# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread August 2011



## GAP (1 Aug 2011)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread August 2011 *               

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


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## GAP (1 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 1, 2011*

 As NATO troops withdraw, the Taliban target a fragile government
GRAEME SMITH  Globe and Mail Wednesday, Jul. 27, 2011 
Article Link

An assassin with a suicide bomb hidden in his turban has killed the mayor of Kandahar city, the latest in a string of high-profile assassinations shaking the power structure in southern Afghanistan.

The Taliban took credit for the death of Ghulam Haider Hameedi, while American officials suggested that it was more likely a revenge killing. In any case, it’s a fine distinction in a place where politics are rough and personal.
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 At Kandahar’s NATO hospital, ‘every job is the hardest’
Article Link
by Corinne Reilly The Virginian Pilot,  August 1, 2011

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN

PART TWO |  For the doctors and nurses here, staving off death is part of daily life. Avoiding emotional involvement is best. It's also impossible.

For the weight of what the surgeon is about to do, it seems like it should take more than a few snips.

But just like that, in two easy squeezes of the scissors – three or four seconds maybe – Lt. Cmdr. Kirk Sundby severs the thin stretch of tissue connecting Eddie Ward’s calf and thigh, and the soldier’s right leg is no longer his.

Sundby, a Canadian orthopedic specialist, turns to a Dutch army nurse who is standing by with a large red plastic bag. They place the leg inside, the boot still on it.

“Anything else?” the nurse asks.

Sundby drops in a stray, 5-inch piece of femur. Broken and jagged at both ends, it’s been stripped clean of flesh by the upward force of the blast. “That’s it for now,” he says.

The nurse nods, then sets the bag on the floor near the door.

The half-dozen doctors in the room survey what’s left. With no skin to contain it, the pile of loose muscle that is the end of Ward’s thigh is spread out wide on the table. Before it can be packed back inside, it must be thoroughly cleaned. A surgical technician passes Sundby a bottle of saline. With one hand he pours it over the mess of flesh, and with the other he begins massaging out all the dirt and grass that the explosion blasted in.

Three others help, picking out bits of rock and gravel as they go.

“This is one of the dirtiest wounds I’ve seen,” says Navy Lt. Joelle Annandono, an orthopedic physician assistant based in Bremerton, Wash.

Several bottles of saline and iodine later, the first wash is done, and the doctors move on to the next step: cutting away all the tissue that is dead or dying. Pink and red are good colors. Purple and blue must be removed.

This time, there is a lot of the latter – at least several pounds.
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## GAP (2 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 2, 2011*

Suicide bombers storm Afghan guesthouse
By Mohammad Hamed, Reuters
Article Link 

KUNDUZ, AFGHANISTAN - Three suicide bombers attacked a guesthouse used by foreigners in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz on Tuesday, killing four Afghan security guards employed by a German company, a senior police detective said.

The raid came on the second day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and 13 months after Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen stormed a U.S. contracting company office in Kunduz, killing five, including three foreigners.

The once peaceful north of the country has seen a series of high profile attacks and assassinations over the last year, including the killing of a top police commander in May.

One attacker detonated a car bomb at the gates of the guesthouse. The other two stormed the building where they fought Afghan forces for a couple of hours before detonating their explosives, said Kunduz police detective Abdul Rahman.

Ten people, including civilians and a police officer, were wounded in the early morning attack, said Rahman . No foreigners were among the wounded, he said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, said spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

The attack came as the U.S. military has speculated whether Taliban leaders would take a break during Ramadan and cross back over the border into Pakistan. A Western official in Kabul predicted on Sunday limited spikes in violence, including some high profile attacks during Ramadan.

Rahman said the slain Afghan security guards worked for a local security company, which was employed by German development agency GIZ, formerly called GTZ.

The guesthouse was run by the local security company and sometimes accommodated foreign staff, he said.

“According to our knowledge it wasn’t an attack against GIZ, it appears to be an attack against the local security firm,” said Hans Spehling, a spokesman for GIZ, adding that all GIZ employees were safe. He also confirmed the local security firm was employed by GIZ.

VIOLENCE IN THE NORTH

Violence has intensified in the north of the country in the past year as insurgents seek to demonstrate their reach beyond their traditional southern heartland around Kandahar city.

On July 2, 2010, Taliban attackers made a pre-dawn attack on the newly opened offices of Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI).
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## GAP (4 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 4, 2011*

 GDLS lands 2nd $42M deal
Article Link
CONTRACTS: Latest deal, also for U.S. Marine Corps, is for armoured vehicles
By NORMAN DE BONO, The London Free Press August 3, 2011

For London’s General Dynamics, the U.S. Marine Corps is an old customer that just keeps coming back.

The Oxford St. E. plant has landed a $42 million deal to supply 33 light-armoured vehicles, LAV A2s, to the Marines, the defence manufacturer announced Tuesday.

“They were our second customer and they keep coming back to us and reordering and that is good for us,” said Ken Yamashita, GDLS spokesperson.

There are about 1,000 London-­made light armoured vehicles with the Marine Corps fleet since it began buying them in the early 1980s.

The LAV A2 is smaller than the LAV III and Stryker GDLS manufactures for the Canadian and U.S. army, and it is used widely as a reconnaissance-type vehicle in Afghanistan.

“They are very important to our business,” Yamashita said of the Marine Corps orders.

It’s expected production will be finished by December 2012.

The LAV A2 is considered a highly mobile vehicle. It is an eight-wheeled amphibious vehicle with enhanced armour and an automatic fire suppression system, according to a release from General Dynamics.

In total, 240 LAV-A2 vehicles have been ordered by the Marine Corps since 2007.

The contract comes after the Marines awarded a $41.6 million deal to GDLS to upgrade its RG-31, mine-resistant armoured vehicles.

Both contracts will offer existing workers stability, but won’t create new jobs.

GDLS also has been awarded a more than $1 billion contract to upgrade LAV IIIs used by the Canadian military, and is working on details of that contract to submit to Canadian government officials in the fall, said Yamashita.

That deal will see about 550 of the 650 LAV IIIs in the Canadian Forces upgraded in London, with an option for another 80 vehicles.

In addition GDLS is bidding on two other Canadian armoured vehicle military contracts, with about $2 billion for a close-combat vehicle and $1.4 billion for a tactical armoured patrol vehicle, expected to be awarded in 2012.

The Tactical Armoured Patrol Vehicle program will replace the Canadian army’s existing fleet of RG-31 mine-protected vehicles and the Coyote wheeled light armored vehicles. 
end

 The hardest part is accepting they can’t fix Afghanistan
Article Link
PART FIVE |  Days at the combat hospital are filled with treating the wounded and mourning the dead. In their few quiet moments, the staff seek solace and distraction.

By Corinne Reilly The Virginian Pilot August 4, 2011

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN

Lt. Cmdr. Tom Shu steps through the trauma department doors and looks up at the clear night sky.

“The dust has settled down,” he says, referring to the sandstorm that passed through the day before. “It’s actually nice out.”

A flight and critical care nurse, Shu is 15 hours into a 36-hour shift. It’s a little after 9 p.m.

He turns to the jagged mountains in the distance and walks a few hundred yards, past two idle military ambulances to an opening in a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Just on the other side, a rusty stool and a few metal folding chairs are lined up amid the scrub brush.

Shu sits down. In front of him is the flight line – the massive runway where all the military aircraft with business in Kandahar come and go, including those that deliver and pick up the hospital’s patients. The mountains are black against the dark blue sky. The lights twinkling on the runway are a mix of yellow, red and green.
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 Toews blasts CBC
Broadcaster hasn't published IDs of suspected war criminals
By Bryn Weese, Parliamentary Bureau 
Article Link

OTTAWA -- A senior Conservative cabinet minister has blasted the CBC for refusing to publish the photos and names of 30 suspected war criminals living in Canada illegally.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews sounded off against the CBC during a Winnipeg radio show on CJOB Tuesday.

"I have long since given up trying to understand the state broadcaster, or the CBC as we know them more popularly," Toews said. "I find it so fascinating that they refuse to put the names of the individuals and pictures of the individuals on their network given that these are individuals who have been found by a tribunal not to be admissible in Canada and legal warrants have been issued for their arrest." 

~~~~~

But Toews didn't pull any punches Tuesday, and also criticized the CBC for its handling of the Afghan detainee documents issue.

"I find it ironic that the CBC was always so quick to try to implicate our Canadian armed forces in war crimes in Afghanistan and never hesitant to mention that, but in this situation, when we actually have rulings from tribunals, they're reluctant to involve themselves." 

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## GAP (7 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 7, 2011*

 Half of NATO trainers could remain in Afghanistan past 2014: Canadian colonel
  Article Link
 By William Marsden, Postmedia News August 6, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO trainers will continue to mentor and train Afghan army and police for years past the pullout deadline of 2014, said Col. Peter Dawe, deputy commander of the Canadian contribution to the NATO training mission.

In an interview with BBC, U.S. Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, commander of the NATO Training mission, said as many as half the 5,000 trainers could stay on after 2014 to continue their job of helping Afghans build a professional security force that by 2012 will number 352,000 strong, including 157,000 police.

NATO's goal is to withdraw gradually all combat troops by March 2014. There are 132,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Building and sustaining Afghan security forces beyond 2014, however, requires continued NATO commitment in Afghanistan, Dawe said in an interview.

"You can't view 2014 as an absolute deadline," he said.

He added however that "it is unequivocal" that Canada's 950 trainers and support staff, whose main job is to train Afghan trainers, will be gone by 2014.
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 4 NATO troops killed following deadliest U.S. day in Afghanistan
By David Ariosto and Barbara Starr, CNN August 7, 2011 
Article Link

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A day after the worst single-incident loss of American lives in the Afghan war, four more NATO soldiers were killed in separate insurgent attacks.

Two service members were killed in the country's volatile east, while another two were killed in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, NATO reported.

Meanwhile, international recovery efforts continued as crews combed through the wreckage of a downed CH-47 Chinook in eastern Afghanistan, the site where 30 U.S. troops lost their lives.

"They're just trying recover everything from the crash at this point," said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

The service members died early Saturday when their helicopter crashed during an operation against Taliban insurgents, officials said.
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## GAP (8 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 8, 2011*

 High-tech knee could get soldier battle-ready
  Article Link
New prosthetic gives corporal hope he can pass fitness test and stay in the Canadian Forces
 By Andrew Duffy, Postmedia News August 8, 2011

Cpl. Andrew Knisley has known his share of frustration with the artificial leg he's worn for the past two years.

The prosthetic limb, which straps to his pelvis, does not allow him to easily navigate stairs or uneven terrain. Last week, for instance, his knee unexpectedly gave out as he walked across a beach on the Ottawa River.

"I went down like a sack of potatoes," says Knisley, 27, whose right leg was destroyed by a bomb in Afghanistan.

But recently at the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre, Knisley received a new prosthetic limb, the X2, that he hopes will significantly improve his mobility. Knisley is the third Canadian soldier to be fitted with the device, which represents the latest in artificial knee technology.

ELECTRONICALLY CONTROLLED

The X2 comes loaded with high-tech gear: microprocessors, sensors, a gyroscope and an accelerometer. The equipment measures and responds instantly to the force applied to the limb.

The electronically controlled knee has allowed other users to run, climb stairs, walk backwards, even cycle - activities that were virtually impossible with earlier, less-flexible prosthetic knees.
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 Afghan crash highlights critical, dangerous role of special forces
By Tim Lister, CNN August 8, 2011
Article Link

The shooting down of a Chinook helicopter in central Afghanistan with the loss of 38 lives -- most of them U.S. Navy SEALs -- highlights two crucial aspects of the conflict in Afghanistan, as U.S. forces begin to draw down and Afghan security forces start taking the lead.

The first is the growing reliance on U.S. Special Operations Forces to combat the Taliban and other insurgent groups -- in operations every night across the country.

The second is that many areas far beyond the Taliban's traditional strongholds in the south remain very insecure, areas where the Taliban have exploited an instinctive wariness of a foreign force among locals -- and punished those who dare to work with them.

One such place is the Tangi Valley in Wardak province, where the crash occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning. Soldiers who have served there describe it as perfect territory for insurgents, with steep mountainsides of shale and boulders overlooking orchards and thick vegetation.
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Soldier allegedly cut fingers off dead Taliban
 8 August 2011 Last updated at 06:10 ET
Article Link

The Ministry of Defence is investigating claims that a soldier sliced fingers off dead Taliban fighters to keep as souvenirs.

It is understood the allegations relate to a soldier from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who was serving in Afghanistan.

The claims centre on the battalion's last tour of duty in the country.

It was deployed in Helmand from September 2010 until April this year, tasked with training Afghan police.

Soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, are recruited in Scotland but based in Canterbury, in Kent.

Douglas Young, executive chairman of the British Armed Forces Federation, said he was "shocked" to learn of the investigation.

He added: "While the facts still need to be established, if there turns out to be anything in these claims, clearly the MoD are correct to treat the matter very seriously.

"The alleged behaviour is totally out of kilter with the ethos of the armed forces."
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 Ruff justice
Training the dogs that take down terrorists like Osama bin Laden
Article Link
By SUSANNAH CAHALAN  August 7, 2011

“There was a dog?” President Obama asked, after meeting the squadron commander of SEAL Team 6, the group that killed Osama bin Laden, according to a New Yorker article published last week. “I want to meet that dog.”

“If you want to meet the dog, Mr. President, I advise you to bring treats,” the commander joked.

Obama walked into the next room and petted Cairo, the only member of the team whose name has been declassified, though — per Secret Service order — the dog had to remain muzzled.

Cairo, like many miliary dogs, is a Belgian Malinois, a breed similar in coloring and appearance to German shepherds, but smaller and lighter-boned. They are intimidating and intelligent, perfect for unpredictable and dangerous Special Ops missions.

He is one of 650 dogs in deployment areas overseas and one of 2,700 dogs in the military worldwide. Marines began a pilot program in Afghanistan, starting with only nine bomb-sniffing dogs at the start of the war. The number rose to 350 and has now nearly doubled.

This growing canine presence is because they have proven themselves to be invaluable to the war effort. Their duties are as varied and complex as their human counterparts; they are trained to sniff out explosives, track enemies, even parachute and rappel.

Military handler Mike Forsythe and his dog Cara recently broke a world record for tandem skydiving when they parachuted from 30,100 feet together, both wearing oxygen masks.
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## GAP (9 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 9, 2011*

 Helicopter-squad troops come home
  Article Link
Returning with mixed emotions from Afghanistan 
By Keith Gerein, Edmonton Journal August 9, 2011

Members of an Edmontonbased helicopter squad returned home Monday from Afghanistan with mixed emotions, both glad to be reunited with family but saddened by news of a weekend tragedy in the war zone.

On Saturday, a U.S. Chinook CH-47 elicopter was shot down by Taliban fire. Thirty American soldiers and eight Afghan commandos were killed in what is being called the single deadliest incident in NATO's 10-year war in Afghanistan.

"The aircraft that was shot down was the same type of aircraft basically as what we were operating in the theatre," said Maj. Colin Coakwell, an officer with the 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron who had been commanding Canada's Chinook fleet in Afghanistan. "It underlines how dangerous it is to operate there and our hearts go out to our American comrades."

Coakwell said Canadians have avoided a similar tragedy likely through a combination of tactics and luck.

He said the Canadian Chinooks, which are large helicopters capable of hauling large numbers of troops and equipment, are always escorted by smaller attack helicopters known as Griffons.
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 Soldier leaves banking behind
By BRETT CLARKSON, QMI AGENCY
Article Link

The main thing that Cpl. Dannie Whittingham notices about being back in Canada is the silence at night when he tries to sleep.

For eight months in Afghanistan, Whittingham, 43, went to bed at night with the drone of the generators around the base.

Back in Kingston, where he is stationed at the Canadian Forces base, and his hometown of Fort Erie, where he visited his parents this weekend, Whittingham is finding it hard to break the routine he came to know while serving with the 21 Electronic Warfare Regiment.

"It's just kind of an eerie, spooky, hard-to-sleep silence," he said in an interview at the Royal Canadian Legion in Fort Erie on Saturday.

Whittingham, who landed on the ground in Afghanistan on Nov. 23 of last year, left Kandahar Airfield on July 28. He was among the last of the Canadian combat troops to leave the country.

Whittingham has also been noticing some of the things most Canadians never would at home -- the sheer amount of green, traffic lights, drops of rain and litter on the street.

If they had places like Tim Hortons, Afghanis would never leave their paper coffee cups on the side of the road, Whittingham noted.

"Even though there's not much, they took a lot of pride in what they had," Whittingham said.
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## GAP (11 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 11, 2011*

 A statement from the family of Jared Day
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 
Article Link

The following is a statement provided to the AfPak Channel by the family of Jared Day, a member of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group killed in Afghanistan Saturday when a helicopter carrying Day and his teammates was shot down in Wardak Province.

This weekend we lost our son, brother, friend, and hero.  Jared William Day was killed doing what he loved. He died alongside his friends, some of the bravest men this world has ever known. 
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 Leaving hope behind in Kandahar
  Article Link
In the embattled region, a legacy of respect, but no peace
by Adnan R. Khan on Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Twilight in Kandahar city is not what it used to be. The light, of course, is the same as it was a half-decade ago: as the sun settles behind jagged mountain peaks, the dust kicked up by sweltering desert winds forms a natural ﬁlter in the sky, turning sunlight into an ochre-shaded mixture that settles over the city’s streets. But these days, the vermillion hues feel more ominous. Ghulam Nabi feels it: the long-time Maclean’s Kandahar ﬁxer shifts uneasily in the passenger seat of the parked taxi cab, furtively glancing at the thinning crowds on Kandahar’s eastern outskirts. The driver, sitting in the backseat, feels it as well, as he sits unusually still and silent. The man in the driver’s seat, talking animatedly with his torso twisted to face the back, is the only person who seems not to notice the fact that the streets are quickly falling silent, that the wind is picking up force and, most worryingly, that even the police have disappeared.
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 NATO drifts into irrelevance
  Article Link
 By J.L. Granatstein, Citizen Special August 11, 2011

The crisis in financial markets - and the coming budget cuts in many nations - will surely hit the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Britain is slashing its defence budget, as are the Americans, the Italians, the Greeks, and even Canada, arguably the soundest economy in the West. These cuts will weaken NATO even more, the alliance already reeling after a decade of bumbling incompetence
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 Seaforth contractor helped rebuild schools, repair roads in Afghanistan
By Susan Hundertmark
Article Link

Steven Greidanus is home after spending eight months rebuilding schools and repairing infrastructure in Afghanistan with the Canadian military.

The Seaforth building contractor, who is also a naval reservist, used both his military training and his civilian experience working as a Civilian-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) operator with village leaders in the province of Dand, teaching them about democracy and encouraging them to cooperate with each other to improve their communities.

"I am very comfortable that I made a difference over there. I got to see little girls go back to school," he says.

Trained extensively about the Afghan culture before he arrived in Afghanistan last Nov. 27, Greidanus spent most of his time listening when he first arrived, building trust with community leaders and consulting about what was needed by the villagers.
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## GAP (11 Aug 2011)

A nail in the coffin of the Pakistani pantomime
Article Link

Terry Glavin  Aug 11, 2011 – 10:54 AM ET

If the history of the 21st century’s first decade is ever properly written, the words “the war in Afghanistan” could probably serve as little more than an index entry from a footnote in a prominent chapter about Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. The ISI deserves at least a chapter of its own, if only for the spectacularly cunning confidence trick it managed to play, year after year after year, with the United States of America as its most gullible victim.

Billions of dollars wasted and tens of thousands of lives lost, all the result of an elaborate pantomime carried off by the ISI, a parasitic, third-rate military-industrial lie machine that the White House still fancies as an American “ally.” Chief among the ISI’s successes, from 2001 until even now, is the propaganda fiction that after September 11, 2001, the Pakistani military stopped providing succor and sustenance to Al Qaida and the Taliban, and that if those entitities were present in Pakistan after 2001 at all it was only on account of those savage Pakhtuns from the hill country in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and their primitive “hospitality” code of Pakhtunwali.
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## GAP (14 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 14, 2011*

 Quebecer killed in Afghan chopper crash
  Article Link
Jean-François Racine, QMI Agency  Friday, August 12, 2011

QUEBEC CITY - A 44-year-old Quebecer and member of the U.S. Navy SEALs was among the 38 people killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan last Friday.

Insurgents shot down the Chinook helicopter. It was the deadliest single attack against the international military coalition since the war began almost 10 years ago.

The Pentagon on Thursday released the names of all U.S. military personnel killed during the operation.

Master Chief Petty Officer Louis J. Langlais was born in Quebec City and lived with his family in Santa Barbara, Calif. He abandoned his Canadian citizenship to enlist in the U.S. military.

Langlais was a father of two young boys and liked to skateboard, play baseball and go fishing, according to an obituary written by a friend and published in a Santa Barbara newspaper.

Aside from U.S. military personnel, seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter were among the 38 killed.

International media have reported that most of the Navy SEALs on board the helicopter were part of the team of soldiers that killed Osama Bin Laden in early May. The Pentagon hasn't confirmed the reports.
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 22 killed in suicide bomb attack on Hamid Karzai ally home
Suicide bombers stormed a government compound during a security meeting and killed at least 19 in the latest attempt to assassinate a senior official of Hamid Karzai’s regime.
Article Link
By Ben Farmer, Kabul 14 Aug 2011

As many as 34 more were wounded in an attack on the governor of Parwan’s compound in what witnesses said was a highly-organised assault.

The attack began with a car bomb at the front gate which blew a hole in the wall and allowed five suicide bombers, some wearing police uniform, into the compound in the market town of Charikar.

They struck as the governor, Abdul Basir Salangi, hosted a security meeting reportedly attended by several Nato advisers.

During more than an hour of fighting two assailants were able to reach the governor’s building itself before they were killed.

None made it to the meeting room, officials said, and Mr Salangi and the advisers were unharmed. The dead numbered five policemen and more than a dozen civil servants. 
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## GAP (16 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 16, 2011*

 Comox man cleaning it all up in Afghanistan
 Comox Valley Echo August 16, 2011
   Article Link

While the Mission Transition Task Force (MTTF) prepares to close down operations at Kandahar Airfield (KAF), a number of specialized military personnel are ensuring the Canadian Forces (CF) leaves little trace behind of an almost 10 year presence.

Master Corporal (MCpl) Ken Stewart, a Comox resident, is a Water, Fuel, Environment (WFE) Commander in KAF. He is part of the MTTF Engineer Support Squadron.

His job is to organize, test and oversee the Soil Remediation project which ensures any contaminated soil as the result of activities at KAF, is remediated.

As a WFE Commander his overall job involves dealing with water, and waste water treatment, ensuring clean dry fuel for aircraft operations, and ensuring there is nothing as a result of CF activities that will have an ill effect on the environment.
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 Explosives dog dies in Afghanistan
Article Link

Lucky the explosives detection dog working in Afghanistan has been declared missing in action, and is probably dead.

The golden Labrador broke away from his handlers in the Australian Special Forces and Afghan National Police force during a fight on July 4.

Sergeant Todd Langley died during the same incident in the northern Helmand province.

The commanding officer of the special operations task group, Lieutenant Colonel G, said small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire during the skirmish prevented soldiers from safely retrieving Lucky at the time.

He said they made repeated attempts to call the dog back but the animal was last seen near a concentrated group of insurgents.

Post-action analysis of the battle and subsequent monitoring of the region led Defence to conclude that Lucky was likely killed in the fighting.

"Our dogs are important to our operations and our handlers form extremely close bonds with their dog," Lieutenant Colonel G said.
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 Gordon Campbell named as government doles out diplomatic jobs
Tonda MacCharles Ottawa Bureau
Article Link

OTTAWA—The Conservative government is shifting new faces into key diplomatic jobs abroad, appointing new ambassadors to Afghanistan, NATO, the U.N.’s Geneva office and the United Kingdom.

Several of the moves are promotions for key players in the government’s past handling of the Afghanistan file.

The raft of summertime diplomatic moves announced by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s office include Glenn Davidson as Ottawa’s new envoy to Afghanistan, Yves Brodeur as ambassador to NATO in Brussels, Elissa Golberg to the United Nations in Geneva, and Guillermo Rishchynski who becomes ambassador to the UN in New York City.

Davidson is a career naval officer who will oversee the shifting post-combat role for Canada’s armed forces who are to focus on training Afghan security personnel. His military career included a four-year stint as Canadian military representative to NATO headquarters in Brussels. He retired as vice-admiral in 2008 when he was named Canada’s ambassador to Syria.
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Syrian envoy moves to post in Afghanistan
 'From the fire into the frying pan'
 Postmedia News August 16, 2011
Article Link

After three years as Canada's ambassador to Syria, Glenn Davidson is being moved - to Afghanistan.

"One might almost say he is jumping from the fire into the frying pan," Fen Hampson, director of Carleton's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, said in an email.

"This kind of cross appointment from one conflict zone to another - which is somewhat unusual but not unprecedented - is obvious testimony to (Davidson's) diplomatic skills," Hampson said.

Canada's role in Afghanistan is changing but there is still a focus on diplomacy and development, Hampson said.

"Davidson knows the region well and is an experienced diplomat and negotiator," Hampson said.
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## GAP (17 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 17, 2011*

 Afghanistan's culture of corruption must be ended
  Article Link 
The Gazette August 17, 2011

The monster homes in Kandahar's Sherpur neighbourhood - built by drug traffickers, warlords and public officials - are evidence of where some of the billions of dollars in Afghan aid money went.

The mansions, a stone's throw from open sewers and children in tattered clothing, are an offensive display by people unconcerned with hiding corruption. They are, in every regard, a suitable symbol for a country that, 10 years after Western forces came in promising aid and security, is poor, corrupt, unsafe and about to fall back into the hands of the Taliban.

"Corruption is part of life here," Afghan-Canadian businessman Hsaib Sayed, 30, told The Gazette's William Marsden in Kandahar.

According to Transparency International, a body that tracks global corruption, publicsector corruption in Afghanistan is second only to that in Somalia. Students pay bribes to get into schools; police officers must bribe their way into a promotion; insurgents are bribed not to attack "strategically important supplies," Marsden wrote in a report that appeared in Saturday's Gazette.

Nearly $60 billion has been spent since 2001 on Afghanistan, ostensibly to make good on the West's promise to rebuild the country, strengthen its state institutions, train police and build an army, and provide jobs, education, humanitarian assistance and essential services such as drinking water. Weaning impoverished Afghan farmers from the opiumpoppy crop was another goal.
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 Pakistan’s weapon of mass distraction
Article Link
The new foreign minister is young, female and stylish—cause for celebration and controversy
by Cynthia Reynolds on Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The appointment of Pakistan’s new foreign minister is dividing opinion across the conservative nation. Hina Rabbani Khar is the first woman to ever hold the position in that country and, at 34, she’s also the youngest. While some argue her selection is a sign of hope for a new, more moderate direction for the hardline nation, others see the appointment of the wealthy businesswoman—and a member of a powerful Punjabi family—as business as usual. Some also consider her vastly inexperienced. Khar, who’s held mostly junior portfolios, slipped into government after a 2002 ruling required politicians to have a college degree; she ran for office after the rule disqualiﬁed her veteran politician father. Pakistan’s archrival India, meanwhile, is offering its own take on Khar: for the moment, it appears to have settled on style icon.

During her first official visit to Delhi last month, part of the new efforts to revive relations between the long-time foes, the press had little to say about Khar’s political skills. Instead, the media gushed over her black Hermès Birkin bag, Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, and classic strand of pearls, comparing her to Michelle Obama, Carla Bruni, even Kate Middleton. One columnist referred to her as Pakistan’s “weapon of mass distraction.” It’s not the first time the press has seized upon her image; pictures of her in trendy slim-fitting jeans have raised eyebrows throughout Pakistan, prompting traditionalists to question whether the co-owner of Polo Lounge, a trendy restaurant on downtown Lahore’s polo grounds, is out of touch with the conservative—and poor—country. Regardless, she now helms one of the most volatile relationships in world politics.

Since 1947, the two countries have fought umpteen skirmishes and at least three wars. Another conflict nearly started after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed more than 165, were linked to a Pakistani militant group. The triple bombing in Mumbai earlier this summer, which killed 26, threatened to sour relations again, but no direct link to Pakistan was made and the nascent peace talks—and Khar’s visit to meet with her 79-year-old counterpart S.M. Krishna—went ahead.

Although the Delhi meeting failed to achieve any concrete breakthroughs, both sides agreed the talks were a positive step. Khar, calling it a “new era in bilateral co-operation,” said “a new generation of Indians and Pakistanis will see a relationship that will hopefully be much different from the one that has been experienced in the last two decades.” Suspicion, nonetheless, still underscored her visit: Khar’s choice to meet with Kashmiri separatists before meeting with Krishna irritated Indian ofﬁcials, and roused skeptics.
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## GAP (20 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 20, 2011*

 How I was almost crushed by a C-130 in Afghanistan
Article Link

Jacob LaDuke served with the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan in 2002 as an A-10 crew chief. Here, LaDuke explains one of his first nights at Bagram AFB and his near fatal brush with a big ol' Canadian transport. — Ed.

In August of 2002, I was deployed to Bagram AB in Afghanistan. It was my first deployment, ever. Back then, Bagram was still a "bare base". This means it was VERY primitive. PVC pipes in the ground to pee in, port-o-potties for downloading the MRE's we ate twice a day, water who's temperature changed depending on the time of day because it was in a giant bladder, etc. We also had a lack of a full perimeter around the base, so it had the feel of an old West town.

When we arrived, it was early in the morning, somewhere around  1-3 a.m. local time. It was dark. PITCH. BLACK. Now, we expected it to be dark, we had modified our aircraft with some extra night vision lights so the pilots could see. We didn't expect to walk into the set from the Vin Diesel movie.

Full size
You could hear jets running, but you didn't see them. How the hell were we going to fix an airplane when it broke?! Like a pack of half-assed MacGyver wannabes, we made due and improvised.

Our parking situation was really messed up. We were parking on a taxiway that was just wide enough to for two A-10s to taxi down next to each other. That would have been fine if we didn't also need to park six other jets on that same taxiway, have room for our fuel trucks, and ground equipment. Oh, and at the edges of the cement that comprised the taxiway there some land mines left by the Russians.
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 Combat surgeon returns to civilian life
  Article Link
Afghanistan horrors life-changing
 By Valerie Fortney, Calgary Herald August 18, 2011

His nickname was Bob 42. To Maj. Sandeep Dhesi, though, the 10-year-old Afghan boy was so much more.

"Not a day goes by when I don't think about him," says the native Calgarian, who just returned from a threemonth tour of combat hospital duty in Afghanistan.

"He never complained about the pain he was going through," says Dhesi, the only oral and maxillofacial surgeon during his stint at Kandahar Airfield (KAF), of the innocent child whose face was severely injured by shrapnel from an improvised explosive device or IED.

Only a day into his transition to life back in Calgary, which includes getting reacquainted with his lawyer wife Gurinder and their two boys, the 34-year-old officer and I meet in a southwest coffee shop.

He shares his profound experience of treating the critically wounded in Afghanistan, which included coalition and Afghan National Army soldiers, civilians and even suspected Taliban insurgents.
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 Eight dead after blasts rock British compound in Kabul
Amir Shah KABUL— The Associated Press Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011
Article Link

Suicide attackers stormed a British compound in the Afghan capital Friday, killing at least eight people in a series of explosions and a more than eight-hour gunfight on the anniversary of the country's independence from Britain.

Three foreigners — a South African and two Britons — hid in a safe room inside the building after a suicide bomber detonated explosives packed in a car outside the British Council. Another suicide bomber rushed inside the compound and blew himself up. The twin explosions shattered windows half a kilometre from the site. 
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## Mainz (23 Aug 2011)

Teaching soldiers, building a nation
By Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mike Andriacco

Regional Support Command-North/NTM-A Public Affairs

CAMP MIKE SPANN, Afghanistan – It’s a well known saying that if you give a man a fish, you can feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you can feed him for a lifetime. 

The Afghan National Army Engineer School Mentor Team has gone far beyond just providing a fish at this point. A team of coalition servicemen is literally teaching their Afghan students how to build a nation and an army at the school, located on Camp Shaheen, near Mazar-e-Sharif, in the Northern Region of Afghanistan.


The mentors have long since passed on their teaching skills and knowledge to Afghan instructors, a notable mark of progress for operations in the country. The only exception is the EOD course, which is still taught by contractors, though the ANA is working to train its own instructors.

The idea of the school is to help continue the process of training the Afghans to become their own instructors, ensuring that the ANA can become self-sustaining. By putting the future of the Afghan soldiers in their own hands, the mentors support the efforts of the Afghan people and motivate them to forge a sense of ownership and pride in their mission.

“Most of the Afghan officers and [noncommissioned officers] have a very positive attitude toward this approach,” said Norwegian Army Lt. Col. Kjetil Rian, the deputy commander of the ANA engineering mentor team and director of training and education. “It reflects appropriate respect for the independence and responsibility of the Afghans.”

The main focus is to qualify the school’s command for sustained operation and service so it can be truly self-sustaining without the need for Coalition advisors.

Annually, approximately 1,400 trainees leave the school, each specializing in one of the training areas.

“We have made a lot of progress, especially compared to when the school was established,” said. ANA Col. Ahmad Dullah, the school commander. “Day-by-day we improve our training. The quality of the training and the cooperation between the mentors and instructors has a strong positive effect on the progress of the school. They are doing a great job here.”

Dullah was not able to select one area of the school as his favorite, as he’s seen the facility rise from the dust and and through the difficult beginning all the way to its current success.

The students train in what—for Afghanistan—can be considered state of the art conditions. They have training ranges and even a mock village to help them learn their tasks, all of which they constructed themselves. The ANA soldiers are proud of their work and of the new skills they’ve acquired, and are anxious to get out in the field and use them to strengthen their country.

The school is filling its role as a linchpin in the mission to professionalize the Afghan National Security Forces, and will serve as a model in the future for success in training the Coalition’s local partners.


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## GAP (25 Aug 2011)

*Articles found August 25, 2011*

 No convincing Canada to stay in Afghan combat role past 2011: U.S. cable
  Article Link
 By Jordan Press, Postmedia News August 24, 2011

American officials came to the realization in 2009 that they would not be able to convince Canada to maintain a combat role in Afghanistan past 2011, according to a newly leaked diplomatic cable.

A cable from American diplomats in Ottawa in April 2009 outlines how that month, the State Department stressed to members of the House of Commons special committee on Afghanistan that the U.S. "would welcome Canada to remain in a combat role if feasible after 2011."

It was, the leaked cable says, "apparently the first time a (U.S.) official had specifically made such a request even informally."

But the economy was of bigger concern to Canadians and to political parties, who were jockeying ahead of a possible federal election and no one was talking about Afghanistan, says the cable, posted Wednesday on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

"The unwillingness of Canadians to engage in substantive discussion of Canada's role in Afghanistan after 2011 would make it tough slogging for any (change) of course to the current end-date of the combat mission in 2011," says the cable, written by Terry Breese, the embassy's second-in-command.
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 Court martial resumes in Halifax for soldier accused in Afghan killing
Article Link
By: The Canadian Press Posted: 08/25/2011

HALIFAX - A court martial resumes today in Halifax after a lengthy break for a former Canadian soldier charged in the fatal shooting of a fellow reservist in Afghanistan.

Matthew Wilcox of Glace Bay, N.S., is charged with criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of a military duty in the death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney.

The 25-year-old soldier from Stellarton, N.S., died in a military hospital shortly after being shot in the tent the two men shared at Kandahar Airfield in 2007.

This is the second court martial for Wilcox, who was found guilty in July 2009 of criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of duty.

He was sentenced to four years in prison and kicked out of the military but the verdict was set aside and a new trial was ordered last year after Wilcox's lawyers argued the makeup of a military jury was unfair.

The second trial began in the spring and was adjourned after the initial five weeks of court time ran out before some witnesses could be called.
end

 Afghans yearn for education
Article Link
By: Lauryn Oates Posted: 08/25/2011 

When I first visited Afghanistan, just after the Taliban's fall, the physical signs of war were everywhere. Here was a country utterly decimated. Kabul's buildings, the same beige dust colour as the surrounding mountains, were often roofless, pockmarked with bullet holes, the windows long ago shattered, the frames leaning precariously.

The roads were in ruins and many major cities were poorly connected. City power came on for only a couple of hours a night, and to this day Kabul remains perhaps the largest city in the world largely using an open-air sewage system. Piles of red spray-painted stones warned of land mines, the piles becoming more frequent on the city outskirts and into the provinces.

These are the visible signs of war. Less visible is the destruction of human capital. The wealthy and the educated are often the first to get out when violent conflict starts, and Afghanistan saw one exodus after another in each successive chapter of its long-running conflict. Eventually, the country's intelligentsia was decimated, and its artists, planners, engineers and entrepreneurs exiled. Included, too, in the flight have been the vast majority of trained, experienced teachers. This void has perhaps been one of the most detrimental to Afghanistan's rebuilding effort.

To fill the gap, the education ministry desperately recruited new teachers, many with no post-secondary education, not to mention any training as teachers. Some of the country's 170,000 teachers have not even completed high school themselves. Yet they may be the only people in a community willing to teach, a profession that pays a mere $120 per month; that is, when teachers are actually paid on time. It's not uncommon for salaries to be delayed three, four or even six months. Unsurprisingly, many teachers hold down second jobs and there is a high rate of absenteeism among Afghan teachers. With these conditions, it's hardly an occupation attracting the country's best and brightest young minds.

And yet investing in Afghanistan's teachers could have been one of the cheapest, quickest ways to reinvigorate the country's human capital, and ultimately to ensure a better chance at permanent peace. And rebuilding its human capital is far, far more important than rebuilding its physical infrastructure. This is because an educated, skilled society will be able to rebuild its own physical infrastructure over time, drawing on the local population's skills, rather than the much more expensive alternative of importing specialists to do skilled labour.
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## jhons80 (26 Aug 2011)

Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!


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## Franko (26 Aug 2011)

jhons80 said:
			
		

> Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!



Nice try.


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