The shipments, which will come in several batches to be completed by 2012, do not include jet fighters for the country where U.S. soldiers form the bulk of NATO and coalition troops in the fight against Taliban insurgents.

"We will be supplied with 186 aircraft, such as reconnaissance planes, helicopters, helicopter gunships and fixed-wing planes," General Abdul Wahab Qahraman told Reuters.

"America will provide us with all these aircraft and we are engaged in discussions about it, but we will not have jet fighters before 2012 and God knows what happens after that."

Washington will donate the aircraft to Afghanistan as part of its multi-billion dollar assistance effort, Qahraman said.

By 2012, Afghanistan will have full control over all of its air bases, except for Bagram, the major former Soviet base north of Kabul which is the hub for U.S.-led troops in the country.
More on link


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## GAP (12 Jul 2007)

NATO soldier killed in southern Afghanistan
Updated Thu. Jul. 12 2007 8:04 AM ET Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO says an alliance soldier has been killed and two others have been wounded today during an operation in southern Afghanistan. 

NATO is not releasing the nationalities of the soldiers or the exact location where the operation took place. 

A Canadian Forces spokesman in Kandahar says no Canadians were involved. 
End


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## MarkOttawa (14 Jul 2007)

Canadian, Afghan troops kill at least 15 Taliban
Reuters, July 14
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=7757253c-f804-420a-929c-62a3dfb3ad2e&k=18646



> Canadian troops drove Taliban insurgents into an Afghan army ambush on Saturday and then called in air strikes to hit the fleeing militants, killing at least 15, the Canadian army commander said.
> 
> The Canadian troops moved in under cover of darkness through grape, poppy and marijuana fields to a suspected Taliban compound in the village of Sangsar, near Kandahar, where fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar once lived and preached at the local mosque.
> 
> ...



Canadian, Afghan forces find weapons cache after bloody firefight
As many as 20 Taliban fighters killed in hour-long battle Saturday
CP in _Globe_ online, July 14
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070714.wafghancanadafight0714/BNStory/International/



> A bloody trail led Canadian troops to a cache of weapons hidden in a village in southern Afghanistan Saturday morning, after an intense firefight left 15 to 20 Taliban fighters dead.
> 
> The find came after Canadian and Afghan soldiers battled the Taliban for more than a hour as day broke in the Zhari region, about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar City.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (14 Jul 2007)

Bomb injures four Polish soldiers in Afghanistan
 FOCUS News Agency, 9 July 2007 
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n116741



> Warsaw. A roadside bomb injured four Polish troops north of the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday, two of them seriously, during a patrol near their base, Polish television reported cited by AFP.
> 
> The device exploded underneath the third vehicle in the convoy near their base at Bagram, private television channel TVN24 said, quoting Polish military officials.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (15 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 15, 2007*

Pardon for child 'suicide bomber'
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- A 14-year-old would-be suicide bomber from Pakistan, caught while on a mission to blow up an Afghan provincial governor, was pardoned on Sunday by President Hamid Karzai.

Taliban insurgents and their al Qaeda allies have launched a wave of suicide attacks against Afghan, NATO and U.S.-led forces in the last two years, seeking to show the government and its Western allies are incapable of providing security.

Most of the victims are Afghan civilians.

The first whiskers of a moustache on his top lip, Rafiqullah stood to one side of the Afghan president, his father, with a full beard, stood to the other, at a ceremony in the capital on Sunday.

Rafiqullah's father, a poor tradesman from South Waziristan in Pakistan, had sent his son to a religious school, or madrassa, to learn the Koran. Later, when he asked where his son was, the teachers there brushed him off, he said.

Then last month, the 14-year-old was caught wearing a suicide vest on a motorbike in the eastern Afghan city of Khost.

"Today we are facing a hard fact, that is a Muslim child was sent to madrassa to learn Islamic subjects, but the enemies of Afghanistan misled him towards suicide and prepared him to die and kill," Karzai told reporters, his arm on the boy's shoulder.

The boy and father bowed their heads as Karzai spoke.
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'New' al Qaeda tape may contain old clip of bin Laden
Article Link

 Osama bin Laden stresses the importance of martyrdom for Muslim causes in a videotape that purportedly contains a 50-second message from the al Qaeda leader.

The 40-minute videotape, whose audio was being translated from Arabic by CNN, was intercepted before it was to appear on several Islamist Web sites known for carrying statements from al Qaeda and other radical groups.

The videotape, titled "A Special Surprise from As-Sahab. Heaven's Breeze Part I," was made in the last four weeks, but the clips appear to be old, said Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs. There is no indication of where it was shot, and CNN cannot verify its authenticity.

"We're aware of the tape," a government official, who didn't want to be identified, told CNN. The official agreed that the tape's content is not necessarily new.

"There has not been, over time, a one-to-one correlation between release of a tape and any significant operation or attack afterward," the official added.
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Uruzgan, were the Dutch hoodwinked?  
by Louise Dunne 11-07-2007
Article Link

Tuesday's suicide attack in southern Afghanistan, which left at least 17 civilians dead and a number of Dutch soldiers injured, has again raised questions about Dutch involvement in Afghanistan. A year ago, the deployment of Dutch troops in the Afghan province of Uruzgan was widely seen as primarily a reconstruction mission but it's becoming clearer by the day that this is a military operation with all the attendant risks.

It's not the case that NATO's stated aim in Afghanistan has changed but public perception here in The Netherlands has, with reports of deaths and casualties a rude awakening for many. So how did this original misperception arise? Were Dutch voters hoodwinked by the politicians into supporting a fighting force dressed in the sheep's clothing of peacekeepers?

The original ISAF mission
The International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF) primary role is to support the government of Afghanistan in providing and maintaining a secure environment in order to facilitate the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

The official NATO statement on the purpose of the ISAF seems clear enough: establish security so rebuilding can begin. And security means fighting. But in the run-up to the 2006 decision to participate in the mission, the government put the emphasis on reconstruction. 
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Dutch ISAF troops 'failing'  
21-06-2007 Louise Dunne and RNW Internet Desk (Older article - interesting issues)
Article Link

Unease about Dutch involvement in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan is steadily growing in the Netherlands and the director of a Dutch aid organisation has warned that the mission may be doing more harm than good. 

The deaths of two soldiers over the past week has raised concerns about the dangers of the mission - but questions are also being asked about whether it's actually achieving anything and about the rising number of civilian casualties. 
The aim of the ISAF mission to Afghanistan is to establish security so reconstruction work can be carried out - but critics say troops in Uruzgan are fully occupied by fighting, leaving no time for rebuilding.

Focus for violence
Willem van de Put, director of Healthnet TPO, which provides medical aid in Afghanistan, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide that the ISAF soldiers are becoming a focus for the increasing violence:

"The original idea is that it would be the right balance between diplomacy
More on link

Canada commits $8 million to new Afghan projects
Updated Thu. Jul. 12 2007 10:15 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Canada will provide $8 million towards three new projects that are aimed at helping promote the rule of law and enhancing the justice system in Afghanistan.

The three projects are being implemented by the International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association, Rights and Democracy and CANADAEM.

"Today, Canada's New Government is partnering with trusted organizations to help Afghanistan make crucial legal reforms and build a sustainable foundation for the promotion of justice and the rule of law," International Cooperation Minister Josee Verner announced Thursday in a news conference.

"Canada's funding will help extend the scope of legal-judicial reform in Afghanistan to reach the most disadvantaged, including women and some of the most vulnerable elements of society."

The announcement came amid the results of a new poll that suggested Canadians are becoming more alarmed about the growing number of Canadian casualties in Afghanistan.

The Canadian Press-Decima Research poll found that 67 per cent of those asked felt the number of Canadians killed or wounded is unacceptably high -- even when considering whatever progress has been made rebuilding Afghanistan.
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Al Qaeda sharpening U.S. focus, officials fear
Article Link

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Al Qaeda is increasing its efforts to get operatives into the United States for an attack and has nearly all the resources it needs to carry out such a mission, a draft of a new U.S. government intelligence analysis says, according to two government officials familiar with it.

Those resources include a safe haven along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border from which the terrorist organization's leaders can operate, the officials told CNN.

The classified report, called a National Intelligence Estimate, represents the combined analyses of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. Officials spoke to CNN anonymously because the report is not final.

Several U.S. officials said the final report is expected to emphasize what policymakers have been saying publicly: /topics/al_qaeda" class="cnnInlineTopic">al Qaeda is regrouping and remains intent on attacking in the United States.  Watch analysis of why al Qaeda is growing »

On Wednesday, a senior government official told CNN about another analysis, prepared for senior U.S. policymakers, that concludes al Qaeda is the strongest it has been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, despite more than five years of military actions and counterterrorism operations by the United States and its allies.

That analysis also dealt with the issue of al Qaeda's resurgence in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last year gave primary responsibility for controlling the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan to tribal leaders.
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British soldier killed in Afghanistan   
 www.chinaview.cn  2007-07-13 05:30:52  
Article Link

 LONDON, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The British Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Thursday that a British soldier was killed in Afghanistan. 

    "It is with much sadness that the Ministry of Defense must confirm the death of a British soldier from the 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards near Gereshk in Helmand province, Afghanistan today, Thursday 12 July 2007." the MoD said in a statement. 

    "During an enemy contact, the soldier suffered a gunshot wound at approximately 0800 hours local time. He was rapidly evacuated by helicopter and despite the very best efforts of emergency medical staff he was pronounced dead on arrival at the field hospital." the ministry said. 

    Two other soldiers were injured in another part of the same operation, the ministry added. 

    The Grenadier Guards soldier was working as part of the 1st Battalion Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment Battlegroup, who are undertaking operations alongside Afghan National Security Forces to improve security in the Helmand River valley. 

    The fatality brought Britain's death toll in Afghanistan to 64.
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Jonathan Kay: How Washington fumbled away Afghanistan  
Article Link

When it comes to appraising the situation in Afghanistan, there are few sources more credible that Sarah Chayes. She is a Pashto-speaking American woman who has lived in Kandahar since 2002, helping ordinary Afghans through her NGO, the Arghand Cooperative. A year ago, she published The Punishment of Virtue, a fascinating account of her observations on post-9/11 Afghanistan. She also recently wrote a lengthy article for Boston Review (subsequently excerpted on the opinion pages of the National Post) about the many problems the country is facing, especially corruption. Canadian politicians and military leaders who visit Afghanistan often consult with her.

This week, Chayes wrote a fascinating piece for the op-ed page of The New York Times, in which she traces the root of the military problems that NATO troops (including Canadians) are facing in Afghanistan. Her surprising conclusion: the multinational NATO contigent is doing better than the all-American force it's replaced. The reason: NATO troops are good fighters -- but unlike the Americans, they also focus as closely on the underlying social and political context as on the business of fighting.

In fact, Chayes concludes that things would be a lot better in Afghanistan if NATO had been brought in earlier. Her conclusions in this respect are worth quoting at length:

But if NATO is doing better than the United States, why is Afghanistan doing worse? The answer is twofold. NATO was brought in too late, and under false pretenses.

Within days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, NATO voted to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty — its core principle, which states that an armed attack on one member will be viewed by the others as an attack on themselves. Never before in the history of the organization had the principle been activated. The American reaction was thanks but no thanks. Our government was sure we could go it alone in Afghanistan, that allies would be an inconvenience. 

In 2003, NATO moved peacekeeping forces into Kabul and parts of northern Afghanistan. But not until 2005, when it was clear that the United States was bogged down in Iraq and lacked sufficient resources to fight on two fronts, did Washington belatedly turn to NATO to take the Afghan south off its hands. And then it misrepresented the situation our allies would find there. NATO was basically sold a beefed-up peacekeeping mission. It was told, in effect, that it would simply need to maintain the order the United States had established and to help with reconstruction and security. 
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Chinese-Made Armor-Piercing Bullets Found in Iraq, Afghanistan
By Sharon Weinberger July 13, 2007 | 10:43:02 AMCategories: Armor, Eye on China   
Article Link

Is there a China connection with Iraq and Afghanistan? Yes, according to a departing senior Pentagon official, who says that the Chinese-origin armor-piercing bullets -- of particular concern to U.S. and coalition troops - have showed up in the two countries. This article, from the Financial Times, came out a few days ago, but I think was lost in the shuffle of Iraq news, so it's worth highlighting here:
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Withdrawal from Iraq will affect India too: US
14 Jul 2007, 1030 hrs IST,IANS
Article Link

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration suggests that a premature withdrawal of US forces from Iraq would create a terror base there and cause reverberations across the globe from Afghanistan to Pakistan to India. 

President George Bush "believes that leaving, in the absence of conditions that will allow the Iraqis to support themselves, would result in the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and the kind of security challenge that would make your head spin," White House spokesman Tony Snow said on Friday. 

Painting a very scary scenario of the situation after US withdrawal, he said, "...what would happen is that you would have a terror base in Iraq; you would have a strengthened Iran; you would have a rejuvenated Al-Qaida that gets a 'see, told you so,' would have increased ability to recruit throughout the globe." 

"Furthermore, our allies in the region are going to say, well, wait a minute, we're not going to rely on the Americans. We'll cut side deals with Al-Qaida or Iran. You'll have increasing instability in Afghanistan that will bleed over into Pakistan, that will have ramifications in India," Snow suggested. 

"On the other side, you take a look at what happens, and you have instability throughout the Saudi peninsula, it moves across the Middle East into North Africa. It's certainly going to have impact on Europe," he said. 

"So the president understands that actions have consequences, and far-reaching consequences," Snow said reiterating Bush's resolve to stay put in Iraq despite a House vote requiring US forces to start leaving within 120 days and increasing restiveness among his own Republican senators. 
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Deadly attack on Pakistani troops   
Article Link 

North Waziristan is often the scene of troop clashes with militants 
The number of soldiers killed in a suicide attack on a military convoy in north-western Pakistan has risen to 24, a Pakistan army spokesman has said. 
Twenty-nine others were also hurt when the convoy was hit in the remote tribal region of North Waziristan. 

Major General Waheed Arshad admitted the attack could be linked to the storming of the Red Mosque this week. 

Troops have been sent close to the area amid fears militants may be planning a "holy war" in response to the siege. 

Although no-one has claimed responsibility for Saturday's bomb attack, Maj Gen Arshad acknowledged that it could be a response to the army raid on the Red Mosque in Islamabad on Wednesday. 
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Opposition Greens to hold special party congress on German
Afghanistan military mission Berlin, July 14, IRNA Germany-Afghanistan-Greens 
Article Link

Rank-and-file members of the opposition Greens have forced a special party congress on the future of Germany's military operations in Afghanistan, press reports said Friday. 

The executive board of the Green party has announced the convening of a special party meeting for September 15 to discuss the party's stance on German Tornado fighter jets missions over war-stricken southern Afghanistan and the German army's role in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as well as 'Operation Enduring Freedom'. 

Some 44 district and one regional party affiliations had demanded the holding of such a party meeting following an inner-party dispute over future German military mandate. 

The venue for the special party congress has yet to be decided. 

"I view it as a good opportunity to talk very broadly and also very publicly over the perspective for Afghanistan, Green party whip Steffi Lemke told dpa. 

In other related news, Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung reaffirmed that German troops would not be deployed to southern Afghanistan. 
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Failure in Afghanistan risks rise in terror, say generals
Military chiefs warn No.10 that defeat could lead to change of regime in Pakistan 
Nicholas Watt and Ned Temko Sunday July 15, 2007 The Observer 
Article Link

Britain's most senior generals have issued a blunt warning to Downing Street that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in neighbouring Pakistan.
Amid fears that London and Washington are taking their eye off Afghanistan as they grapple with Iraq, the generals have told Number 10 that the collapse of the government in Afghanistan, headed by Hamid Karzai, would present a grave threat to the security of Britain.
More on link


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## GAP (17 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 17, 2007*

Pakistan Truce Over
Lethal Turbulence Ends 10 Months Of Peace Along Afghan Border
By GRIFF WITTE And IMTIAZ ALI | Washington Post July 16, 2007 
Article Link

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A controversial peace deal between the Pakistani government and local tribal leaders in an area where al-Qaida is known to be regrouping appeared to collapse Sunday, as tensions escalated and a fresh wave of bombings killed at least 44 people.

The 10-month-old deal in the restive region of North Waziristan was designed to curb cross-border attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. But it has been widely criticized by security analysts and, lately, U.S. officials, who said it provided terrorist groups including the Taliban and al-Qaida with a safe haven in which to train recruits and plot attacks.

On Sunday, local Taliban fighters proclaimed the deal dead and announced the start of an all-out guerrilla war against the Pakistani army. Pakistani officials stopped short of conceding the agreement's demise, but the military has been moving tens of thousands of troops toward troubled spots along the border in recent days, after the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, last week announced a new crackdown on extremism.
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Van Doos off to AfghanistanReady for risks, soldiers say  
By CP July 16, 2007 
Article Link

QUEBEC -- For 200 Quebec-based soldiers, the prospect of leaving their families behind for the uncertainty and dangers of Afghanistan weighed heavily as they bid farewell to their loved ones while trying their very best to hide their anxiety and trepidation. 

Tears flowed and hugs were plentiful as the first wave of troops from the Royal 22nd Regiment boarded a plane bound for Kandahar under a light rain yesterday at Jean Lesage International Airport in Quebec City. 

In total, more than 2,000 soldiers, known as the Van Doos, will make their way to Afghanistan from their home base at nearby CFB Valcartier by August to take over from Canadian troops already stationed there. 

"It's evident that there is a higher risk for most of the missions, but there are lots of factors that are out of our control," said Cmdr. Jason Langelier. "We have enough training ... as long as we stay motivated and we apply what we know over the six months, we'll all come back together and will have made a difference," he added. 

Up to the challenge 

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor was in attendance, accompanied by International Co-operation Minister Josee Verner, offering encouragement and support. 

O'Connor told the troops: "Know that you are in our hearts and in our thoughts. Know that we are proud of you
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Roadside bombing wounds 6 in S. Afghanistan  
July 16, 2007 
Article Link

Six persons including three policemen were injured by a roadside bombing in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province on Sunday, provincial police chief said.

A roadside bomb injured three policemen and three civilians at noon in Kandahar city, the provincial capital, Syed Aqa Saqib told Xinhua.

No one has claimed responsibility and an investigation is under way, Saqib said.
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Hunting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan
Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:55 AM IST By Finbarr O'Reilly
Article Link


SANGSAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The grinding metallic noise of tanks and diesel engines fade into the desert night and the only sound is our breathing and the crunch of dozens of army boots on dry earth.

It feels like we are alone in the barren, moonlit landscape, but we're not. Somewhere out there lurk the Taliban.

A cacophony of barking floats through the heavy air as dogs from nearby mud villages pick up our scent.

Foreign troops from the NATO-led coalition and the Afghan National Army (ANA) are on the hunt for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province.

It is a strategic point in the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban drug smuggling routes into neighbouring Pakistan.
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Hunter-Killer robot planes launched in Afghanistan
By BARRY WIGMORE - Last updated at 18:05pm on 16th July 2007
Article Link

The Royal Air Force has ordered three "hunter-killer" robot planes from America for use in Afghanistan. 

The state-of-the-art unmanned drone, named the Reaper because of its deadly attack capability, is bigger and flies higher, longer and faster than the Predator surveillance aircraft currently on patrol in the fight against the Taliban and in Iraq. 

The Reapers, priced at £8 million each, plus service costs, will be flown by remote control by RAF "pilots" operating them via satellite link from 7,000 miles away at the US Air Force's Nellis base in Nevada. 

There are 44 RAF crew already flying Predators from Nellis and it is easy for them to upgrade to Reapers. 

At first the RAF Reaper planes will be unarmed and used only for reconnaissance. 

But defence experts last night predicted that it will not be long before they are used in full attack mode. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "The aircraft we have ordered are capable of using the weapons – you just need to clip them on and install an extra bit of kit inside to fire them." A military expert said: "These aircraft have awesome firepower and the great thing is there is never any danger to their crew because they are safely tucked away on the ground thousands of miles from the battlefield." The news of the RAF order came as it was revealed that the US Air Force is planning to send the world's first robot attack squadrons – each with 16 similar planes whose full name is the MQ-9 Reaper – into battle in Afghanistan and Iraq later this year. 
More on link

Canadian military shields Afghan village from Taliban
Don Martin, CanWest News Service Published: Monday, July 16, 2007
Article Link

GHORAK, Afghanistan -- Until the Taliban came calling last month, this mud-walled mountain village in northwestern Kandahar province was home to 100 families. 

There was a medical centre, a school and a robust farming community churning out crops of opium-bound poppies supplemented by the more legally desirable, but less lucrative, honeydews and cucumbers. 

But the doctor disappeared three weeks ago after a Taliban fighter gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. Then the school teacher fled after being warned her next day in the classroom would be her last alive. The political leadership that used to preside over the region from the compound abdicated their responsibilities a couple of years ago. 

The heart of their community scared off, the village emptied of villagers. Now there are just seven families waiting -- and hoping -- Canadians can turn their lives around. 

The second half of a massive convoy of tanks, light armoured vehicles and supply trucks rumbled into Ghorak under the cover of darkness Sunday night and set to work fortifying and rebuilding the defences of the regional political centre at sunrise Monday. 

A day earlier, six village elders had met with Maj. Alex Ruff of Hotel Company to learn about a Canadian mission they hope will restore stability and bring back the residents.

It would be easy to denounce this particular mission as a waste of military manpower, after more than 100 bored soldiers lounged around with little to do for 10 days while headquarters slowly dispatched another convoy loaded with barbed wire, sand bags and barriers to fortify the outpost. 

As this three-day mission rolls into its 11th day, it seems to me that brass at the Kandahar Air Field deserve a slap on the head for organizational ineptitude and, frankly, dispatching an overkill of firepower, given that locals report only a dozen or so insurgents in the area. 
More on link

Afghanistan fires governor after comments criticizing government's effectiveness  
The Associated Press Monday, July 16, 2007 
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's government fired a provincial governor days after he said Afghans are distancing themselves from President Hamid Karzai and that a "vacuum of authority" is allowing the Taliban, al-Qaida and other groups to gain power.

Abdul Sattar Murad, the governor of Kapisa province, was fired because "he sowed discord" among the people and provided U.S.-led coalition troops with wrong information about the people of the province, said a statement from the Ministry of Interior, which appoints the country's 34 governors.

The removal comes only days after Murad gave an interview to Newsweek magazine highly critical of the central government.

"In remote parts of the country there is practically a vacuum of authority, a vacuum of power. Somebody will have to fill that vacuum. Either the criminals fill that vacuum or the Taliban and al-Qaida do," Murad said in the interview.

"All the political parties are now drifting away from the national leadership. All over the country, the people are distancing themselves from the government," he was quoted as saying. "Many of the elders, those who have influence, feel they have been left out and are not in the same convoy with the government."

The government said the decision to sack Murad was made before the interview was published. Murad denied that allegation and believes his comments led to his removal.

"If they removed me because I have given a statement to Newsweek I welcome that," Murad said while speaking inside his private office in Kabul. "After all it is the right of the government to remove or to appoint (people)."
More on link

Troops in Afghanistan Detain Five Militants; Police Find Weapons Cache
American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, July 17, 2007 
Article Link

Afghan and coalition troops detained five militants today, and Afghan police found a large weapons cache yesterday, military officials reported. 

Credible intelligence led coalition forces to compounds in the Dih Bala district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, where they detained five men suspected of housing militants with ties to al Qaeda. Soldiers found magazines, weapons, grenades and chest racks during a search of the compounds. 

“Coalition and Afghan forces are working to remove insurgents who conduct operations that threaten the peaceful people of Afghanistan and undermine the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,” Army Maj. Christopher Belcher, a coalition spokesman, said. 

In other news, Afghan national police recovered a large weapons cache yesterday at a former Taliban training site during a unilateral operation in the Musa Khel district of Khowst province. 

Afghan national police planned and executed the mission without coalition-partnered units, using credible intelligence, officials said. 

The police recovered 10 107 mm rockets, 22 122 mm mortar fuses, 25 82 mm mortar rounds, 150 anti-aircraft rounds and 5,000 rounds of medium machine-gun ammunition. 
More on link

More Articles available here
MILNEWS.ca

CANinKandahar


----------



## GAP (18 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 18, 2007*


Two wounded in attack on Turkish convoy in Afghanistan
Güncelleme: 11:16 TSİ 18 Temmuz 2007 Çarşamba
Article Link

NATO officials have yet to make a statement on the incident
KABUL - Two people, one of them a Turkish security official, were wounded Wednesday when a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of Turkish vehicles in the Afghan province of Wardak. 

The convoy, which was carrying Turkish embassy official, was attacked at around 9:00 am Afghanistan time.

According to a local police officer, a suicide bomber with explosives attached to his body detonated his device close to the convoy as the vehicles were travelling on a road in Wardak, south west of Kabul.

According to a statement by the Turkish Embassy in Kabul, shots were fired at the convoy after the explosion, wounding one Turkish guard.
More on link

Pakistan Security Forces On High Alert
Bombs Tuesday And Wednesday Killed 16 People, Wounded 7
(CBS) By CBS's Farhan Bokhari, reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan. 
Article Link

Pakistan's security forces are on high alert after intelligence reports warned of more suicide attacks following a brutal attack Tuesday night which killed 16 people. 

The warnings contained in the latest intelligence assessments suggest militants may be planning to hit other important targets in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, as well as locations in other large cities such as Karachi, Pakistan's southern port city. 

"The information we have leads us to believe that active planning is going on to target other locations," a senior Pakistani security official told CBS News, commenting on the condition that he would not be named. 

Early Wednesday morning, seven people including a soldier were wounded when a roadside bomb targeting a military convoy blew up in the restive north Waziristan region, near the Afghan border. The attack appears to further diminish hopes for resurrecting a crucial peace agreement in north Waziristan which broke down on Sunday when tribal leaders from the region unilaterally pulled out of it. 

That agreement, struck last autumn, was the cornerstone of the Pakistani government's efforts to consolidate a fragile peace process. Under the agreement, the government announced it was pulling back military troops in return for promises from tribal leaders to stop anyone from venturing into Afghanistan to fight Afghan forces and Western troops, including the U.S. military. 

Since the agreement was struck, Western officials including U.S. officials have criticized it on the grounds that it had given sanctuary to militants holed up in the north Waziristan region and even allowed some to travel back and forth to Afghanistan, all with the purpose of joining the bands of anti-U.S. "Taliban" fighters. 
More on link

Ex-commanders says Pakistan could be next Afghanistan
By Iqbal Khattak
Article Link

PESHAWAR: There is a serious risk of Pakistan going the way of Afghanistan if the state and Islamist militants remain in conflict, say former Afghan commanders who fought in the jihad against Soviet forces. 

Afghanistan has been ravaged by almost continuous war since the late 1970s, when mujahideen challenged the Moscow-backed regime in Kabul. With growing unrest in the NWFP and the tribal areas, where there have been repeated suicide attacks on security forces, Pakistan is exhibiting similar symptoms to Afghanistan, the Afghan commanders say. “Pakistan may face a worse crisis than Afghanistan as this country has nuclear weapons,” former Afghan commander Haji Muhammad Zaman warned. 

Pakistan was the transit route for US-backed Muslim volunteers and weapons sent into Afghanistan against the Red Army occupation and Balochistan and NWFP bore the brunt of the wave of “Islamisation” that the military regime of Gen Ziaul Haq, with US-backing, promoted to inflict defeat on the former Soviet Union. Peshawar was the de facto capital of the Afghan resistance against the communists. 

Zaman said the angry reaction of people in NWFP and the tribal areas to the Lal Masjid operation shows and suicide attacks on security forces show how deeply radicalised the Pashtuns have become. 
“How can you change the people so soon who underwent 30 years of radicalisation? Excessive use of force is no solution to keep people away from what we call extremism,” the Afghan commander said. In 2007, the phenomenon of ‘Talibanisation’ has spilled over into several Frontier districts from Waziristan. “Things are happening even outside Waziristan now,” Haji Masood Khan, former commander for Afghan leader Pir Syed Ahmed Gilani, told Daily Times. “There is a danger that Pakistan may go Afghanistan’s way as I look at the current situation in this country.” 
More on link


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## GAP (18 Jul 2007)

Afghanistan's fate hinges on military presence: PM
Updated Wed. Jul. 18 2007 10:56 AM ET Canadian Press
Article Link

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper says only a stepped-up military presence in Afghanistan can prevent the troubled country from again becoming a haven for terrorists.

Canada went to Afghanistan because it was a failed state responsible for training the terrorists that killed two dozen Canadians in the World Trade Centre attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Harper said.

Afghanistan represented a security threat to the world then, he said at the end of a Latin American trip, and it will again if NATO countries don't step up their efforts to resist the Taliban and al-Qaida insurgency.

"I don't think it's an option for Canada or anybody else to close our eyes and pretend there aren't severe problems in other parts of the world,'' he said.

Unless Western nations like Canada "take our international responsibilities seriously, these problems will come back to haunt us,'' he added.

Harper, who was heading to Barbados, recently maintained that he would not extend Canada's military mission in Afghanistan beyond its scheduled end in February 2009 without a "consensus'' in Parliament. He repeated that Wednesday.

He has also said NATO's failure to persuade other countries in the alliance to shoulder some of the burden in Afghanistan would be a factor in Canada's participation in the combat mission there beyond 2009.

The mission is coming under increasing scrutiny as casualties mount _ now 66 Canadian military deaths _ and progress appears slow.

Canada's concerns about Afghanistan were buttressed by a a British parliamentary committee report that said the NATO mission in Afghanistan has been undermined by serious strategic mistakes and a failure to provide adequate troops.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (18 Jul 2007)

Afghan stats update [good maps]
_Flit_ (Bruce Rolston), July 17
http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2007_07_17.html#006224



> A quick note on the fighting in Afghanistan last year. In October I wrote a post about the geographic distribution of NATO combat deaths. It seemed appropriate to do an update.
> 
> Here, for reference, is the distribution of NATO combat deaths by province in Afghanistan, for 2005. At the time, the only real continuing hot spot was Kunar province, where 23 of that year's 73 fatalities occurred (31%):*
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (18 Jul 2007)

We are not alone in saying no
Globe and Mail, July 18, By MICHAEL BYERS  
http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070718/COALLIES18/Comment/comment/comment/3/3/3/



> Travelling through Europe this month, I've been struck by how national debates in different NATO countries take place in isolation from each other. Many Germans, for instance, assume Canadians support the counterinsurgency mission in southern Afghanistan. Similarly, many Canadians assume the 3,000 German soldiers in relatively safe northern Afghanistan aren't going anywhere soon.
> 
> In fact, 54 per cent of Germans think their soldiers should be withdrawn. In the Netherlands, 58 per cent want the 2,000 Dutch troops brought home by next year. Even in Poland, where the government strongly backs the mission and none of its 1,100 soldiers have been killed, a staggering 78 per cent oppose the Polish presence in Afghanistan...
> 
> ...



Thousands more troops needed to bring peace to Afghanistan, say MPs
_The Times_, July 18
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2093568.ece



> Thousands more soldiers should be deployed to Afghanistan to take on the resurgent Taleban and to accelerate the pace of construction projects, a committee of MPs said yesterday.
> 
> The Commons Defence Committee, giving warning that the shortage of troops threatened to undermine the whole campaign in Afghanistan, said that the size and strength of the Nato-led force should be “considerably greater than the international community is at present willing to acknowledge, let alone to make”.
> 
> ...



Nato faces Afghanistan 'problems' (very good map at bottom of which ISAF troops are where)
BBC, July 18
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6903403.stm

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (19 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 19, 2007*

ISAF: powerful EFP bombs found in Afghanistan   
www.chinaview.cn  2007-07-18 20:05:14   
Article Link

    KABUL, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Five powerful explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), which are commonly seen in Iraq, have been found in Afghanistan this year, but these sophisticated bombs apparently are not connected to those used in Iraq, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Wednesday. 

    Five EFPs, which can penetrate armed vehicles and have caused numerous civilian and military casualties in Iraq, were found in Afghanistan this year, Col. Tom Kelly, deputy chief of ISAF counter-bombs operations, told a press conference. 

    The first EFP exploded south of the Afghan capital Kabul in January, but caused no casualties, Kelly said, adding the other four were captured either in the western Herat province bordering Iran or in Kabul before they went off. 

    This is the first time that EFPs were found in Afghanistan. This new trend has caused lots of attention and concerns among international troops deployed here, as Iraq-style bombs would greatly strengthen militants and terrorists here if transferred into Afghanistan. 
More on link

Most Canadians oppose Afghanistan mission: poll
Updated Wed. Jul. 18 2007 11:21 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Only seven per cent of Canadians strongly support the Afghanistan mission, while the total number of those opposed in Quebec remains high at 75 per cent, according to a new poll by The Strategic Counsel. 

The survey, conducted between July 12-16 for CTV and The Globe and Mail, suggests the level of intensity for Canadians strongly opposed to the mission is far greater than those who are in firm support: (percentage point change from a July 12-15, 2006 poll in brackets): 

Total Support: 36 per cent (-3) 
Strongly Support: 7 per cent (-1) 
Support: 29 per cent (-2) 
Oppose: 31 per cent (same) 
Strongly oppose: 27 per cent (+2) 
Total Oppose: 59 per cent (+3) 

Peter Donolo, a partner with The Strategic Counsel, told CTV.ca the numbers show only a small minority of core supporters for deploying troops to the war-ravaged country. 
More on link

Germans, Afghans abducted in Afghanistan
July 19, 2007
Article Link

(CNN) -- Search efforts were under way in Afghanistan on Thursday after two German citizens and at least two Afghan residents were reported abducted the day before.

"According to information we have received, two German nationals along with their Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in Maidan Wardak province yesterday," said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. "We have started an extensive operation to find them. The kidnap took place in the Jaghato district of the province."

The Associated Press identified two Afghans -- a driver and a translator -- as being abducted. Reuters placed the number of kidnapped Afghans at six.

Taliban spokesman Zabeeullah Mujahid said the group was not aware of its fighters seizing any foreign nationals.

"I have contacted all our forces in the area but no one knows about it," Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location.
More on link

Fickle warlord 'ends' insurgency
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- Afghan rebel leader and Taliban and al Qaeda ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has declared a ceasefire against Afghanistan's government, he said in a statement.

Hekmatyar is wanted by the Afghan government and U.S. authorities, but the veteran fighter who once led the biggest mujahideen faction against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation has a history of changing sides and shifting alliances.

Aired by two private television channels and circulated in Kabul, the statement said:

"Members of Hezb-i-Islami have stopped and refrained from brother killing and from the destruction of the country and assumed political activity because it believes the Americans, like the British and Russians, will pull out (of Afghanistan)," said the statement obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

"Hence, now we have to unite for creating an Islamic system and start our political efforts so that we can provide a tranquil life and everlasting peace for our Muslim countrymen," it said.

It was not immediately clear when and where the statement was issued and Hekmatyar's sympathizers could not be contacted for verification. An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said he was not aware of the statement and other government officials were not immediately available for comment.
More on link

Militants Kill Afghans, Filipino in Series of Attacks in Afghanistan  
By VOA News 18 July 2007  
Article Link

Suspected Taleban militants killed at least 11 Afghans and a Philippine engineer in a series of attacks in Afghanistan Wednesday.

In one incident, insurgents ambushed a police convoy along a major highway in the southern province of Zabul, killing six officers.

Also Wednesday, two suicide bombers tried to storm the main police station in the southeastern town of Khost. Afghan officials say one of the bombers exploded himself, killing three Afghan officers. The second attacker was shot dead by police.

A suicide bomber also blew himself up near a Turkish diplomatic convoy on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul. Officials say the convoy came under small arms fire after the blast, wounding a Turkish guard. No other casualties were reported.

In other violence, a Philippine engineer died in a rebel attack on a road construction crew in the southeastern province of Paktia.
More on link

Militants behead 'US spy'
July 19, 2007 05:19am From correspondents in Pakistan Article from: Agence France-Presse 
Article Link

SUSPECTED Islamic militants in a restive Pakistani tribal town overnight beheaded a man accused of spying for US forces across the border, officials said.

The militants dumped the body of the unidentified victim aged in his 20s in an isolated area near the northwestern town of Khar in the Bajaur tribal district, local administration official Fazle Rabbi said.

"Local villagers found the beheaded body and informed us," he said. 

The militants left a note near the body which read: "Those who spy for US forces will meet this fate", the official said. 

It was the second killing this week of an alleged US spy in the area, after militants yesterday slit the throat of a 40-year-old Afghan refugee from the neighbouring Afghan province of Kunar.
More on link

Army shells militants in border region
By Griff Witte and Kamran Khan, Washington Post  |  July 19, 2007
Article Link

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan expanded operations against extremist fighters yesterday and the military began shelling targets in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan following an insurgent assault that killed 17 troops.

The fighting in North Waziristan, an area where Al Qaeda leadership is believed to be active, went on late into the night, residents said. A local official confirmed that at least six artillery explosions were heard in the hills that surround Miram Shah, the region's main town. It was not immediately clear who or what had been targeted.

The shelling occurred during a period of deep turmoil in Pakistan, with radical fighters carrying out a string of deadly attacks after a government raid against a mosque in Islamabad last week.

On Sunday, Taliban fighters in North Waziristan renounced a controversial peace pact that had held for 10 months and had prevented the military from carrying out operations in the area. The pact had angered US officials, who considered it a primary reason why Al Qaeda was able to reorganize.
More on link

Detainee in Afghanistan wins ruling
A federal judge in the U.S. upholds the right of a Yemeni man held as an enemy combatant to seek his freedom.
By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer July 19, 2007 
Article Link

A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday upheld the right of a Yemeni man held as an enemy combatant at a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan to seek his freedom.

The ruling is the first issued in a case filed on behalf of a foreign detainee held by the U.S. outside the country or the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. It comes less than a month after the Supreme Court said it would again consider the rights of detainees at Guantanamo in the fall.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates cited the high court's June action as a key reason for his decision. 

Wednesday's ruling stems from a case filed in September on behalf of Fadi Al Maqaleh, who is being held at the military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. The International Justice Network, a legal advocacy group, filed a habeas corpus petition seeking Maqaleh's release, alleging that he had been illegally taken into custody by the U.S. and held without charges for more than five years.

Bates, appointed to the court by President Bush, said it was possible that when the Supreme Court considered the rights of detainees in the fall, it "could issue a broader decision in favor of the detainees, one whose reasoning applies not just to Guantanamo, but to Bagram and other locations as well."
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (19 Jul 2007)

Forces hope to lease a ship by September to ease shipments to Afghanistan
_Ottawa Citizen_, July 19
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=070cf1c0-414d-4367-bb6d-96f94c9dcd80



> The Canadian military hopes to have a ship leased by September to handle the movement of cargo for its Afghanistan mission.
> 
> The Canadian Forces has been chartering space on cargo ships as well as using aircraft to move the tens of thousands of tonnes of equipment and supplies that are needed to keep the Afghanistan mission going. But the military is keen to have an assured means of shipping and to reduce its reliance on the more expensive method of flying in supplies.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (19 Jul 2007)

We are failing in Afghanistan
The costs of losing this war far outweigh those of Iraq. We must urgently change the approach 
_The Guardian_, July 19, by Paddy Ashdown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2129594,00.html



> Failure is not yet inevitable. But it is now likely, and will remain likely until we increase resources and redress the disastrous failure of the international community to get its act together. The tragedy is that this is happening despite a high level of professionalism and a lot of raw courage among our soldiers. And it is happening despite some outstanding reconstruction successes outside the hot conflict areas of Helmand province.
> 
> I recently had a rather heated conversation with a government minister who assured me that we were winning in Afghanistan because "we were killing more Taliban". But success is not measured in dead Taliban. It's measured in how many more water supplies are being reconnected; how many more people now have the benefit of the rule of law and good governance; how many have the prospect of a job; and, above all, whether we are winning or losing the battle for public opinion, which is central to successful reconstruction...
> 
> ...



Tories planning diplomatic push
Afghanistan presence, Harper sees no moral opposition to mission
_National Post_, July 19
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/canada/story.html?id=3c13b645-027b-4a05-9b57-bf8352a16019

Canada is beefing up its diplomatic presence in Kandahar and will dispatch a respected retired diplomat as "senior civilian co-ordinator," CanWest News has learned.

The bolstering of Canada's diplomatic corps comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and top Cabinet ministers are discussing the possibility of ending combat operations in southern Afghanistan in February, 2009. The decision to dispatch Michel de Salaberry -- who has served ambassadorships in Jordan, Egypt and Iran -- suggests Ottawa is laying the groundwork for a new role in reconstruction efforts after 2009.

Canada's latest diplomatic manoeuvres come as a British parliamentary report released yesterday criticized some NATO countries for not doing enough on the front lines of combat in southern Afghanistan.

"We remain deeply concerned that the reluctance of some NATO members to provide troops for the [International Security Assistance Force] mission is undermining NATO's credibility and also ISAF operations," said the report of Britain's parliamentary defence committee, in a direct reference to the reluctance of countries such as France, Germany, Spain and Italy to use troops where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.

"I'm glad the Brits have added their voice to this clarion call for other NATO countries to step up and to help with the burden-sharing that's going on in the south," said Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in an interview.

Mr. MacKay said Canada would turn up the heat on fellow NATO members to do more in the "soft underbelly" of southern Afghanistan. *He also dropped further hints Canada's combat role could be finished by February, 2009, when parliamentary approval runs out* [emphasis added].

"The bottom line is: the clock is ticking, and it's not just ticking on Canada and our role. That bell tolls for all. We're looking at doing our part. And I believe we've more than done our share of staring into the eyes of the enemy. Not to be dramatic about it, but if we are not able to secure that ground in the south, this is the weak underbelly of the mission."..

Signalling a new role for Canada in Afghanistan's reconstruction, Mr. MacKay said more diplomats would be sent to Kandahar as well as the capital, Kabul, to assist the government of President Hamid Karzai to extend its reach throughout the country.

"We are going to be increasing our presence there [in Kandahar]. That will include those with specific regional expertise and some individuals within the department and those from other departments," said Mr. MacKay.

"Let's be clear, the current military role will expire from a parliamentary point of view in February, 2009. That's the mandate that we have to continue in the current configuration. Having said that, there are other roles that Canada can play, transitioning into the aspects of training the army and police, of course, more on the reconstruction side."

He said Canada intends to assist the Karzai government's efforts to have "a greater presence" in the south. He also said greater effort would be spent on helping build the capacity of Afghan police and military forces so that, ultimately, western troops would be able to leave and Afghanistan could protect itself.

*"What's the exit strategy? It's to get that government to a point where they're self-sustainable."*..[emphasis added]

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (20 Jul 2007)

Coup for Canada if UAE joins Afghan mission
_Toronto Star_, June 20
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/237988



> The United Arab Emirates may send troops to work alongside Canadians in southern Afghanistan, sources say.
> 
> The move, which could come this fall, would mark a military and diplomatic coup for Canada, which had been urging the tiny Arab nation to contribute soldiers and equipment to the mission to put a "Muslim face" on the international coalition.
> 
> ...



July 20:
http://www.gdw-berlin.de/b12/start-e.php

Mark
Ottawa


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## charlesm (20 Jul 2007)

July 20 2007

*Canadian military quiet on Taliban casualty figures*

Don Martin, National Post
Published: Friday, July 20, 2007
GHORAK, Afghanistan -- One of the creaking, groaning, museum-ready Leopards the Canadians use as tanks over here was having another fried engine replaced in the middle of nowhere this week when an approaching car got a bit too close to the idling convoy.

The driver ignored soldiers waving it a safe distance away and a warning shot was fired at a spot 100 metres in front of the overcrowded vehicle, a message received to the sound of car brakes screeching to a halt in a cloud of dust.  

This was the only time a Canadian soldier in the huge convoy had fired off a round in the almost two weeks we were on the road -- and even then the soldier got a tongue-lashing from the commanding officer for shooting without sufficient cause. 


But soldiers told me they could empathize with the itchy trigger finger. Most have spent almost six months in Afghanistan without taking a single shot in anger. They can't believe how little combat they've seen.

This might be a good thing for their families, but the delicate question needs to be asked. This six-month rotation has lost 22 of its finest to the insurgency. How many Taliban has it killed?

The short answer from the Canadian military is odd: no comment. 

They won't disclose precise numbers, approximate numbers, reveal whether the Taliban toll is single digits, double digits or in the hundreds. Just tell me we've killed more of them than they've killed of our soldiers, I plead. Sorry, battle group spokesman Capt. Martell Thompson says, we don't discuss enemy numbers. 

Military officials suggested the Afghan army may have a guesstimate, but cautioned it would be outrageously inflated for propaganda value. 

The justification for the secrecy-shrouded death toll is that Canada doesn't want to get into a body count competition with the Taliban, the theory being they'd seek to avenge our tally by going after more Canadian soldiers.

That only works if the Taliban can kill at will -- stamp their feet in anger after reading the claim in a Canadian newspaper, wave their rocket-propelled grenade launchers in the air and unleash an overnight massacre to even the score.

Sorry, no way. If they could wipe out a platoon tomorrow, they'd do it, whether we'd killed 10 or 10,000 of their extremist brethren. 

My theory, after two weeks of monitoring the Canadian deployment's activities via radio, is there simply isn't a whack of Taliban-hunting going on anywhere in Kandahar right now -- subject to change without notice.

This partly reflects Canada's changing role from that of military force attacking on its own initiative to that of assisting Afghan soldiers enforce their combat priorities. 

Even so, Canadians have just two confirmed and photographed Taliban kills to their credit in the past month, a sobering contrast to nine fallen soldiers at the hands of insurgents during the same time frame. 

Just this week, 17 Afghan police officers were killed in various hot spots throughout the country, compared to only four dead Taliban. 

There have got to be more enemy casualties, of course. Informed observers note Taliban fighters turned into a pink mist by aircraft bombing runs are not counted, although a bombed corpse is just as legitimately dead as a bullet-ridden one, in my view. 

And, as someone now sleeping perhaps a hundred metres from the main Kandahar military runway, I can confirm there are a helluva lot of fighter jets with bombs taking off that no amount of earplug stuffing can muffle. 

Still, it seems bizarre that Canada acknowledges Afghan police and army casualties promptly and moves as quickly as possible to name its military dead, yet success in enemy extermination is a tightly held secret. 

If Canada only highlights its own victims and keeps the enemy casualty count under wraps, one might argue the Taliban are at least winning the propaganda war, if not the military conflict.


----------



## GAP (23 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July  23, 2007*

O'Connor: 'We have to train Afghan army quickly'
Updated Sun. Jul. 22 2007 10:51 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says by the time the 22nd Regiment, known as the Van Doos, takes over the mission in Afghanistan in August, the Canadian military will be shifting from combat to the classroom. 

O'Connor, appearing on CTV's Question Period Sunday, said the Van Doos will be training up to four or five battalions of the Afghan army -- about 3,000 soldiers. 

A small contingent from the Van Doos began arriving in Kandahar last week. Next month, there will be about 2,500 new Canadian soldiers on the ground -- 2,330 from Quebec. 

O'Connor's comments come after new poll numbers emerged last week suggesting Canadians' opposition to the mission is rising. 
More on link

Long haul fight to defeat the Taleban   
By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Afghanistan  
Article Link

Foreign troops are fighting against an insurgency with many layers 

The battles may be raging in Helmand province, the suicide and roadside bombs are killing people across the country, but the Taleban have been hit hard by Nato's spring offensive. 

They admit themselves that the targeted killings of some senior commanders took the thrust out of their own planned spring attacks. 

And their biggest loss was Mullah Dadullah - a ruthless military commander whose brutality repulsed even his own fellow Taleban leaders. 

The British Special Boat Service (SBS) killed him in Helmand in May after a raid on a compound where his associates were meeting. 
More on link

Taliban threatens to kill kidnapped South Koreans
FISNIK ABRASHI Associated PressJuly 20, 2007 at 2:15 PM EDT
Article Link

KABUL — Taliban militants threatened Friday to kill at least 18 kidnapped South Korean Christians, including 15 women, within 24 hours unless the Asian nation withdraws its 200 troops from Afghanistan.

In the largest abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, several dozen fighters kidnapped the South Koreans at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province on Thursday, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.

“They have got until tomorrow (Saturday) at noon to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, or otherwise we will kill the 18 Koreans,” Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told The Associated Press on a satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. “Right now they are safe and sound.”

Outmatched by foreign troops, the Taliban often resort to kidnapping civilians caught traveling on treacherous roads, particularly in the country's south, where the insurgency is raging. The tactic hurts President Hamid Karzai's government by discouraging foreigners involved in reconstruction projects from venturing into remote areas where their help is most needed.
More on link

Taliban extend deadline for 23 Korean hostages
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- The Taliban kidnappers of 23 Korean hostages on Sunday extended the deadline for the South Korean government to agree to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by 24 hours.

"The Taliban have extended the deadline for another 24 hours" until to 1430 GMT (10:30 a.m. EDT) Monday, spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location. 

Afghan army and police surrounded the Taliban kidnappers while tribal elders tried to mediate between the militants and government negotiators, a Kabul-based Western security analyst said.

The 23 hostages belong to the "Saemmul Church" in Bundang, a city outside South Korea's capital, Seoul. Most of them are in their 20s and 30s, and include nurses and English teachers.

Yousuf earlier had said insurgents would start killing the hostages if South Korea did not agree to withdraw its 200 military engineers and medics by 1430 GMT on Sunday and the Afghan government did not free Taliban prisoners.

The South Korean government has said it will withdraw its troops at the end of this year as planned.

"Afghan forces have surrounded the location of the kidnappers," the security analyst said. "They have no way to escape."
More on link

Germany says dead hostage has gunshot wounds
Article Link

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- German authorities have seen the body of a German hostage who died in captivity in Afghanistan and his body has gunshot wounds, Germany's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

Germany said it would not give in to the Taliban's demands to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

 "The remains of the dead German are as of this evening in Kabul," Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said in a statement. "After an initial visual examination by German authorities, it was noticed that the body had gunshot wounds."

He said it was unclear what the exact cause of death and added that Berlin wanted the remains returned to Germany as soon as possible for a closer examination.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday Germany would not give in to the demands of the Taliban to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and would not allow itself to be blackmailed.
More on link

Former Afghan king Mohammad Zahir Shah dies
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- Former Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, died on Monday, aged 92, presidential palace sources said.

Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan from 1933 until he was deposed by his cousin in 1973.

 "He died today in bed, we have no further information, but he had been sick for a month," a palace official told Reuters.

Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan from 1933 until he was deposed by his cousin in 1973. He lived in exile in Italy before returning home as an ordinary citizen in 2002.

Zahir Shah came from a long line of ethnic Pashtun rulers and is a distant relative of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The former king's reign is remembered as one of the most peaceful periods of Afghanistan's turbulent history.

Born in Kabul on October 15, 1914, Zahir Shah received part of his education in France and returned to Kabul for military training. He ascended the throne in 1933 after his father was assassinated by a deranged student.
More on link

South Korea to punish travel to Afghanistan
July 23, 2007 02:45pm Article from: Agence France-Presse 
Article Link

SOUTH Korea, agonising over 23 of its citizens threatened with death by the Taliban, has announced new rules to punish unauthorised travel to Afghanistan with possible jail terms.

In a response to the hostage crisis, the foreign ministry has banned its nationals from travelling to the war-torn country and urged South Koreans already there to get out. 

Spokeswoman Han Hye-Jin said that Afghanistan has been added to the list of banned countries under a law which takes effect on Tuesday. 

South Koreans can be jailed for up to one year or fined up to three million won ($3,631) if they visit banned countries without prior permission. 

The ministry on Saturday decided to include Afghanistan in the list, which formerly included only Iraq and Somalia. 

"We strongly recommend our nationals in Afghanistan, now designated as a travel-ban country, to withdraw from there,'' a ministry statement said. 

Around 400 South Koreans - about 200 peacekeeping troops and some 200 civilians - are believed to be in Afghanistan, according to ministry estimates. 
More on link

Roadside bomb, rocket attacks wound 7 soldiers in northwestern Pakistan
The Associated PressPublished: July 23, 2007
Article Link

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan: A roadside bomb near an army convoy and rocket attacks on military posts wounded seven troops Monday in northwestern Pakistan, where violence has escalated since Islamic militants withdrew from a peace deal, intelligence officials said.

The attacks in North Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan, followed a weekend of violence that the military said left 19 suspected militants dead.

Two soldiers were injured in rocket attacks on two security posts in the Ramzak area before dawn on Monday, an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

Troops guarding the posts returned fire, but it was not known if the assailants suffered any casualties, said the official who was not authorized to speak to the media.

An army convoy deployed to evacuate the wounded soldiers then came under attack as it headed to Ramzak, still under cover of darkness, he said. Militants detonated a remote-controlled bomb near the military vehicles just south of Miran Shah, North Waziristan's main town, wounding five troops, the official said.
More on link

US would operate against al-Qaida in Pakistan
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST  Jul. 23, 2007 
Article Link

The United States would consider military force if necessary to stem al-Qaida's growing ability to use its hideout in Pakistan to launch terrorist attacks, a White House aide said. The Senate's top Democrat endorsed that approach. 

The president's homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, said Sunday the US was committed first and foremost to working with Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in his efforts to control militants in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. But she indicated the US was ready to take additional measures
More on link

Merkel: Increase in German troops in Afghanistan possible (Extra)
Jul 22, 2007, 17:35 GMT 
Article Link

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday she could not rule out an increase in Germany's military deployment to Afghanistan, but could 'not yet confirm this at the present time.' 

Interviewed on Germany's ARD public television, she said any alteration in troop strength would have to 'fit in with' the rest of the German military commitment in Afghanistan
More on link

UAE may send military to serve in Afghanistan
AFP, OTTAWA Sunday, Jul 22, 2007, Page 7 
Article Link

The United Arab Emirates is planning to send troops to Afghanistan to fight alongside Canadians at Ottawa's behest to put a "Muslim face" on the NATO-led coalition, media reported on Friday.

The Toronto Star, citing unnamed sources, said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government had been urging the tiny Arab nation to contribute soldiers and equipment to help stabilize war-torn Afghanistan.

Canadian authorities were not immediately available to provide comment.

If the report is accurate, the Afghanistan deployment is believed to be a first for an Arab nation and a diplomatic coup for Canada.

The UAE was one of only three countries that recognized the hard-line Taliban government that seized control of most of Afghanistan in 1996 and was forced out in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

The Toronto daily said the UAE tactical force would be small and mostly symbolic, and serve under Canadian commanders once they arrived on the field in Arghanistan.

The UAE could also send a variety of machinery to assist in teh effort. Possibilties include four tanks, several armored reconnaissance vehicles, two self-propelled 155mm guns as well as a detachment of unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a military briefing note obtained by the newspaper.

"The UAE is capable of bringing considerable financial support to development projects and would provide a Muslim face to the International Security Assistance Force operations, providing a counterpoint to insurgent rhetoric," the note said. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (23 Jul 2007)

Bilingual base translates into tension
More Que. troops in Afghanistan could widen gap between French, English
Don Martin, CanWest News Service, July 23
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=a7a1a033-2d90-48fe-8dbd-d2f6a68cf0c1



> The two Canadian solitudes are alive and well here in Kandahar.
> 
> While anglophone and francophone soldiers fight on the same side, they live almost separate lives inside the camps and forward bases -- and indulge in the occasional derisive swipe at each other.
> 
> ...



The Quebec-Afghan connection
As Van Doos head overseas, calculating the political impact of casualties is unavoidable
_Toronto Star_, July 22, by Pierre Martin
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/238325



> ...the inevitable casualties of the conflict will soon begin to return in coffins to their hometowns in Quebec, where opposition to the mission is highest.
> 
> So much has been made of this opposition, in fact, that the Taliban are expected to target the Van Doos intentionally in the hope of driving Canadians out of their country.
> 
> ...



Build a real Afghan army
ChronicleHerald.ca, July 23, by Scott Taylor
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/849045.html



> RECENT STATEMENTS by Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff, would indicate that the Canadian Forces have developed an exit strategy for Afghanistan.
> 
> According to Gen. Hillier, if the Forces are to successfully complete their mission by the politically agreed-upon date of February 2009, we must refocus our efforts from combat operations to training the Afghan National Army up to a state of self-sufficiency.
> 
> ...



Where Less Is More
_NY Times_, July 23, by Rory Stewart
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23stewart.html



> AMERICA and its allies are in danger of repeating the mistakes of Iraq in Afghanistan. *Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and even some Republicans are insisting on withdrawing from Iraq and sending more troops and resources to southern Afghanistan* [emphasis added]. The Bush administration’s gloomy National Intelligence Estimate last week on the fight against Al Qaeda will only lead others to make such calls.
> 
> But they should think again. The intervention in Afghanistan has gone far better than that in Iraq largely because the American-led coalition has limited its ambitions and kept a light footprint, leaving the Afghans to run their own affairs.
> 
> ...



Canada eyes cut in combat
O'Connor wants Afghan army to take over for Canadian soldiers, but critics say his plan makes no sense
_Ottawa Citizen_, July 23
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=5419f28d-a2bd-413a-916f-1e7b868467e3&k=6055



> ...a leading military analyst and the Liberal defence critic accused Mr. O'Connor of wishful thinking and being out of step with NATO's overall emphasis of trying to find more troops for Afghanistan -- not cut the ones already there...
> 
> Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie said it makes no sense for Canada to scale
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## The Bread Guy (23 Jul 2007)

Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports on AFG, courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists Secrecy News Blog -- all .pdf files

*"NATO in Afghanistan: A Test of the Transatlantic Alliance"*, updated to 16 Jul 07 - Summary:  "The mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan is seen as a test of the alliance’s political will and military capabilities. The allies are seeking to create a “new” NATO, able to go beyond the European theater and combat new threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  Afghanistan is NATO’s first “out-of-area” mission beyond Europe. The purpose of the mission is the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan. The mission is a difficult one because it must take place while combat operations against Taliban insurgents continue.  U.N. Security Council resolutions govern NATO’s responsibilities. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) faces formidable obstacles:  shoring up a weak government in Kabul; using military capabilities in a distant country with rugged terrain; and rebuilding a country devastated by war and troubled by a resilient narcotics trade. NATO’s mission statement lays out the essential elements of the task of stabilizing and rebuilding the country: train the Afghan army, police, and judiciary; support the government in counter-narcotics efforts; develop a market infrastructure; and suppress the Taliban.  Although the allies agree on ISAF’s mission, they differ on how to accomplish it. Some allies do not want their forces to engage in combat operations. None wants to engage directly in destruction of poppy fields in countering the drug trade; how to support the Afghan government in this task — largely through training the police — is proving to be a difficult undertaking. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal and criticism of U.S. practices at Guantanamo, the allies are insisting on close observation of international law in dealing with prisoners taken in Afghanistan.  ISAF has proceeded in stages to stabilize the country. In Stage One, ISAF took control of Kabul and northern Afghanistan. In Stage Two, ISAF moved into western Afghanistan. Stage Three, in the still restive south, began in July 2006. Stage Four began in October 2006, and ISAF now covers the entire country. ISAF’s principal mechanism for rebuilding Afghanistan is the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).  PRTs, composed of military and civilian officials, are charged with extending the reach of the Afghan government by improving governance and rebuilding the economy. There are significant differences in how individual NATO governments
run their PRTs.  Most observers predict that ISAF’s efforts to stabilize Afghanistan will require
five years or more. An exit strategy has multiple components: suppressing the Taliban; rebuilding the economy; and cajoling Afghan leaders to put aside tribal and regional disputes and improve governance. U.S. leadership of the alliance as well as NATO credibility are at issue. The allies are sharply critical of aspects of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, and sometimes specifically its NATO policy. U.S.
leadership in Afghanistan may well affect NATO’s cohesiveness and its future. This report will be updated as needed ...."

*"Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy"*, updated to 21 Jun 07 - Summary:  "Afghanistan’s political transition was completed with the convening of a parliament in December 2005, but since 2006 insurgent threats to Afghanistan’s government have escalated to the point that some experts question the prospects for stabilizing Afghanistan. In the political process, a new constitution was adopted in January 2004, successful presidential elections were held on October 9, 2004, and parliamentary elections took place on September 18, 2005. The parliament has become an arena for factions that have fought each other for nearly three decades to debate and peacefully resolve differences. Afghan citizens are enjoying personal freedoms forbidden by the Taliban. Women are participating in economic and political life, including as ministers, provincial governors, and parliament leaders.  The insurgency led by remnants of the former Taliban regime escalated in 2006, after four years of minor Taliban militant activity. Contributing to the resurgence was popular frustration with lack of economic development, official corruption, and the failure to extend Afghan government authority into rural areas. Narcotics trafficking is resisting counter-measures and funding insurgent activity. The Afghan government and some U.S. officials blame Pakistan for failing to prevent Taliban commanders from operating from Pakistan, beyond the reach of U.S./NATO-led
forces in Afghanistan. U.S. and NATO commanders anticipated a Taliban 2007 “spring offensive” and moved to preempt it with an increase in force levels and accelerated reconstruction efforts, possibly contributing to a lower level – and changing texture – of violence than expected, thus far. U.S. and NATO forces have also killed a few key Taliban battlefield leaders in 2007.  U.S. and partner stabilization measures include strengthening the central government and its security forces. The United States and other countries are building an Afghan National Army, deploying a 38,000 troop NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that now commands peacekeeping throughout Afghanistan, and running regional enclaves to secure reconstruction (Provincial Reconstruction Teams, PRTs). Approximately 27,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, of which all but about 12,000 are under NATO/ISAF command, and, in March 2007, President Bush approved an additional 3,500 U.S. forces to deploy there mainly to help train the ANA and other security forces.  To build security institutions and assist reconstruction, the United States has given Afghanistan about $20 billion over the past five years, including funds to equip and train Afghan security forces. Breakdowns are shown in the several tables at the end of this paper. Pending legislation, H.R. 2446, would reauthorize the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002.  This paper will be updated as warranted by major developments ...."

*"Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy"*, updated to 19 Jun 07 - Summary:   "Opium poppy cultivation and drug trafficking have become significant negative factors in Afghanistan’s fragile political and economic order over the last 25 years.  Afghan, U.S., and coalition efforts to provide viable economic alternatives to poppy cultivation and to disrupt corruption and narco-terrorist linkages succeeded in reducing opium poppy cultivation in some areas during 2004 and 2005. However, escalating violence in southern provinces, particularly in Helmand, and widespread corruption fueled a surge in cultivation in 2006, pushing opium output to an all-time high of 6,100 metric tons. In spite of ongoing efforts by the Afghan government, the United States, and their international partners, Afghanistan is now the source of 92% of the world’s illicit opium. Preliminary surveys suggest opium output may increase again in 2007 based on increased production in unstable southern provinces.  Across Afghanistan, militia commanders, criminal organizations, and corrupt
officials have exploited narcotics as a reliable source of revenue and patronage, which has perpetuated the threat these groups pose to the country’s fragile internal security and the legitimacy of its embryonic democratic government. U.N. officials estimate that in-country illicit revenue from the 2006 opium poppy crop will reach over $3 billion, sustaining fears that Afghanistan’s economic recovery continues to be underwritten by drug profits. The trafficking of Afghan drugs also appears to provide financial and logistical support to a range of extremist groups that continue to operate in and around Afghanistan, including the resurgent remnants of the Taliban and some Al Qaeda operatives. Although coalition forces may be less frequently relying on figures involved with narcotics for intelligence and security support, many observers have warned that drug-related corruption among appointed and elected Afghan officials may create new political obstacles to further progress.  President Bush personally stated in February 2007 that narcotics are “a direct threat to a free future for Afghanistan” and warned that, “the Taliban uses drug money to buy weapons ... and they pay Afghans to take up arms against the government.” Afghan president Hamid Karzai has identified the opium economy as “the single greatest challenge to the long- term security, development, and effective governance of Afghanistan.” In response, Members of Congress may be asked to consider options for strengthening counternarcotics efforts during the term of the
110th Congress. The Administration has requested $1.54 billion in regular and supplemental counternarcotics assistance and related defense funding for Afghanistan and surrounding countries for FY2007 and FY2008.  In addition to describing the structure and development of the Afghan narcotics
trade, this report provides current statistical information, profiles the narcotics trade’s participants, explores narco-terrorist linkages, and reviews U.S. and international policy responses since late 2001. The report also considers current policy debates regarding the counternarcotics roles of the U.S. military, poppy eradication, alternative livelihoods, and funding issues for Congress. The report will be updated
to reflect major developments ...."

*"Afghanistan: Government Formation and Performance"*, updated to 15 Jun 07 - Summary:  "Post-Taliban Afghanistan has adopted a constitution and elected a president and a parliament; that body is emerging as a significant force in Afghan politics. However, the Afghan government’s limited writ throughout the country and its perceived corruption have contributed to an increase in Taliban violence."


----------



## GAP (23 Jul 2007)

Six NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Updated Mon. Jul. 23 2007 1:30 PM ET Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL -- NATO said six of its soldiers were killed during combat operations in Afghanistan on Monday, including four by a roadside bomb in the east where U.S. troops are based. 

The four were killed when the bomb exploded next to their vehicle, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. 

A Norwegian soldier was killed in Logar province, according to military officials in Norway. 

A sixth soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan. 

NATO did not release the nationalities of any of the six soldiers, according to its policy. 
More on link

CTV Update

CBC update


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## MarkOttawa (23 Jul 2007)

Just read it yourself
_Flit_, July 22, by Bruce Rolston
http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2007_07_22.html#006228



> I simply don't have the time to refute every untruth in the Canadian media about Afghanistan these days, but the CTV's irresponsible Bob Fife piece tonight was really a new low point.
> http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate?tf=/ctv/mar/video/new_player.html&cf=ctv/mar/ctv.cfg&hub=TopStories&video_link_high=mms://ctvbroadcast.ctv.ca/video/2007/07/22/ctvvideologger2_500kbps_2007_07_22_1185156274.wmv&video_link_low=mms://ctvbroadcast.ctv.ca/video/2007/07/22/ctvvideologger2_218kbps_2007_07_22_1185154333.wmv&clip_start=00:12:41.39&clip_end=00:02:19.50&clip_caption=CTV%20News:%20Robert%20Fife%20on%20Canada's%20training%20role&clip_id=ctvnews.20070722.00205000-00205262-clip4&subhub=video&no_ads=&sortdate=20070722&slug=oconnor_afghanistan_070722&archive=CTVNews
> 
> The argument, supported by Amir Attaran, Jack Layton, and the Leader of the Opposition in their soundbites, that Canada has only just now started focussing on training the Afghan army, just in order to obtain a Conservative political advantage in Quebec, is facile.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## MarkOttawa (24 Jul 2007)

All signs point to buildup in Kandahar
New gear, base construction appear to give false picture of Canada's plans
Don Martin, _Ottawa Citizen_, July 24
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=4dbd1311-4b62-4b85-964e-26fc7e6fef87



> KANDAHAR - If Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor is correct and the Canadian mission here is slowing, shrinking or changing its focus as the countdown lurches toward a possible February 2009 pullout, it'll be news in Kandahar, where all signs are pointing to a military and redevelopment buildup.
> 
> New air-conditioned Leopard tanks are expected next month, 16 military vehicles to better detect landmines are scheduled for arrival this fall, and the ground floor of a frantic expansion at Canada's reconstruction base in Kandahar City is filling up with new staff even before work on the top level is complete.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------



## GAP (24 Jul 2007)

Surrounded Afghan militant leader kills himself
July 24, 2007 Zahid Hussain in Islamabad 
Article Link

A top militant commander and a former Guantanamo Bay inmate blew himself up with a grenade today after being surrounded by Pakistani security forces. 

The death of Abdullah Mehsud, the one-legged rebel leader, gave a boost to President Pervez Musharraf’s latest offensive against pro al-Qaeda tribal militants in the lawless borderland with Afghanistan. He was hiding at the home of an Islamic politician in Zhob, in the western province of Balochistan, when he was cornered by intelligence agents. 

A Pakistani security official said Mehsud was intercepted on his way back from Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where he fought alongside the Taleban against Afghan and US forces. 

Mehsud, 31, whose real name was Noor Alam, led militants fighting Pakistani security forces in the South Waziristan tribal region. He rose to prominence after masterminding spectacular guerrilla attacks on Pakistani troops soon after he was freed from Guantanamo Bay in March 2004 after having spent 25 months in the US custody.  More on link


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## MarkOttawa (24 Jul 2007)

75 Taliban killed; NATO begins offensive
AP, July 24
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070724/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan_23



> KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Airstrikes and clashes in southern Afghanistan killed more than 75 militants, officials said Tuesday, and NATO announced a new offensive against the Taliban in the world's largest opium-producing area.
> ADVERTISEMENT
> 
> The latest fighting came as a threatened deadline for the lives of 23 South Korean hostages again passed with no resolution. Korean negotiators met with the kidnappers, and a purported Taliban spokesman said the talks were in the "final stage."
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (25 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 25, 2007*

Officials: German journalist kidnapped in Afghan east
Article Link

ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- A German journalist and his Afghan translator have been kidnapped in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, provincial officials said on Wednesday.

The pair were trying to reach a village where civilians were killed in a NATO air strike some two weeks back, provincial spokesman Shah Wasi Mangal said.

"The pair were abducted in Saangar district of Kunar by the enemies of Afghanistan," Mangal said.

Another provincial official, who declined to be named, said: "The pair were kidnapped from a house en route to the village."

Afghanistan has seen a wave of kidnappings in the last week.
More on link

Aussie troops kill man in Afghanistan
Article Link

Australian soldiers have shot and killed a man in Afghanistan. (file picture.) (Reuters: Australian Defence Force)
The Australian Defence Force is investigating the death of a man shot by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.

A patrol from the Australian Reconstruction Task Force fired at a vehicle when the driver sped towards the patrol after being directed to stop.

The driver was killed in the incident.

The Defence Department says there is a significant threat from explosives carried in vehicles, in the region that the task force is working in.
end

Afghan Army, Coalition Forces Repel Taliban Ambushes
American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, July 24, 2007
Article Link

Afghan and coalition forces killed numerous Taliban fighters in defeating ambushes yesterday and today. 
An unknown number of insurgents ambushed a group of Afghan National Army and police troops advised by coalition forces on a combat patrol near the village of Sarizkay in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province this morning. 

The Afghan army-led patrol was about to pass through the village when Taliban fighters attempted the ambush, U.S. officials said. The combined forces repelled the attack with small-arms fire, and coalition aircraft dropped four bombs and made several strafing runs on the insurgent positions. Several insurgents are believed to have been killed during the skirmish, officials said. 

Intelligence suggests that Taliban forces are likely attempting to reassert their presence in northern Kandahar after their recent defeats from Afghan and coalition operations in the area during the past several weeks, U.S. officials said. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (25 Jul 2007)

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH THE INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE GERMAN ARMY
'Our Sacrifices Do Not Leave Me Cold'
_Spiegel Online_, July 23
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,496426,00.html



> Schneiderhan: Naturally our enemies are familiar with the discussion in Germany. They aren't exactly living in the Stone Age. They read newspapers and they probably read SPIEGEL ONLINE more quickly than I do. If they see a chance to damage the solidarity within the international community because the Germans immediately enter into a fundamental discussion calling the whole operation into question whenever something like the Kunduz attack happens, then they exploit that opportunity.
> 
> SPIEGEL: The threat against Germans is described as "considerable" in situation reports coming from Afghanistan. Do you anticipate further attacks leading up to the parliamentary decisions in September about Germany's Afghanistan mission?
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (26 Jul 2007)

*Canadian army plan to upgrade used Dutch tanks snagged by lack of expertise*  
MURRAY BREWSTER
Article Link

OTTAWA (CP) - The Conservative government's $200-million plan to refurbish almost half of the 100 surplus Leopard 2 tanks being purchased from the Dutch has hit a snag. 

There's currently no company in Canada capable of quickly improving up to 40 Leopard 2A4 armoured vehicles in order to meet the rigours and dangers of Afghanistan. 

An undetermined portion of the contract will likely have to carried out overseas, says a senior defence official. 

"Obviously, we'd like to do as much of it in Canada as possible but, of course, we currently don't have any capability in Canada to do heavy armoured vehicle work, and so there is consultation with industry taking place," Dan Ross, assistant deputy minister of materiel at National Defence, said in an interview with The Canadian Press. 

"We're going to have to determine what can be done." 

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and Public Works Minister Michel Fortier announced in April that the army's aging Leopard 1 C2 tanks would be replaced at a cost of $650 million. 

Under the program, Canada would borrow 20 armoured vehicles from the Germans and purchase 100 slightly used tanks from the Netherlands. A month later, O'Connor revealed there would be an additional $650-million, long-term support contract - bringing the total pricetag to $1.3 billion. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (26 Jul 2007)

An old enemy falls drop by drop
Canadians Help Inoculate Children Against Polio
Don Martin, _National Post_, July 26
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=9188da8f-894a-46f6-81ad-efea8679a607&p=1



> SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan -The traffic jam at this border crossing is a surreal lineup of emaciated donkeys pulling carts filled with used tires, parents pushing wheelbarrows carrying malnourished children, and peeling jingle trucks threatening to topple under the weight of their lopsided cargo.
> 
> This is the main port of entry between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a chaotic and dangerous gateway for opium exports and al-Qaeda imports that makes most of the Third World look civilized.
> 
> ...



More than 50 Taliban killed in Afghan south: U.S.
Reuters, July 26
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070726/ts_nm/afghan_violence_dc;_ylt=AqfSYraHzOpQ_gfqiMFSHNp34T0D



> U.S.-led troops, backed by air power, killed more than 50 insurgents in a battle in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
> ADVERTISEMENT
> 
> There were no casualties among coalition troops in the 12-hour battle with Taliban militants which finished early on Thursday, it said in a statement. No civilian injuries were reported, it added.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (26 Jul 2007)

Deep in Taleban Country
A reporter embeds with the Taleban to see the brutal evidence of war in Greshk.
By Aziz Ahmad Tassal (ARR No. 261, 23-July-07)
Article Link

The image I cannot erase is a burqa in the ashes of a bombed-out house. When I close my eyes I can still see it, that bit of blue cloth specked with blood amid the blackened soot that used to be someone’s home.

I had come to Hassan Khan Kalay with the Taleban. It was the only way of getting there, as this village near Hyderabad in the Greshk district is under their control, and journalists cannot go there without their permission.

The negotiations took about a week. First we called Qari Yusuf, the Taleban spokesman, and he passed us on to others, who referred us in turn to the local commanders. 

Finally we got the go-ahead. But our Taleban contact told us on the phone to be very careful about what we filmed and who we talked to in Hyderabad.

“If they don’t like what you are doing, you won’t live,” he said simply. 

Greshk is about 40 kilometres north of Lashkar Gah. According to the Afghan government, the district has been captured and recaptured many times over. At the moment, it seems that not a single day passes without some sort of incident there. 

Hyderabad is completely ruled by the Taleban. Our first problem was getting out there. When I went to the bus station in Lashkar Gah, I could not find a driver willing to take us. They all looked at us suspiciously, maybe because we did not have turbans or the right kind of clothes. I was just wearing a Kandahari hat, and I had a big bag with my camera and recording equipment.

Finally, a driver in a yellow Toyota Corolla asked whether we had permission from the Taleban to go to Hyderabad. When I said yes, he told us to get in.

Once we crossed into Greshk and entered a desert area, our driver, who was wearing a white turban, began looking around anxiously, smoking one cigarette after another.
More on link

This Article was originally found here
MILNEWS.ca

CANinKandahar


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## GAP (26 Jul 2007)

INSIGHT: Intelligent intelligence —Ejaz Haider
Article Link

 It is all too tempting to be tactically brilliant while losing the larger strategic focus. What needs to be discussed — and at multiple levels — is the cost of keeping certain intelligence assets: does the cost exceed the benefit; what is the nature of such assets; is there absolutely no other policy approach and so on

The one-legged Pakistani Taliban commander, Abdullah Mehsud, is dead, reported to have killed himself July 24 by detonating a hand grenade to avoid capture when intelligence agents closed in on the house where he was hiding. The house, in Balochistan’s northwestern Zhob district, just south of South Waziristan, belonged to Sheikh Ayub Mandokhel, a leader of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema-e Islam. Mehsud’s two brothers and a third Taliban leader were arrested.

These are now known facts. But recapping them is important because of the pointers they contain. Consider.

Mehsud was intercepted while returning from Afghanistan through the Zhob corridor. Anyone with even little knowledge of intelligence work would know that this kind of operation is not serendipitous — i.e., the security forces did not just chance upon him. Quite the contrary. They were monitoring his movement, had the means to keep the trail hot and got him when he entered Pakistan and was relaxing in transit before crossing north into South Waziristan.

Corollary: Pakistani intelligence has elements within the jihad international which it can use, and does, when the moment to take someone out is propitious.

On May 12, NATO-ISAF troops killed another one-legged top Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah, in the Helmand province of Afghanistan after he had crossed over into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Dadullah was Mullah Omar’s number 2. It is now known that the tip-off came from Pakistani intelligence, though at the time NATO spokespersons had declined to comment on where the information had come from.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (27 Jul 2007)

More troops may be needed in Afghanistan
_Daily Telegraph_, July 27
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/27/nafg127.xml



> The head of the Armed Forces hinted yesterday that troop levels would have to be increased in Afghanistan.
> 
> The news came as a second British soldier was killed in as many days.
> 
> ...



David Miliband in Taliban policy split with US
_Daily Telegraph_, July 27
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ZXWPU3EVL41MHQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/26/wpakistan126.xml



> Differences between British and American strategy in dealing with Taliban militants emerged yesterday during the Foreign Secretary’s first visit to Pakistan.
> 
> David Miliband, the newly-appointed Foreign Secretary, emphasised that a purely military solution to violence in Pakistan’s tribal areas would not alone quash the insurgency.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (27 Jul 2007)

Freed prisoners return to jihad, says US military
Ian Munro Herald Correspondent in New York July 28, 2007
Article Link

AT LEAST 30 former prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against US and allied forces following their release, the US military says.

They have been discovered in Afghanistan and Pakistan but not in Iraq, a US Defence Department spokesman said yesterday.

Lieutenant-Commander Jeffrey Gordon said that while in custody the men had falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-arms merchants, low-level combatants or had offered other false explanations for being in Afghanistan.

"We are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities," said Commander Gordon.

His comments follow the death this week of a Taliban commander and former prisoner, Abdullah Mehsud, who reportedly blew himself up rather than surrender to Pakistani forces.

In December 2001 Mehsud was captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay until his release in March 2004. He later became the Taliban chief for South Waziristan.

Commander Gordon said the US did not make it a practice to track prisoners after their release but it had become aware, through intelligence gathering and media reports, of many cases of released prisoners returning to combat.

"These former detainees successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years," Commander Gordon said.

"Common cover stories include going to Afghanistan to buy medicines, to teach the Koran or to find a wife. Many of these stories appear so often and are subsequently proven false, that we can only conclude that they are part of their terrorist training."
More on link


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## GAP (28 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 28, 2007*

Top general vows to tell it like it is
PAUL KORING July 28, 2007 
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Brigadier-General Tim Grant says he's ready to tell Canadians tough truths about what it's going to take to win in Afghanistan.

"I'm not interested in just being a cheerleader or parroting government policy," said Gen. Grant, the Canadian contingent commander, who heads home next week after nine months in Afghanistan.

The general has some pretty well-formed ideas of what's been achieved, what hasn't and, most important, what lies ahead in the tough counterinsurgency war being fought by Canadians in the Taliban's heartland of Kandahar.

While Canadian firepower has smashed the Taliban's capacity to seize and hold territory, the toll from their fallback tactic - suicide bombs and IEDs - threatens to erode international support for the mission, the general said. And while he's heartened by the still-evolving transformation of the Afghan army into a vital fighting force, the woefully corrupt police force in Kandaharposes the biggest impediment to bringing stability, he said.
More on link

War critic questions Defence surveillance
David ********, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Friday, July 27, 2007
Article Link

DND kept tabs on left-wing analyst, planned counter views to his speeches

But lawyer and Access to Information specialist Michel Drapeau said what happened to Mr. Staples is not right. "Is there something illegal here? Not really, but it's the impropriety of having an officer on the public payroll doing fundamentally what could be seen by some as a surveillance operation," said Mr. Drapeau, a retired colonel and author of a law book on the Access to Information Act. "It's something that doesn't seem right for an officer to do."

He said there have been other incidents in which the department has claimed records don't exist, only to have them turn up when investigators from the Information Commissioner are called in. That, Mr. Drapeau said, should make people suspicious about what is happening with the documents.

The Defence records on Mr. Staples has opened the debate on to what extent Canadians can publicly challenge the military and government about the war in Afghanistan. Some military officers have privately told the Citizen that Mr. Staples shouldn't be allowed to raise dissenting views at a time of war. One former soldier is now circulating an e-mail that calls Mr. Staples a traitor.
More on link

Afghans may use force if hostage talks fail
Samar Zwak, Reuters Published: Saturday, July 28, 2007 
Article Link   

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A female hostage among the remaining 22 Koreans held by Taliban fighters appealed on Saturday for a speedy end to their ordeal, as a senior Afghan official said force may be used to free them if talks fail.

The woman, one of 18 female hostages among the South Korean Christian volunteers kidnapped in Afghanistan more than a week ago, spoke to Reuters on the mobile phone of a Taliban fighter.

"We are tired and being moved from one location to another," she said in broken Dari, one of the main languages in Afghanistan.

"We are kept in separate groups and are not aware of each other. We ask the Taliban and the government to release us," she said. Pronunciation of her name could not be understood by a Reuters reporter who spoke to her.

Earlier Munir Mangal, a deputy interior minister, said negotiators were attempting to hold more talks with the Taliban.

"We believe in the talks and if dialogue fails then we will resort to other means," he told Reuters. When asked if that meant use of force, he replied: "Certainly."

Mangal also leads a government team tasked to secure the release of the South Koreans.

He said mediators included Islamic clergy who were trying to persuade the Taliban to free the hostages without conditions.

He also ruled out bowing to the Taliban demand to free insurgent captives held by Kabul.
More on link

Senator proposes change to military role in Afghanistan
Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service Published: Friday, July 27, 2007 
Article Link

OTTAWA — An influential Conservative senator is suggesting that Canada alter its military role in Afghanistan after February 2009 by reducing its ground forces while increasing its naval and air force support — which would include patrols over the troubled country in manned and unmanned Canadian aircraft.

Hugh Segal, a former chief of staff for Brian Mulroney, said Friday that he will present the new options for the country’s military commitment at the Conservative caucus retreat in Prince Edward Island in August.

“The bottom line is that at some point, Afghanistan has to be run by the Afghanis and we have to ask ourselves as a NATO partner: How do we calibrate our presence going forward so that it is sustainable and how do we not desert our core national security obligation?” said Segal.

“One of the choices obviously is to use more air surveillance and to use more naval in some of the adjacent areas to make sure there aren’t any large concentrations of Taliban or al-Qaida forming ... and that does not necessarily require endless convoys on the ground and endless boots on the ground in an endless sort of process that seems to have no apparent end.”

Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets were a successful part of the spring 1999 NATO mission in the former Yugoslavia, taking part in the 78-day aerial bombardment of the war-torn country in order to stop the systematic violence directed at ethnic Albanian Muslims in the province of Kosovo.

Segal said there has been some upgrading of the CF-18 in terms of its avionic suites and smart munitions.
More on link

Stay in Afghanistan: RCMP Afghan trainer 
By CP
Article Link
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2007/07/27/4373626.html

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Afghanistan is in the “middle of an insurgency” and countries like Canada that are rebuilding it shouldn’t make a hasty exit, says the RCMP officer helping train Afghan police recruits. 
The war-torn country risks going backward if international forces leave before it’s self-sufficient, said RCMP Supt. David Fudge. 

Fudge is a police officer with 30 years of experience and his job is to help train Afghan police recruits who are often illiterate and arrive in tattered clothes and flip-flops. 

He has been on the job in Afghanistan for a year as part of Canada’s provincial reconstruction team, a multi-level unit that includes soldiers, police officers and officials from Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency. 

“Afghanistan is in the middle of an insurgency,” Fudge said in an interview at the unit’s headquarters, about 18 kilometres from the multinational base in Kandahar. 

'The job is not done yet' 

“The job is not done yet. And if we leave too early, we very much stand the risk of going back to ground zero or even worse, as we’ve seen in Haiti, where we had to go back and start rebuilding from zero again.” 

Fudge said the foundations of a civil society have been progressively established in Afghanistan since the international community began working on reconstruction in 2002. 

The Canadian mission in Afghanistan is slated to end in February 2009. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he won’t extend the mission beyond that date if he doesn’t have a consensus from the four main political parties in Ottawa, a difficult goal in the face of stiff resistance from the opposition. 
More on link

Expect more Canadian soldiers to die in Afghanistan: new commander
By CP July 27, 2007
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The proliferation of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan will make it difficult to prevent the number of Canadian deaths in the conflict from rising, says Canada’s new military commander in the war-torn country. 
Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche made the comment in Kandahar on Friday as he arrived to replace Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant, who is leaving after a nine-month stay. 

Laroche’s remark echoes comments made by politicians in recent weeks. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government doesn’t treat military deaths lightly but that it won’t alter its plan to maintain the current operation until 2009. 
More on link

British soldier dies in southern Afghanistan  
The Associated Press Saturday, July 28, 2007 
Article Link

LONDON: A rocket attack killed a British soldier during a military operation in southern Afghanistan, Britain's Ministry of Defense said Saturday.

The soldier was a communications specialist supporting the operation against Taliban forces in Gereshk Valley in Helmand Province when he died in the attack on Friday, the ministry said in a statement.

It occurred in a compound between Heyderabad and Mirmandab, and the victim's identity was being withheld pending notification of his relatives.
More on link

Canadians Can't Trust the Conservative Government on Afghanistan 
July 27, 2007 Liberal Party of Canada (press release)
Article Link

MONTREAL – The Conservative government’s campaign of dishonesty, secrecy and propaganda continues to mislead Canadians with confusing and contradictory statements on the question of whether the Canadian combat mission will come to an end in Afghanistan in 2009, Liberal Defence Critic Denis Coderre said today. 

“For the last month, the Harper government has worked hard to lure Canadians into thinking that the combat mission will be coming to an end. The Conservatives have not moderated their position. The only thing that has changed is their political spin,” said Mr. Coderre. “If any of this propaganda was true the Conservatives would commit unequivocally to Canadians that the combat mission will end in February 2009. Canadians clearly cannot trust this government.” 

Last night on CBC’s The National, Allan Gregg of the Strategic Counsel summed up the Conservatives’ strategy of obfuscation and misleading propaganda, saying it is similar to the strategy used to mislead Canadians on the Conservatives’ failure to act on the environment: "When they're faced with something they know they're in political difficulty, such as they are there this issue, they tend to try to moderate their position so they don't look as extreme... So I don't expect anything substantively to change, just the messaging." 

Mr. Coderre pointed to the Conservatives’ secrecy surrounding documents held by the Department of National Defence and their evolving statements on Afghanistan over the past several months as overwhelming evidence that Canadians simply can’t trust them. 
More on link

2 killed in Afghanistan believed to be U.S. troops
From the Associated Press July 28, 2007
Article Link

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Two soldiers believed to be American were killed and 13 were wounded Friday in a major clash in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, while fighting in the south was reported to have killed as many as 50 suspected militants and more than two dozen civilians.

A U.S. AH-64 Apache attack helicopter supporting the evacuation of wounded troops in the east made what NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, labeled a controlled landing after possible engine failure. Insurgent activity was reported nearby, and the Taliban claimed it had brought down the helicopter. 

Nuristan provincial Gov. Tamim Nuristani said militants had ambushed international troops, sparking a fight that included airstrikes. He said he had a report that 25 militants were killed in the clash in Kamdesh district, which borders Pakistan. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (28 Jul 2007)

Face of war has given the Tories a fright
'I sense cutting and running,' historian says, despite PM's earlier declaration
Mike Blanchfield, _Ottawa Citizen_, July 28
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=579adb73-3d08-44dc-b39c-526998a9b00e



> On March 13, 2006, against a backdrop of armoured vehicles at Kandahar Air Field, Stephen Harper told an assembly of hundreds of Canadian and international soldiers -- and a country that had just elected him listening back home -- that Canada would not "cut and run" from Afghanistan as long as he was prime minister.
> 
> On June 22, Mr. Harper told a press conference on Parliament Hill that, unless the House of Commons reaches a "consensus" on the future of the mission, it will end as scheduled in February 2009.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (29 Jul 2007)

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 29

Children starving in Kandahar area
Refugees in camps around city have little access to food, sanitation and government aid
Don Martin, CanWest News Service, July 28
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=bfea35c6-830e-41ca-a4b7-30b15fd8c410



> KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan -- With crying babies filling every bed, she waits for treatment in a plastic tub dangling beneath a weigh scale, weakly trying to smile.
> 
> The reading above the two-year-old's failing body could well be her tombstone. It puts her at seven kilograms. The pediatric chart I consulted said the average weight for a healthy female her age should be about 12 kilograms. The doctors here peg her chances of survival at 60 per cent.
> 
> ...



NATO helped save 40,000 Afghan children: Grant
CP, July 28
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070728/canada_afghanistan_070728/20070728?hub=TopStories



> Canada's outgoing military commander in Afghanistan says Canadian and NATO efforts there have helped save the lives of 40,000 children.
> 
> And Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant says that's a "conservative estimate."
> 
> ...



Three British soldiers dead in a week: the bloody Battle of Kajaki Dam
British troops are paying a heavy price in the war against the Taliban amid accusations that they do not have the numbers or the support of Nato allies to do the job. Raymond Whitaker reports on a war without end
_The Independent on Sunday_, 29 July
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2814762.ece



> The latest casualty, who has not yet been named, was a member of 14 Signals Regiment. His death in a mortar attack on the compound where he was working in the upper Gereshk Valley on Friday brings British losses in Afghanistan since 2001 to 67, all but five since the beginning of 2006. Two other soldiers were killed in the same area within 24 hours earlier in the week. All were taking part in Operation Chakush (Hammer), which aims to drive back the Taliban in a strategically crucial part of Helmand province, the main theatre of British operations.
> 
> Some 29 Nato troops have been killed this month in Afghanistan, with the US and Canada bearing the brunt of the casualties. France, Norway and the Netherlands have also lost soldiers. Away from the battlefield in southern Afghanistan, there has been a spate of suicide bombings and kidnappings, often in areas previously considered relatively safe. Commanders argue that these show the Taliban is being forced to adopt other tactics, because it cannot win in head-on clashes, but there have one or two unsettling developments on the military front as well.
> 
> ...



More on Vector:
http://www.pinzgauer.uk.com/default.php?category=News&pageName=29&detail=true
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/DefenceSecretaryOrdersNewVehiclesForTroopsInIraqAndAfghanistan.htm
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/corporate-manslaughter.html

Third British soldier in three days killed in mortar attack in Helmand
_The Independent on Sunday_, 29 July
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2814744.ece


> ...
> The sergeant's death brought the number of British troops lost in Afghanistan to 67. It followed those of Guardsman David Atherton on Thursday and Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins on Thursday, amid fierce fighting in Helmand's upper Gereshk Valley. All three soldiers were taking part in Operation Chakush (Hammer), launched last week to drive out the Taliban from an area of strategic significance. The aim is to create a safe area for engineers to restore the Kajaki dam, which could supply hydroelectricity to much of the southern part of the country and provide irrigation for farmers in an effort to lure them away from growing opium.
> 
> But last night opposition MPs accused the Government of making British soldiers vulnerable to attack by failing to plan properly and send in reinforcements. Patrick Mercer, the Conservative MP for Newark and Retford, said the Government's failure to send more troops to Afghanistan was putting soldiers at unnecessary risk.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (30 Jul 2007)

*Articles found July 30, 2007*

Face of war has given the Tories a fright
'I sense cutting and running,' historian says, despite PM's earlier declaration
Mike Blanchfield The Ottawa Citizen Saturday, July 28, 2007
Article Link

On March 13, 2006, against a backdrop of armoured vehicles at Kandahar Air Field, Stephen Harper told an assembly of hundreds of Canadian and international soldiers -- and a country that had just elected him listening back home -- that Canada would not "cut and run" from Afghanistan as long as he was prime minister.

On June 22, Mr. Harper told a press conference on Parliament Hill that, unless the House of Commons reaches a "consensus" on the future of the mission, it will end as scheduled in February 2009.

So, what happened in those intervening 15 months to soften the prime minister's resolve? Only Mr. Harper himself knows for sure, but one fact is clear: 50 Canadian soldiers lost their lives on Afghan soil in that interval.

The signals Mr. Harper is sending about Canada's future military involvement in Afghanistan are as clear as a Kandahar sandstorm. Still, this much is apparent: Canada's "new government" now envisions a less robust military commitment to Afghanistan, less fighting, more training of Afghan security forces, and greater emphasis on the diplomatic front. In other words: less dying.

"I sense cutting and running," says Canadian military historian and author Jack Granatstein. "We are clearly preparing to end or greatly minimize our combat role. It's obviously too politically damaging.

"I don't think Canadian public opinion can withstand massive coverage of every death." Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said last weekend that Canadian troops are all but done as warriors when he remarked that he expects newly trained Afghan troops may be able to take over leading security duties from Canada as early as next year. The suggestion was immediately shot down by military analysts at home, and called into question by Canadian Forces commanders in Kandahar.

The suggestion that Canadian soldiers now seem to face less fighting -- and, by extension, less death -- comes as support for the mission wanes in public opinion polls. Moreover, the Conservative's political opposition, especially the Liberals and NDP, have made it clear they aren't interested in reaching any "consensus" on extending the mission beyond February 2009.

That has left Mr. Harper with only one path: try to sell a softer version of the mission to Parliament, so he can keep some sort of Canadian military footprint on Afghan soil, while priming the public and Canada's NATO allies for the inevitable end of combat operations.

"I don't have any doubt that he's been damaged by the casualty returns. I think a change in role before an election will probably help," says Mr. Granatstein.
More on link

NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
Posted Sat Jul 28, 2007 7:38am AEST 
Article Link

NATO says three of its soldiers and an Afghan trooper have been killed along with several insurgents in Afghanistan, while a helicopter gunship made a forced landing in a seperate incident.

The deaths among the troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) bring the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 124.

ISAF does not release the nationalities of the soldiers killed before their native country has been notified.

An official statement from the military force said a third NATO soldier was killed in the south of the country.

A second spokesman for the troops in eastern Afghanistan said 13 ISAF soldiers were injured in addition to 24 militants who were "killed or wounded".

"Two ISAF soldiers and an Afghan army soldier have been killed, 13 ISAF soldiers and a civilian have been wounded in the operation," the spokesman said.

The force also said in a press statement that an ISAF AH-64 Apache attack helicopter made a "precautionary landing" in eastern Kunar province bordering Pakistan today.

"The helicopter is secured and the crew was safely recovered with no injuries," it said.

The helicopter carrying a two-man crew was providing support for a medical evacuation of ISAF personnel when the crew made the controlled landing after noting a possible failing engine.

"Insurgent activity was reported in the vicinity where the helicopter was supporting the medical mission," it said.

A reporter said he could see the helicopter with smoke billowing from its tail, with several medical evacuation helicopter signs flying back from the operation site, apparently evacuating casualties.
End of Article

Third British soldier in three days killed in mortar attack in Helmand  
By Raymond Whitaker and Marie Woolf Published: 29 July 2007 
Article Link

The third British soldier to be killed in southern Afghanistan in as many days was named last night by the Ministry of Defence. Sergeant Barry Keen, 34, from Newcastle, was fatally wounded in a mortar attack on a compound near the village of Mirmandab in Helmand province on Friday.

Sgt Keen, of 245 Signal Squadron, 14 Signals Regiment, Royal Corps of Signals, was reorganising with his team in a secured area after acting in support of the Afghan National Army when a single mortar round landed next to him. Despite receiving immediate medical treatment, his injuries were too severe for him to survive.

The sergeant's death brought the number of British troops lost in Afghanistan to 67. It followed those of Guardsman David Atherton on Thursday and Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins on Thursday, amid fierce fighting in Helmand's upper Gereshk Valley. All three soldiers were taking part in Operation Chakush (Hammer), launched last week to drive out the Taliban from an area of strategic significance. The aim is to create a safe area for engineers to restore the Kajaki dam, which could supply hydroelectricity to much of the southern part of the country and provide irrigation for farmers in an effort to lure them away from growing opium.
More on link

February handoff would be a 'challenge': Hillier
Updated Sun. Jul. 29 2007 10:30 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Canada's top soldier says handing over front-line fighting duties to Afghan soldiers by February will prove to be a "significant challenge." 

Gen. Rick Hillier told CTV's Question Period that it's unlikely Canada's frontline presence will be scaled back because of the significant time commitment needed to train Afghan forces to take over security in the country. 

Hillier effectively downplayed comments by Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who said last week on Question Period that by the time the 22nd Regiment takes over the mission in Afghanistan in August, the Canadian military will be shifting from combat to the classroom. And Afghan soldiers would take up the bulk of the fighting around Kandahar. 
More on link

Soldiers overwhelmed patrolling Afghanistan border
Updated Sun. Jul. 29 2007 10:34 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Canadian soldiers are helping prevent the Taliban from crossing between the Afghanistan and Pakistan border, but their task is proving difficult by extremists who kill and intimidate assisting local forces. 

The Taliban mostly leave the Canadian soldiers alone. They don't want to engage in military combat as the insurgents don't want to draw attention when they move weapons, drugs and combatants between the two countries. 

"We know that Taliban activity goes back and forth across the border on a regular basis and we're here to try and stem the flow," says Maj. Steve Graham, Royal Canadian Dragoons Squadron Commander. 

One of his units recently returned from an outpost in northern Kandahar Province where the Taliban continue to intimidate the Afghan army and local police officers with threats and violence. 

"We have suffered so much," says the village leader, "so we are grateful for the help." 

The porous border stretches hundreds of kilometres, and is a gateway for gunrunners and drug dealers. 

"Are we able to reduce it? Yes. Can we stop it? No," Graham says. 
More on link

Returning Van Doos receive warm welcome
Updated Sun. Jul. 29 2007 10:19 PM ET Canadian Press
Article Link

CFB VALCARTIER, Que. -- Friends and family greeted 85 Quebec-based soldiers who returned from Afghanistan on Sunday. 

Troops from the famed Royal 22nd Regiment, also known as the Van Doos, arrived at CFB Valcartier following an eight-month tour. 

A convoy of police and armoured military vehicles escorted buses carrying the troops from Quebec City's Jean Lesage Airport to the base. 

Returning soldier Cpl. Jean-Rene D'Amours told Radio Canada when risks ran high in Kandahar he thought of his family back home. 

He says thinking about seeing them again helped him do his job. 

International Co-operation Minister Josee Verner was also on hand to welcome the troops. 

A company of Van Doos has been working at the provincial reconstruction team base since November. 

Another contingent of 80 soldiers is expected to return Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 soldiers from the Quebec City-area base are currently making their way to Kandahar. 

The new rotation of troops assumes official command of the mission next month. 
More on link

Afghan leaders plead for release of female hostages
Updated Sun. Jul. 29 2007 2:39 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Senior Afghan religious and political leaders invoked Afghan and Islamic chivalric traditions by pleading with the Taliban to release 18 female South Korean hostages.

A purported Taliban spokesperson said the plea would have no bearing on the new deadline set for the hostages' lives, which is Monday at 3:30 a.m. EDT.

Taliban militants seized 23 Korean hostages from a bus on July 19. The rebels killed 42-year-old pastor Bae Hyung-kyu on Wednesday and say the remaining captives will meet a similar fate if 23 Taliban prisoners aren't released. 
More on link

More Articles available here
MILNEWS.ca

CANinKandahar


----------



## MarkOttawa (30 Jul 2007)

Canadians must stay until job is done
Don Martin, _Ottawa Citizen_, July 30
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fea3877a-7bf1-42d2-bba1-5127db1e39e9


> ...
> Seven weeks in southern Afghanistan is but an observational blink in a country that's been at war within itself for most of the last 30 years, but as I leave Kandahar today, trends and patterns are possible to detect and decipher. Some are hopeful. Others border on hopeless.
> 
> Right off the bat, let me argue that Canada cannot impose a political timetable on successfully ending this military mission.
> ...



Nato rethink as Taliban proves skilled adversary
_Financial Times_, July 30
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ae9ee61a-3df5-11dc-8f6a-0000779fd2ac.html



> When Nato officials talk of their Taliban foes, they do so with a mixture of contempt and grudging admiration.
> 
> Contempt, because of the Taliban tactics that have become so shockingly familiar over the past six years, beheadings and hostage-taking among them. There is also a sense that the “Taliban” is not a homogeneous organisation but a series of interlocking groups that include drug traffickers and other criminals as well as religious zealots.
> 
> ...



Nato plans smaller bombs for Afghanistan
_Financial Times_, July 30
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/44aaa8be-3e01-11dc-8f6a-0000779fd2ac.html



> Nato plans to use smaller bombs in Afghanistan as part of a change in tactics aimed at stemming a rise in civilian casualties that threatens to undermine support in the fight against the Taliban.
> 
> The head of the alliance, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, acknowledged in an interview with the Financial Times that mounting civilian casualties had hurt Nato and *alliance commanders had recently instructed troops to hold off attacking the Taliban in some situations where civilians were at risk* [emphasis added].
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (31 Jul 2007)

ARTICLES FOUND JULY 31

Local ranks too thin to take on Taliban
Just 1,400 will be fully trained when fighting season begins - less than half the number O'Connor predicted
_Globe and Mail_, July 31
http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070731/AFGHANMAIN31/International/international/international/6/6/32/



> Afghan soldiers are tough, brave and willing to fight, say Canadians who have watched them take on the Taliban. The proof is grimly evident in the surgical ward at the main NATO base hospital where wounded Afghan soldiers fill nearly every bed.
> 
> But what they have in courage they lack in numbers, which argues that the Afghan National Army is far from ready to take over the battle against the Taliban from Canada and its allies.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


----------

