# Canadian troops rotate in advance of summer offensive - Canwest News



## Alea (3 May 2010)

Canadian troops rotate in advance of summer offensive
By Ethan Baron, Canwest News Service April 28, 2010 


_"SPERWAN GHAR, Afghanistan — Canada's new command group for the front-line combat base arrived in Afghanistan Wednesday, as troops from the Royal Canadian Regiment of Petawawa, Ont., take over from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry of Edmonton.

The new rotation of soldiers arrived in advance of NATO's upcoming summer Kandahar province offensive, planned to be the largest-ever in the war.

C Company from the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR), posted to the fortified hill base here, is expected to be charged with pushing the Taliban from west Panjwaii district, a key insurgent stronghold.

"Our company is very well prepared, very well trained," said Capt. Stephen Good, second in command of the RCR's C Company.

In his previous tour, Good moved around several volatile districts.

Now, Canadian combat troops are working almost exclusively in Panjwaii, attempting to secure population centres by keeping a solid presence in a more limited area.

"In 2007, it was all kinetic operations, all disruption — we never held the ground, and we never stayed with the population. We didn't have enough manpower," said Good, originally from Coquitlam, B.C.

Outgoing Princess Patricia's troops engaged in frequent fighting in the first part of their seven-to-eight-month tour, then endured an escalating threat from improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

"It's time to go home," said Sgt. Mark Courtney, originally from Sydney, N.S., and posted to Edmonton for 10 years. "You get excited. It's almost like Christmas."

Courtney also fought with C Company in 2006, when Canadian combat troops were highly mobile, operating from the field and from scattered encampments.

"They were really two different missions. There are a lot more troops on the ground now. The insurgents aren't as willing to fight us," he said. "In 2006, we were something new and they wanted to have their go at us. Now they're a bit more cautious."

The Taliban are increasingly using IEDs against Canadian foot patrols, putting them in paths, walls and trees, in addition to planting them in roads to target vehicles, said Courtney.

He, along with three other soldiers, narrowly escaped a blast of shrapnel from a remote-detonated IED. "It went between two of us."

Princess Patricia's C Company arrived in Afghanistan in October, and moved in December to this base in west Panjwaii — a few hundred metres from a broad Taliban-held zone with what soldiers call "the heart of darkness" at its centre: the town of Zangabad.

"We started pushing out west toward Zangabad and we started getting in a lot of firefights," said Cpl. Richard Ready, a field medic originally from Appin, Ont. He had been in Afghanistan less than two weeks when an IED exploded six metres away.

"That was a bit of an eye-opener, for sure," he said.

Canada's new approach of solidifying a "ring of stability" around Kandahar City made reconnaissance platoon Cpl. Jamie Ward's tour far different from his previous rotation in 2008.

Then, as in previous years, Canadian troops moved against areas where the Taliban were entrenched, killing insurgents and driving them out, then moving to the next hot spot without having secured control.

Under the new strategy, Canada's soldiers operate out of bases located very near village areas, and work closely with the Afghan army and police — as well as Canadian military- and civilian-development teams — to clear out Taliban, solidify control, and begin providing services to villagers.

"From what we've seen on the ground, the strategy seems more focused," said Ward, originally from Victoria.

As members of the RCR arrive, the Princess Patricia's are introducing them to their new operations area, and will soon begin taking them out on patrols. The outgoing troops will leave the country in mid-May.

"I'm pretty happy to go home and go back to normal life," said Ready, "just working on the house, drinking beer by the fire, spending time with my wife and kid — he just turned one year old on the 20th.""_

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