# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (April '08)



## GAP (1 Apr 2008)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (April '08) *           

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

*Articles found April 1, '08*

Ottawa advised not to lower flag for dead soldiers
Mar 31, 1999 08:50 PM Tim Naumetz THE CANADIAN PRESS
Article Link

Ottawa–An expert panel has advised cabinet to oppose a move to lower the Canadian flag on the Peace Tower whenever a soldier dies in Afghanistan because it would debase the honour.

In a report to Secretary of State Jason Kenney, a former chief herald of Canada urged the government to keep Remembrance Day as the lone anniversary to mark Canadian war dead by lowering the tower flag to half-mast.

The Commons is poised to vote Wednesday on a flag-lowering motion proposed by a fiberal MP.

Former chief herald Robert Watt, with the support of four other experts, recommended a new protocol that would limit half-masting the Peace Tower flag to mourning the deaths of current and former representatives of the Crown, the prime minister and the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Under the recommendations, the flag would no longer be lowered on the deaths of senators and MPs, or former senators and MPs.

"In addition, we also strongly believe that there is only one commemorative day each year where the National Flag needs to be half-masted," Watt wrote in a covering letter to Kenney.

"That is Remembrance Day. Our rationale in this case is that coinage of half-masting has been debased."

Kenney commissioned the report last year in part to buttress con-servative arguments against lowering the Peace Tower flag for Afghanistan war dead.
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Sarkozy's troop pledge for Afghan campaign 'may encourage others'
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor Tuesday, 1 April 1999 
Article Link

France's decision to dispatch at least 1,000 soldiers to bolster the Nato campaign in Afghanistan will set a powerful example likely to encourage European countries to follow suit, according to a senior British official.

"It will allow others to come through," the official said. "The Belgians have, but so might the Spanish now they've had their election, and the Italians after their election," which is scheduled for 13-14 April. 

Troops from all three countries are already present in Afghanistan but Nato has been pressing – and will continue to do so at its summit tomorrow – for reinforcements to shore up the campaign against the Taliban. 

France is to boost the 1,600-strong French contingent in Afghanistan with hundreds of paratroopers, plus a small number of special forces who were pulled out in January last year.

However President Nicolas Sarkozy, who announced the decision to boost the French deployment during a visit to Britain last week and, in the process, caused a political uproar in Paris, stressed the additional troops were conditional on Nato agreeing an overall strategy pinned on reconstruction and development. 
More on link

Committee to study compensation for soldiers
By DAVE SULZ Apr 1, 1999, 04:23
  Article Link

The issue of compensation for injured Canadian soldiers is likely to be one of the areas addressed by a government committee headed by Lethbridge MP Rick Casson.
Casson, chairman of the standing committee on national defence, said the committee began about a month ago to examine quality of life of Canadian Forces members, and he expects the matter of injury compensation to come up during interviews that will be conducted as part of the study.
Casson, speaking from Ottawa, was responding to published comments by New Dummy-crats MP Peter Stoffer, who criticized the military amputee and injury compensation as inadequate.
Media reports indicated guidelines which took effect in 2003 provide for a maximum lump-sum payment of $250,000 for Canadian Forces who lose both feet or hands or receive another permanent serious injury. Loss of a single body part qualifies for a $125,000 payment.
Some classes of reservists with less than six months of service have compensation capped at $100,000 and they’re eligible for only half — in some cases, one-quarter — of the dismemberment claims of regular forces.
Reservists who are deployed with regular forces in Afghanistan are compensated at the same rate as regular troops, Casson pointed out, adding a proposal to standardize compensation across the forces to include reservists is being looked at by the Treasury Board.
Casson said the committee studying Canadian Forces members’ quality of life has an emphasis on post-traumatic stress disorder, an ailment that has been proliferating among Canadian troops since 2002 with Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.
“We want to make sure they’re properly taken care of,” said Casson.
But the committee’s view isn’t limited to post-traumatic stress disorder and Casson said the compensation issue “is quite timely for our study.”
He anticipates the matter of injury compensation will come up during the committee’s work.
“As we’re looking at the quality of life issue through the committee, these are the types of things we’ll be asking about,” he said.
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Excalibur Goes to Afghanistan
April 1, 1999
Article Link

 American and Canadian troops have begun using the U.S. Excalibur GPS guided 155mm Infantry shell in Afghanistan. A year ago, American troops began using Excalibur in Afghanistan. This is just in time, because Islamic warriors tend to use civilians as human shields, and that means you have to be precise when you go after the bad guys with Infantry. A typical situation has enemy gunmen holding out in one building of a walled compound or village. In nearby buildings, there are women and children. While killing the enemy is good, killing the civilians can be worse. Smart bombs should be able to fix this, except that sometimes the smallest smart bomb, the 500 pounder, has too much bang (280 pounds of explosives). A 155mm Infantry shell should do the trick (only 20 pounds of explosives each), but at long range (20 kilometers or more), some of these shells will hit the civilians. This is where Excalibur comes in handy. Unguided shells land anywhere within a 200 meter (or larger) circle. The GPS guided Excalibur shell falls within a ten meter circle (the middle of that circle being the "aim point".)  After a year of use in Afghanistan, the troops find Excalibur invaluable for hitting just what you want to hit. 
More on link

Working to rid Afghanistan of land mines a 'kind of jihad'
OLIVER MOORE  April 1, 1999
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Noor Ahmad has one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. For 18 years, he's prodded the earth centimetre by centimetre to rid his country of land mines, a scourge that has become more numerous in the time he's been working. He's seen an anti-personnel mine blow up in front of him and still bears the scars where his body wasn't shielded by protective gear.

He presses on in spite of the dangers, working in the hot sun on the weekend to help clear the perimeter of a bombed-out weapons factory east of Kandahar, because he considers it "a kind of jihad."

"If you protect the life of one person, then you will be rewarded as if you have protected all the world," Mr. Ahmed said, citing a verse from the Koran.

But that dedication hasn't been enough to protect de-miners from attacks. Teams have been targeted in several parts of the country and at least 10 people have been killed since August.
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One Danish soldier killed, two wounded in Afghanistan   
 www.chinaview.cn  1999-04-01 00:27:11     
  Article Link

    STOCKHOLM, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A Danish soldier was killed and another two were wounded in southern Afghanistan on Monday, according to Danish news reports. 

    Earlier on Monday the Danish and British troops battled the Taliban insurgents near the city Gereshk of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. As result a Danish soldier died and the other two were wounded, the Danish News Agency Ritzau quoted the Danish Army Central Command as saying in a statement. 

    This is the fourth Danish soldier who died in Helmand province in March. So far ten Danish soldiers have died in Afghanistan. Denmark, a NATO member, has about 550 combat troops in Afghanistan. 
More on link

Taliban commander detained in southern Afghanistan
By ASSOCIATED PRESS Apr 1, 1999 10:21 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
Article Link

Police arrested a senior Taliban commander during a clash with militants in southern Afghanistan that left three insurgents dead, an official said Tuesday. 

The militants, led by Taliban commander Mullah Naqibullah and dressed in police uniforms, ambushed a police convoy on Monday north of Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, said Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, the provincial police chief. 

The ensuing gun battle left three militants dead, and wounded two policemen and Naqibullah, who was taken into custody, Andiwal said. 

This is the third time that authorities have arrested Naqibullah. 

Two months ago, Naqibullah managed to escape from the prison run by the Afghan intelligence service in Lashkar Gah, Andiwal said. Previously he had escaped from a prison in the capital, Kabul.
More on link


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## GAP (2 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 2, 2008*

Rights groups to appeal Afghan detainees ruling
Federal Court's decision not to halt transfer of captives into local custody 'failed to acknowledge the Charter,' Amnesty declares 
PAUL KORING From Wednesday's Globe and Mail April 2, 2008 at 4:21 AM EDT
Article Link

Taliban fighters taken prisoner by Canadian troops in Afghanistan may be denied rights they would have if captured by British or U.S. forces, rights groups said yesterday as they announced an appeal of a Federal Court decision.

The case, which seems likely to end up in the Supreme Court of Canada, may determine whether the Constitution marches alongside Canadian troops waging war overseas.

Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association say that a ruling last month by Madam Justice Anne Mactavish "failed to acknowledge the Charter and international law obligations to prevent torture or ill treatment of prisoners" even after they are turned over to Afghan authorities.

Canadian handovers of detainees were stopped in November when compelling evidence of torture was found on a visit by Canadian diplomats to an Afghan prison. Prisoner transfers resumed three months later after yet another increase in monitoring arrangements and further promises from Kabul that abuse would stop and allegations of torture would be thoroughly investigated.
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Afghan Women Break out of the Mold
  Article Link

I recently came upon the film Daughters of Afghanistan in my local library. I wasn’t sure of what to expect, but upon watching it I was pleasantly surprised. The 2004 documentary is a refreshingly clear look at the lives of Afghan women following the fall of the Taliban after the 2001 American invasion.

Canadian journalist Sally Armstrong traveled to Afghanistan multiple times to interview women across the social and class spectrum and track the changes in their lives. She presents Dr. Sima Samar, who has served as a physician, deputy prime minister, and minister of the Department of Women’s Affairs; Hamida, the principal of a high school for girls; Soghra, a mother made desperate by poverty; Kamala, who fears her next pregnancy will kill her; and Lima, a young teenager who has taken on the responsibilities of her parents and grandparents, killed by war. The documentary intertwines the voices of these women with narration by Armstrong. The film aims to show the strength and humanity of the women of Afghanistan. In the opening credits, the camera pans over the faces of the main women interviewed. When one lifts her burqa to reveal her face, it’s shocking how much realer she becomes.
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Afghan challenges know no border, Pashtun elder tells senators
Matthew Fisher ,  Canwest News Service Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Article Link

A FORWARD OPERATING BASE IN PANJWAII, Afghanistan - Haji Agha Lalai held members of the Senate's national security and defence committee spellbound Tuesday with a vivid briefing about the challenges faced by those like him who oppose the Taliban and al-Qaida.

"As you know, this is the fighting season and we are building a road" the fiercely imposing, heavily bearded Pashtun elder told his Canadian visitors. "The enemy tries to disrupt the environment. People are getting 'night letters' threatening them if they continue working with us, but we are determined to pave that road . . .

"Of course, workers on the road project are exposed to danger. One of the workers, they shot him in his leg, but he continues to work. People ignore the threats."
More on link

Canadian soldier in serious condition
edmontonjournal.com Published: Tuesday, April 01
Article Link

EDMONTON - A Canadian soldier airlifted to Germany from Afghanistan on the weekend is in serious but stable condition, Department of National Defence officials say.

Spokeswoman Sarah Cavanagh said the soldier, whose identity has not been released, was in an armoured vehicle when it was struck by an improvised explosive device at about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Canadians were in the Nalgham region 55 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City, taking part in an operation with the Afghan National Security Force.
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Tories appear set to lose vote on lowering flag for Afghan deaths - and ignore it
Article Link

OTTAWA — The House of Commons appears set to adopt a motion calling for the flag to be lowered on the Peace Tower whenever a Canadian soldier is killed in Afghanistan.

And the Conservative government appears set to ignore the vote result. The Commons votes Wednesday on a Liberal motion that would require a moment of silence and a lowering of the flag for one day following the death of a Canadian soldier.

Both other opposition parties told The Canadian Press they will support the Liberal motion, easily guaranteeing it will have enough votes to be adopted in the minority Parliament.

But the motion is non-binding - and the government has other ideas about how to honour soldiers.

The Tories said they will refer a report by an expert panel to the Commons heritage committee, and ask members to hold hearings and come up with a wide-ranging policy on when the flag should be lowered
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Russia's problems nudge Afghanistan off the map
Putin's grievances in Eastern Europe and Balkans will make it hard for Harper to get world leaders' attention at NATO summit
 DOUG SAUNDERS dsaunders@globeandmail.com April 2, 2008
Article Link

BRUSSELS -- While Prime Minister Stephen Harper will enter the Bucharest NATO summit today with hat in hand, seeking 1,000 troops needed to prevent Canada from withdrawing from Afghanistan, he may be surprised to discover that the other 25 member nations are instead focused on another visitor with very different deals in mind.

The imposing figure of Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, has overshadowed most other matters in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's crucial gathering. As the 59-year-old alliance prepares to expand onto Russia's doorstep with a proposal to put Ukraine and Georgia on the path to membership, and disputes with Russia dominate Europe's military agenda, the enormous problems of Afghanistan are slipping into the shadows.

"Ottawa is very, very focused on Afghanistan, to the exclusion of everything else, but seen from here, this is a very different summit," a top NATO official said at the organization's sprawling Brussels headquarters yesterday as he prepared to head to Bucharest. "Here, enlargement, the western Balkans and relations with Russia are the significant issues that are taking up all of our time. Most of the Afghan questions have been settled."
More on link

2 police killed in suicide attack in southwestern Afghanistan
By ASSOCIATED PRESS KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Apr 2, 2008 9:23 
Article Link

A suicide bomber hit a police compound in southwestern Afghanistan, killing two officers and wounding five others, an official said. 

The bomber tried to ram a vehicle packed with explosives Tuesday inside a police chief's compound in the town of Zaranj in Nimroz province, said provincial deputy police chief Asadullah Sherzad. 

The vehicle exploded at the compound walls, killing two policemen and wounding five others, Sherzad said. The bomber also died.
More on link

Romania reconfirms its "firm commitment" on Afghanistan   
 www.chinaview.cn  2008-04-02 03:17:28   
  Article Link

    BUCHAREST, April 1 (Xinhua) -- President Traian Basescu reconfirmed on Tuesday evening "Romania's firm commitment as regards the missions in Afghanistan." 

    "As a state which participates in Afghanistan, starting with 2002, Romania joins its allies by reconfirming, on the occasion of this summit, our firm pledge and unitary vision for success together with our partners," the Romanian president stressed on the opening of the Transatlantic Forum organized by the German Marshall Fund on April 1-3 in Bucharest. 

    He added that NATO success is "crucial for the future of that country, for the war against terrorism and, consequently, for our security." 

    At the same time, Basescu noted that NATO understood that the European security cannot be defined in strictly geographical terms. 
More on link

NATO endorses much of Canadian stance on Afghanistan
Mike Blanchfield ,  Canwest News Service Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Article Link

BUCHAREST, Romania - Canada may not leave the NATO summit with the extra troops it is demanding, but it has had a major influence on the international road map for Afghanistan's future, Canwest News has learned.

Plotting a more unified way forward in Afghanistan is one of the top priorities for NATO's 26 leaders meeting here in the Romanian capital. The alliance is attempting to counter long-standing criticism that its political and military strategy for Afghanistan has been fragmented, plagued by public disagreements, and has lacked co-ordination with other international actors in Afghanistan, particularly the United Nations.

NATO, along with its 13 partner countries in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, is banking that a sweeping communique to be released Thursday, which some are calling a vision statement, will result in a renewed statement of solidarity in Afghanistan and affirm a long-term international commitment to the war-torn country.
More on link


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## geo (2 Apr 2008)

Arms for Afghans: Albania Against Graft, for NATO 

The New York Times - Editorials & Opinion 
Published: April 2, 2008 
To the Editor: 

Re “Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Arms for Afghans” (front page, March 27): 

The government of Albania is gung-ho in its fight against corruption and is fully committed to helping NATO in Afghanistan. That is why we have begun an investigation into allegations of corruption at Albania’s arms export agency, as well as charges that Albania provided substandard munitions to Afghan forces. 

We were frankly surprised by the publication of unsubstantiated corruption allegations. The only evidence is a secret tape between two shadowy and self-interested arms dealers, hardly reliable sources. We rebutted allegations on the tape; neither the prime minister nor his son is involved with the procurement process of any ministry, including Albania’s Ministry of Defense. 

When it comes to Afghanistan, Albania recognizes that the struggle against extremism is the defining issue of our time. Having known Communism’s tyranny, we are committed to the promotion of freedom and democracy the world over. 

There are Albanian special forces in Afghanistan today. We stand ready to send more troops if called upon. 

Regarding charges that munitions were not up to code, standard practice requires that the purchaser bears full responsibility for testing and quality control. The government of Albania is dedicated to transparency. Rest assured, all documents relevant to this matter will be released and all findings of the investigation will be made public. When they are, we are confident that the allegations will be proved baseless. 

Adrian Neritani Permanent Representative of Albania to the United Nations New York, March 28, 2008 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/opinion/l02albania.html


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## GAP (3 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 3, 2008*

Karzai seeks bigger role for larger Afghan army
Julian Borger in Bucharest The Guardian, Thursday April 3 2008 
Article Link

Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, is expected to propose a radical expansion of the Afghan army today and call for his troops to take over security responsibilities in Kabul from Nato, according to officials at the alliance's summit in Bucharest. The news came after dismal day for Nato leaders, with the alliance unable to agree on new members. The summit was split on whether to offer membership prospects to Georgia or Ukraine, while Greece was able to block Macedonian membership single-handed. Croatia and Albania were invited to join the alliance.

Karzai's proposal is an attempt to compensate for a shortfall in international troop contributions to Afghanistan. Under the plan, the Afghan army would assume security responsibilities in the capital before the end of the year. It would eventually expand its strength from 55,000 to 120,000, well above the ceiling of 86,000 agreed earlier this year with the Afghan government's international backers.
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Vote to lower flag for soldiers fails to sway Tories
BILL CURRY From Thursday's Globe and Mail April 2, 2008 at 9:42 PM EDT
Article Link

OTTAWA — The Conservative government vowed to ignore yesterday's 142-115 House of Commons vote in favour of lowering the Peace Tower flag to half-mast each time a Canadian dies in an overseas military mission.

The minority Tories argued they are respecting the more than 110,000 Canadian soldiers who died in the past century while the flag flew high atop the Parliament Buildings.

The debate appears far from over, as some MPs on the Commons Canadian Heritage committee said they are willing to take up the government's call for a wide-ranging review of Canada's flag rules.

Conservative committee member Jim Abbott will move a motion this afternoon and hopes to have enough support from Liberals to launch the study. “I recognize that it's a very emotional issue,” he said after yesterday's non-binding vote on a Liberal motion. “I think it's really important that there be a proper canvassing of opinion on this.”
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Several rebels killed in Afghanistan
Posted Thu Apr 3, 2008 7:06am AEDT 
Article Link

International troops have killed several insurgents in an area of southern Afghanistan where two British soldiers died in an explosion four days ago, the US-led coalition said.

Soldiers had moved into compounds in the Kajaki district of Helmand province earlier in search of a Taliban leader involved in supplying weapons, the force said in a statement.

"During the course of the operation, several armed insurgents were killed when they attacked coalition forces," it said.

Four people with links to the targeted Taliban leader were detained, the statement said, without giving details.

Two British Marines were killed in the same area on Sunday when their vehicle was hit by a blast.

They had been on a routine patrol near the remote Kajaki Dam, a vital water and power source for Helmand held by the British military since Taliban were driven out nearly two years ago.
More on link

Azerbaijani President to Attend meeting on Afghanistan
03.04.08 11:52 
Article Link

Romania, Bucharest, 3 April / corr TrendNews Y.Aliyev / The Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev intends to participate in a joint meeting of the heads of states and governments of the non-NATO member-countries in Romania on 3 April. 

The meeting is dedicated to Afghanistan and as a result of the forum it plans to develop recommendations for the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF), TrendNews correspondent reports in Bucharest. The Azerbaijani President plans to address the meeting. He will also hold consultations with his Latvian counterpart, Valdis Zatlers. 

The President’s three-day visit to Romania to participate in the NATO summit will conclude on 4 April. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (3 Apr 2008)

Afghanistan: several developments  
Conference of Defence Associations update, April 2
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1207147483



> In this week’s media briefing the Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) will cover the following areas of interest: Canadian policy towards the mission in Afghanistan; events and developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developments related to Canada’s NATO and UN allies; and some pieces of general interest.
> 
> The CDA’s Executive Director, Colonel (Retired) Alain Pellerin, has just returned from a visit to Afghanistan. Along with other defence stakeholders he met with, among others, the Commander of JTF-Afghanistan BGen Guy LaRoche, Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan Arif Lalani, Commander ISAF General Dan McNeill, and top Afghan officials such as Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development Zia and Minister of Defence Wardak. The group also visited a forward operating base at Ma’sum Ghar and the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar; they met with LCol Dana Woodworth, Commander of the KPRT, and Col JF Riffou, Commander of Canada’s Operational Mentor and Liaison Team.
> 
> ...



Daily Afghan news updates--from Kabul  
_The Torch_, April 3
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2008/04/daily-afghan-news-updates-from-kabul.html



> The Moby Group - Afghanistan
> http://mobygroup.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
> 
> provides a daily e-mail service, examples are available here.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (3 Apr 2008)

Canadian troops fatally shoot security company employee
Matthew Fisher ,  Canwest News Service Published: Thursday, April 03, 2008
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Troops protecting a convoy from Canada's provincial reconstruction team shot and killed a man Wednesday who was working for a private security firm sometimes employed by countries that make up NATO's multinational coalition.

"As the convoy was heading toward Kandahar City, a vehicle drove towards the convoy at high speed and was perceived as a threat," Capt. Josee Bilodeau, a Joint Task Force Afghanistan spokeswoman, said in a statement released Thursday. "In accordance with our escalation of force procedures, repeated warnings were given for the vehicle to stop. These multiple warnings were not heeded to and a shot fired in direction of the vehicle was required, after which the vehicle stopped."

When troops from the Canadian patrol dismounted they discovered that a passenger in the vehicle had been killed and three others were wounded. The wounded were given first aid and subsequently taken to the Canadian-led military hospital at Kandahar Airfield for treatment.
More on link

Group of Afghan orphans come seeking medical aid from Canadian soldiers
Article Link

KANDAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — It's a heart-wrenching scene all too common in Afghanistan: orphaned children emerging from nowhere, desperate for help.

Five children, the eldest a girl no more than 10 with a toddler in her arms, came up to Canadian soldiers when they wandered into a police sub-station in the treacherous Panjwaii district.

They were looking for medical aid. One young boy was suffering from a skin infection, with much of his scalp covered in red, oozing sores.

Corporal Robert Gould, with A Company, 3 Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, says the kids are orphans who have come by before. He treated the boy's wounds with ointment and a bandage.

Sergeant Mike McKay of Bravo Company, 2 Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, says he's particularly touched by the 10-year-old girl who is clearly leading the group. He says the plan is to get them to a safer location. 
More on link

Command performance  
Afghan experience a powerful one for Newfoundland singer
DAVE BARTLETT The Telegram
Article Link

Lori Anna Reid went to Kandahar to sing for the Canadian troops and was almost immediately confronted by death.

The first thing the St. John's native learned after getting off the plane in Afghanistan was that Sgt. Jason Boyes of Napanee, Ont., had just been killed.

He was the 81st Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan.

Reid and other members of her delegation were invited to his repatriation ceremony the next morning.

"It was the first time there was ever any civilians invited to these ceremonies," says Reid.

"I actually sang 'Amazing Grace' a cappella during Sgt. Boyes' repatriation ... and that was the first time they had someone do that, as well, so I felt really, really honoured and touched to be involved at all."

Reid says it was her way of serving.

For her, singing and music has always been about gratitude and praise and she's always felt music serves a higher purpose, as when it's used at weddings and funerals.

Her mind is still brimming with vividly fresh memories days later and you can hear it in her voice during a phone interview from her home in Toronto.

"Every single soldier that I met there knocked me out with his and her integrity and commitment, and gratitude that we were there."

The trip was almost a year in the making. Last April, Reid was invited to perform at the 90th anniversary of Vimy Ridge at the Cabot Club in St. John's.
More on link

NZ to send more troops to Afghanistan
April 3, 2008 - 10:13PM
Article Link

New Zealand will send more troops to Afghanistan, say Prime Minister Helen Clark and Defence Minister Phil Goff.

The country's Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan would be strengthened after the NZ cabinet approved the deployment of an additional 18 Defence Force personnel, they said in a joint statement.

"The additional troops will begin joining the existing deployment of NZDF personnel based in Bamyan province and in the support element for the PRT during the next rotation of personnel this month," they said.

"This will lift the total authorised deployed strength for the PRT to a maximum of 140 personnel."

Bamyan is in central Afghanistan.

The move comes after France also committed more troops to Afghanistan, following a Canadian threat to end its involvement there early unless other NATO allies boost their deployment.
More on link


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## GAP (4 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 4, 2008*

Australia donates A$10 million for clearing land mines in Afghanistan
 2008-04-04 01:35:54 - 
Article Link

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia will donate 10 million Australian dollars (US$9.15 million; ¤5.8 million) toward land mine clearance in Afghanistan.
Stephen Smith, speaking on International Mine Action Day on Friday, said land mines caused a significant personal and economic toll on Afghanistan.
He also urged NATO countries to commit more troops to Afghanistan, saying Australia was doing «a lot of the heavy lifting» with its 1,000 troops there.

Australia has committed about A$450 million in aid to Afghanistan since 2001. 
End of Article

NATO eyes Russia-Afghanistan route  
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:06:18 
   Article Link

NATO pins hopes on Russia's thumb-up to the alliance for using its land as a route to transfer supplies for ISAF forces in Afghanistan. 

"We hope that tomorrow's meeting will have as one of the results the land transportation agreement of non-lethal goods for ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan," NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said ahead of Friday's NATO-Russia Council meeting. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Bucharest to attend the NATO summit. 
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's NATO envoy, ruled out that Moscow's assistance to ISAF to transfer food and spare parts into Afghanistan depends on NATO's plans to reject Georgia and Ukraine's bid to join NATO. 

De Hoop's remarks about using Russia as a route for NATO supplies were welcomed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who reiterated the significance of such deal for his war-ravaged country. 

Russia and Afghanistan have no common border since the Soviet Union collapsed. Goods would be transported, if the agreement holds, through Uzbekistan. 
End of Article

Suicide bomber kills four in Afghanistan: police
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — Three policemen and their driver were killed when a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up near their vehicle in troubled southern Afghanistan, police and the rebels said Friday.

The officers were in a private car being driven to Lashkar Gah, the main town in Helmand province, when the bomber approached on foot and detonated the explosives, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said.

Another policeman who was in the car escaped with injuries, while seven other people were wounded in the attack, which happened just outside the city on a narrow strip of road with shops on both sides.

"Three policemen and a civilian were martyred, a policeman and seven civilians were wounded in the suicide blast today," he told AFP.

The vehicle caught fire and two bodies were stuck in the wreckage, witness Ahmad Shah told AFP, adding that the road was littered with blood and body parts.

Andiwal blamed the attack on "enemies of Afghanistan," a term often used to describe hardline Taliban rebels fighting a bloody insurgency since they were forced from power by a US-led offensive in 2001.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (4 Apr 2008)

Below is from an e-mail sent by Alain Pellerin, Colonel (Ret'd), Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations:

NATO summit documents (4 April 2008)‏ 



> The NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania is nearing completion, and the CDA would like to highlight some documents, particularly those relevant to the Afghan mission.
> 
> NATO has released a report entitled "Progress in Afghanistan" for the Bucharest Summit:
> http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/progress_afghanistan.pdf
> ...



Mark 
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (4 Apr 2008)

Bush: U.S. Will Increase Troops in Afghanistan
_Washington Post_, April 4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040401567.html?hpid=topnews



> President Bush promised NATO allies at a summit that ended in Bucharest, Romania, on Friday that the United States would increase forces in Afghanistan next year no matter what happens in Iraq, aides said.
> 
> "The president wanted to make it clear that the United States is committed to Afghanistan for the long haul and to send a signal to our allies that at the same time we are asking them to commit additional troops to Afghanistan that they know that we will also continue to have a significant troop presence . . . regardless of the situation in Iraq," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
> 
> ...



Border Complicates War in Afghanistan
Insurgents Are Straddling Pakistani Line (with video)
_Washington Post_, April 4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040304029.html



> SPERA DISTRICT, Afghanistan -- As a cold darkness enveloped the tiny U.S. military camp just inside Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, word spread that Taliban fighters were on the move nearby, planning an attack.
> 
> Capt. Chris Hammonds expected it. In a mud-brick command center, the 32-year-old Army Ranger pivoted between a radio and a map, tracking reports of approaching Taliban. Several explosions soon ripped through the night as U.S. forces hit the suspected Taliban positions, including a cross-border guided-munitions strike on a compound about a mile inside Pakistan where senior associates of Siraj Haqqani -- considered one of the most dangerous Taliban commanders -- were thought to be meeting.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## geo (6 Apr 2008)

NATO raises extra 1,800 soldiers at summit, says official 

Written by www.quqnoos.com 
Saturday, 05 April 2008

Unnamed source tells news agency that extra 1,800 soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan 

NATO has raised nearly 1,800 troops to support the foreign soldiers already fighting in Afghanistan, foreign news agencies are reporting. 

Although the only country that publicly announced troop contributions to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was France, an unnamed source told AFP news that Georgia had committed 500 troops for deployment in the east and south of the country, Poland pledged a further 400, the Czech Republic 120 and Azerbaijan 45. 

Except for France, all the countries contributing combat troops were former Soviet bloc states or republics within the former Soviet Union. 

Other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member states said they would send military training and mentoring teams to work with the Iraqi army and police, the source said. 

Italy will move out of the capital Kabul to western Afghanistan with three new training teams, the unnamed source said. 

Romania and Greece will each provide a training and mentoring team. New Zealand said it would modestly increase its forces in Afghanistan to support a provincial reconstruction team. 

The source also said eight countries agreed to contribute helicopters. 

France’s commitment of 700 soldeirs to the east will free up US troops who can move south to bolster British and Candian soldiers struggling to fight off a growing insurgency in provinces such as Helmand and Kandahar. 

ISAF compromises some 47,000 troops drawn from almost 40 nations, according to official figures released on April 1. 

-------------------------

Australia should think before calling others underperformers in Afghanistan 

The Age, Australia
Tom Hyland 
April 6, 2008

RONALD van Dort doesn't know that both his legs were blown off last Sunday afternoon. 

The Dutch soldier is in a coma in the Netherlands, where he was flown after his armoured vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's Oruzgan province. He is 26 and was due to end his tour in three weeks. 

He didn't rate a line in Australian newspapers, nor did 11 other soldiers wounded in four attacks on Dutch troops in the past week — even though they serve in the same province as Australian troops. The largest Australian unit in Afghanistan is part of a Dutch-led force, but that didn't make van Dort's injuries any more newsworthy, either. 

What we did hear about were Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's efforts at last week's NATO summit to cajole European countries to shoulder a greater share of the burden in Afghanistan. 

He argued that Australia's contribution of 1000 troops is the largest by a non-NATO member, and that its forces, unlike some Europeans, serve in a danger zone in combat roles. 

Mr Rudd and Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon are not referring to the Netherlands — which has lost 14 soldiers in Afghanistan — when they complain about NATO's "underperformers". 

Diplomacy dictates they have to be circumspect about naming names. But there are other reasons for caution. 

One "underperformer", Germany, has 3500 troops in the relatively secure north of the country, in non-combat roles. Yet 25 Germans have died in Afghanistan, more than half as a result of enemy action. 

The French, with 1400 troops (about to be reinforced with another 800) also in stable areas, have lost 12; the Spanish have lost 23; 12 Italians have been killed. That some died in accidents does not lessen the loss. 

Three countries have suffered the bulk of the 789 coalition fatalities in Afghanistan — the US (490), Britain (91), and Canada (81). Denmark, with 780 troops in Afghanistan, has lost 14. 

Four Australian soldiers have been killed there. 

The body-count calculus means Australia should exercise restraint when it complains about who's carrying heavy loads. Otherwise, somebody might ask us to put our money — and our soldiers — where our mouth is.


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## MarkOttawa (8 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 8

Afghanistan: spring update (8 April 2008)
Conference of Defence Associations
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1207673580

Mark
Ottawa


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## geo (8 Apr 2008)

British Council to send pupils on Afghanistan exchange 

Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
By Damien McElroy
Foreign Affairs Correspondent 
Last Updated: 08/04/2008

British children are to make exchange visits to war-ravaged Afghanistan and Iraq under a classroom twinning scheme.

The plan is the latest step in a dramatic change in outlook for the British Council as it prepares to mark its 75th anniversary next year. 

Promoting ties with Muslim countries has emerged as a top priority and is closely linked to the Government's efforts to fight terrorism. 

Swapping the Playstations and duvets of modern Britain for the dirt floors and brick beds of Afghanistan will depend on security assessments. 

Only older children are likely to be involved in the exchanges. However, local authorities across Britain will be asked next year to volunteer their primary and secondary schools to "twin" with Afghan equivalents. 

"We will apply a risk assessment to travel and be pragmatic," said James Rowe, a council spokesman. "We have recently had visits to Yemen go ahead and that country has a reputation for violence." 

The threat to Westerners in Aghanistan has increased sharply in recent weeks following a suicide bombing at the Serena Hotel, a favourite of foreigners staying in Kabul. 

But the prize of promoting ties in a country where, as recently as 2001, the Taliban banned all forms of modernity, including education for girls, is deemed too great to miss. 

The Connecting Classrooms scheme is a global programme with long established links to Africa and China. Now expansion across Muslim countries has emerged as the most important development for the British Council since the end of the Cold War. 

The extension of the programme to Afghanistan marks its boldest move since it was expanded to Iraq in 2004, where there are links to 24 schools. While exchange visits have so far been confined to meetings in Jordan, there are hopes that British children could soon visit northern Iraq. 

The scheme's planned expansion in central Asia from April next year will be rapid. By 2012 it aims to cover 220 schools, involving 220,000 pupils in both primary and secondary grades, in Britain, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. 

"The mission of the British Council is to improve the understanding of the UK in the rest of the world," said Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty, the council's chairman, last week. 

Efforts to promote reform among Islamic societies range widely from sponsoring Electric Steps, Libya's only hip-hop band, to setting up an English school in al-Azhar University, in Cairo, the world's largest institution for the training of mullahs. 

"The debate inside Islam would be helped by having proficient Islamic scholars able to communicate in English," said Dominic Asquith, the UK ambassador to Egypt. 

Accusations from Russia that the British Council was a front for spying resulted in the closure of two of its offices in December. 

Prior to that, its employees, including Lord Kinnock's son, Stephen, the director of the St Petersburg outpost, also suffered harassment. 

However, the row came at a time when the organisation is winding down its presence in the country.

---------------------

Pakistan seizes 90,000 bags of smuggled flour 

Written by www.quqnoos.com 
Monday, 07 April 2008 

Border troops say they have arrested hundreds in fight against flour smugglers 

PAKISTAN’S Frontier Corps (FC) says it has seized about 90,000 bags of flour from smugglers trying to bring the food into Afghanistan during the last 10 days of March. 

Since the government declared flour smuggling illegal, hundreds of smugglers have been arrested, a government statement said Saturday (April 5). 

Last week in the Mohmand Agency, the FC seized 500 bags of flour in one day, which amounts to about 30,000kg of wheat, exposing a flour-smuggling racket that led to scores of arrests. 

Pakistan has sent extra FC troops to the Waziristan, Mohmand, and Bajaur Agencies in an attempt to stamp out flour smuggling. 

Afghan businessmen at a recent meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry lashed out at the government for failing to stop the FC from seizing legal imports of flour. 

Residents in Kabul, and many other provinces, are suffering because of dramatic increases in the cost of basic food, such as flour and bread. 

A 50kg bag of flour has risen by about Afg200 in the last month and the cost of bread has almost doubled in the capital over the same period, leaving many Kabulis unable to afford it. 

--------------------------------

Kabul hotel tax raid sparks cash exodus 

FT.com - World News 
By Jon Boone in Kabul 
Published: April 7 2008 

Afghanistan businesses are moving cash reserves overseas after learning that the government claimed it was owed more than $285,000 in back taxes from the Aga Khan’s luxury hotel development in Kabul. 

A fortnight after eight guests and staff were killed by a terrorist attack at the city’s most upmarket hotel on January 14, the ministry of finance took the money from the dollar account of the Serena hotel without warning. 

After two years in operation, the Serena, an elegant five-star hotel set up by the Aga Khan in the hope that it would spur other international investors, has yet to make healthy profits. 

The ministry of finance said it was within Afghan law to settle tax disputes by freezing or “making transfers” from private accounts. But Christopher Newbery, the hotel’s general manager, said the sudden withdrawal of funds could not have come at a worse time. The hotel’s revenue had dried up after a team of suicide bombers detonated themselves in front of the compound in central Kabul and it needed cash to repair the damage. 

“We were absolutely furious because having been attacked on January 14, on January 29 we had a second attack when the government took our money at just the moment we needed it most.” 

The case has highlighted the risks of starting businesses in a country where entrepreneurs say government interference and ­“nuisance taxes” are as big a problem as declining ­security and a decrepit national electricity supply. 

Three companies, which declined to be named, told the Financial Times that they were taking cash out of the country to protect their businesses. 

The Serena is one of two businesses that the Aga Khan Development Network has invested in as part of a private sector-led development programme. Frantic lobbying of Hamid Karzai, the president, by the ambassador to the Aga Khan, the billionaire spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslim community, led to the money being temporarily repaid. 

The ministry of finance says it expects the money to be paid to the government in three tranches. But the Serena’s tax consultants say the amount owed, which related to tax accrued by the Indian construction company that built the hotel, is more like $50,000 (£25,000, 32,000). 

At a meeting on December 31 they paid that sum as a goodwill gesture and were told by Sharifullah Ibrahimi, the deputy minister of finance, that the dispute would only be settled after a full audit by the country’s large taxpayer’s office. 

“It was as if the meeting had never taken place,” Mr Newbery said. “Not only did they simply help themselves to money, they claimed that we had never paid the $50,000. That’s what they do to people who actually pay their taxes – they take whatever they can get.” 

Cases such as these are, the Afghan business community says, damaging the country’s efforts to build its economy, so Afghanistan can pay its own way when the foreign cash that pays for almost everything the government does dries up. 

But the private sector is so limited – and so reliant on money spent by international consultants, diplomats and aid workers – that a French restaurant in Kabul catering to the culinary needs of the city’s expats is one of the country’s 100 biggest taxpayers. 

Taxes, along with crime and persistent power outages, are leading some businesses to stop projects or relocate some or all of their businesses to Dubai. Saad Mohseni, chief executive of Moby Media, which runs television and radio stations, says he recently had videotapes of imported Indian television programmes impounded at Kabul airport because a government agency believed they should be paying on the content. 

“The government says it is dealing with these so-called nuisance taxes but it’s ridiculous that after seven years we are still facing these problems,” he said. “Why can’t the whole lot just be declared null and void?” 

He says his frustration with Afghan government “incompetence” is so great that the company has set up a business division in Dubai. 

One leading international logistics company came close to pulling out of Afghanistan last year after it discovered it had been paying taxes to the ministry of communications – technically illegal because only the ministry of finance is allowed to raise revenue. 

Some efforts to improve the tax system have made the situation worse. Draft laws prepared in English by foreign consultants have been mistranslated into Dari, the official language of government. The garbled version is then treated as the law. A western official, who declined to be named but has worked closely on tax reform issues, said the “cheques had been made out to the ministry of post, which doesn’t exist, so God knows who actually got the money”.


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## MarkOttawa (8 Apr 2008)

Extra troops to be sent to fight Taliban
_Daily Telegraph_, April 7
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/07/wafghan107.xml



> Britain is poised to send another 450 troops to Afghanistan and take control of its most war-torn region for at least the next two years following pressure from the United States, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
> 
> Despite concerns that British forces are already overstretched, Cabinet ministers are seriously considering a US request for Britain to take command of all Nato troops in southern Afghanistan for another two years of intense combat with the Taliban.
> 
> ...



Significant progress being made in southern Afghanistan: general
Canadian Maj.-Gen. Marc Lessard says 'winning' is too simplistic a term to describe the situation on the ground, writes Matthew Fisher in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
_Ottawa Citizen_, April 8
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=f225a77b-aa1a-40f3-bb31-dcd017b29cfb



> The Canadian general commanding 13,000 Canadian, American, and European combat troops in the Taliban heartland says winning is not the way to judge success in fighting Afghanistan's insurgents.
> 
> "I never use the term winning because it too simplistic and does not relate to what we are doing here," Maj.-Gen. Marc Lessard said in his first formal interview since assuming command of NATO's Regional Command South in January...
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (9 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 9, 2008*

On The Verge: Canada’s $4.7B Program for Medium-Heavy Transport Helicopters
08-Apr-2008 17:19 EDT
  Article Link

Back in the 1980s, Canada’s Mulroney government sold the country’s CH-47 Chinook medium-lift helicopter fleet to the Dutch. They cost a lot to maintain and operate, and Canada didn’t need them anyway. Or so they thought. Fast forward to 2002, then 2006. Canada has had boots on the ground in Afghanistan for several years now, but doesn’t have any helicopters capable of operating in the hot and/or high-altitude environment of southern Afghanistan. Its CH-146 Griffons (Bell 412s) can’t carry useful loads in that environment, its ancient CH-124 Sea Kings are falling apart, its CH-148 Cyclones (H-92 Superhawks) are ordered but not yet manufactured, and its new search-and-rescue CH-149 Cormorants (EH101s) were consuming spares at a torrid rate before being grounded due to maintenance & safety issues. To support its 2,000 or so troops in Afghanistan, therefore, Canada has to rely on favors from US, British, Australian, Polish, and (irony of ironies) Dutch pilots flying CH-47 Chinooks.

When DID covered Canada’s “emergency” purchases for Operation Archer back in November 2005, DID made a strong point of noting the absence of medium-lift helicopters from that list. It should have come as a relief, therefore, to learn in June 2006 that the Canadian government had announced a CDN$ 4.7 billion program to purchase 16 “medium-heavy” helicopters for military and “disaster response” roles.

It should have, but it didn’t. DID explains the Afghan situation on the ground, the RFP, the options – and the problem. Now, almost 2 years after the program was announced, a sole-source RFP has been issued…

Cemetary Sideroad: On the Ground in Afghanistan 
Bring It All Back: The New Helicopter Competition 
Looking for a Place to Happen: The Problem [updated] 
We’ll Go Too: Updates [new] 
Escape Is at Hand for the Travellin’ Man: Additional Readings & Sources [updated] 
More on link

SALIS’ Sibling: NATO’s C-17 Pool Inaugurates In-House Heavy Lift
08-Apr-2008 11:25 EDT
Article Link

The long-range C-17 Globemaster III heavy transport aircraft remains the backbone of US Air Mobility Command inter-theater transport around the world, and its ability to operate from shorter and rougher runways has made it especially useful during the Global War on Terror. Recent buys by Australia, Britain, and Canada have broadened the plane’s its global use. Now NATO, who has relied on the SALIS arrangement and its leased super-giant AN-124s from Russia, is looking to buy and own 3-4 C-17s as NATO pooled assets with multinational crews. Participating countries will receive allocated flight hours relative to their participation (a Dutch MinDef release says they expect 500 flight hours per year for EUR 10-15 million per year over 30 years), and thus far they include: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United States.

This order will not materially change the coming shut-down of C-17 production, but it does look like the inauguration of a pool that will fill a gaping hole in Europe’s defense capabilities – its complete lack of heavy airlift. This article will cover NATO C-17 acquisition program, including its structure and ongoing announcements. Program is actually a misnomer so far. There has been talk, and spending bills are being introduced in some countries, but nothing resembling firm contracts yet, despite an originally-planned in-service date of late 2007. While Denmark has dropped out, Finland appears to be dropping in, and Latvia is now on board…

The NATO C-17 Pool

An international consortium made up of NATO allies is forming the NATO Strategic Airlift Capability (NSAC) consortium; the ownership entity will be a chartered NATO Weapon System Partnership (WSP) of allied nations, and the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA) will administer the WSP. Many observers believe that this pool will probably expand as additional aircraft (probably Airbus A400Ms) roll off of future active production lines. Defense Aerospace has a pair of compilation articles with releases for the initial announcement.

The following NATO nations are members of the NSAC initiative: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark (dropped out), Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, United States, Sweden and Finland*, both Partnership for Peace Countries, are also SAC Members; Finland is part of the initiative, but hasn’t yet signed a membership contract. 

Membership in the airlift fleet remains open to other countries, upon unanimous agreement of the consortium members.
More on link

Soldier helps orphans; Ennismore man serving as medic in Afghanistan
Posted By JAMES NEELEY
Article Link

In the dangerous Panjwaii district of Afghanistan - birthplace of the Taliban - orphaned children flock to a Canadian Armed Forces outpost looking for Dr. Rob. 

Ennismore-raised Cpl. Robert Gould, 23, a medic with the Third Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (3PPCLI), made national news last week when his battalion treated a group of orphaned children who walked nearly two hours along a road - considered the second most dangerous in the world - to seek out medical care. 

"They come to the wire and actually ask for Dr. Rob," said his mother, Eileen. "The words out and all the kids are coming to see Dr. Rob." 

When the group of children, led by a 10-year-old girl carrying her younger brother in her arms, walked two hours to reach the Canadians, Eileen said "she obviously heard that someone there helps out children." 

"Tell him it's going to burn a little," Gould had told a young boy through an interpreter before he cleaned his sores with alcohol then applied antiseptic ointment and gauze bandages. 

"He was pretty upset," Eileen said of her son after treating children on a previous visit who suffer from a form of flesh-eating disease. 

She said Gould told her, "All I can do is give them some Polysporin and send them on their way." 
More on link

'Once war comes this close, it makes you stop and think'
By MICHAEL STAPLES staples.michael@dailygleaner.com Published Wednesday April 9th, 2008 
Article Link

Appeared on page A1
Huge "support our troops" ribbons hanging on Ralph Harris's Oromocto house remind residents he's a firm supporter of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

But the ribbons filled an additional role Tuesday - one of remembrance.

Harris and other members of the town solemnly marked the one-year anniversary of the deaths of six soldiers in Afghanistan on April 8, 2007, and two more three days later.

"It really brought the war close to home," Harris said Tuesday.
More on link

Attack on Road Crew Kills 18 and Injures 7 in Afghanistan  
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and CARLOTTA GALL Published: April 9, 2008
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents ambushed a group of road construction workers and their security guards early on Tuesday, killing 18 of the guards and wounding seven, Afghanistan officials said. It was one of the worst attacks here in months.

The ambush happened in Zabul Province, about 30 miles from the provincial capital, in a remote mountainous area near the Pakistan border, said Gulab Shah Ali Kheil, the deputy governor of Zabul.

The construction company was surveying a new road linking the provincial capital to Shinkay district. The area has always been considered dangerous because it is a route to the mountainous areas of southern Afghanistan for Taliban fighters from Pakistan.

The group of surveyors and laborers were well guarded and moving in a convoy through a valley to start work on the road when insurgents opened fire on the guards, said Muhammad Younus, the project manager for the Fazlullah Construction Engineering Company. No one in the construction crew was hurt because the guards took the brunt of the attack and battled the Taliban for several hours before an Afghan Army unit arrived.

“The victims who were killed and injured are all our security guards, and all of our technical team survived,” Mr. Younus said by telephone. 
More on link

Roadside bomb kills Polish soldier in Afghanistan
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 7:45 PM ET Comments1Recommend4CBC News 
Article Link

A Polish soldier was killed and another wounded when a bomb struck their NATO patrol in southeastern Afghanistan Tuesday.

Poland's Defence Ministry said he was the fourth Polish soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.

The roadside bomb blew up as troops were patrolling Ghazni province. Poland has 1,200 troops who are fighting mostly in the southeastern part of Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Poland last week to thank Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk for backing Canada's bid for more support in Afghanistan. Poland has offered two military helicopters to boost NATO efforts in southern Kandahar province.

More than 2,500 Canadian soldiers are serving in Kandahar. Since the mission started six years ago, 82 soldiers and one diplomat have died.

Also Tuesday, Taliban fighters killed two Afghan police officers in the western province of Herat. Police said the militants attacked a police checkpoint.

Taliban insurgents killed seven police Monday in southern Kandahar province as they were eradicating a field of opium poppies.
More on link

French goverment wins no-confidence vote on Afghanistan
Tue Apr 8, 2008 12:38pm 
  Article Link

The French government easily survived its first no-confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday, facing down opposition charges that it was sending extra troops to Afghanistan simply to please its U.S. allies.

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced this month that France would dispatch up to 1,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, where it is part of a NATO coalition fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The opposition Socialists have accused the government of being too pro-American and submitted a censure motion in parliament after they were refused a vote on the deployment.

"The decision to send reinforcements is more political than military," Socialist party leader Francois Hollande told the National Assembly, also challenging Sarkozy's willingness to move towards rejoining NATO's integrated command.

"We are today faced with a (U.S.) president who is at the end of his mandate and no one knows what his successor's policy will be. Why such a rush one year before the end of George Bush's mandate?" Hollande said.

As expected, the motion against the government in the National Assembly lower house fell well short of the 288 votes needed for victory, with just 227 lawmakers backing it. Sarkozy's UMP party has 311 deputies in the 577-seat parliament.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (9 Apr 2008)

Denmark To Reinforce Afghan Deployment
AFP, April 9
http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/army/Denmark_To_Reinforce_Afghan_Deployment110015473.php



> Denmark's defense ministry said April 8 it was sending extra helicopters and troops to Afghanistan, where it has *suffered one of the highest per capita death tolls among coalition forces* [emphasis added, more at link below].
> http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2008/03/comparative-fatalities-in-afstan.html
> 
> "In the context of efforts aimed at strengthening the security of troops [already] deployed, it has been decided to *reinforce the Danish contribution in Afghanistan with reconnaissance helicopters* [emphasis added]," a statement read.
> ...



Via Moby Media Updates.
http://mobygroup.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=269&Itemid=50

Mark
Ottawa


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## geo (9 Apr 2008)

It's Payback Time

Times of India, India
Haroun Mir
9 Apr 2008

In 1994 when Pakistani officials decided to create a dreadful monster called the Taliban, they didn't bother to estimate its impact on their own society. 

In fact, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence's (ISI) militaristic policies, which consisted of bleeding the Indian army in Kashmir and turning Afghanistan into their virtual fifth province, have blinded them to the consequences. 

Their ill-conceived strategy has failed once again. Consequently, the Indian military has emerged stronger from the long conflict in Kashmir and the coalition forces have assisted Afghans to liberate Kabul from the grasp of the Taliban. 

Eventually, Pakistan has become the biggest loser because the same radical movements, which its military leaders have created, threaten its very existence. 

In the spring of 1992, the communist regime fell and Ahmad Shah Massoud's forces entered Kabul. Pakistani officials instructed their trusted man and surrogate Gulbudin Hekmatyar (leader of Hezb-e-Islami), who had just been appointed the prime minister of the newly established coalition government in Kabul, to burn down the city. 

From 1992 to 1994, the Afghan capital became a living hell. Despite intensive efforts, Hekmatyar's forces were stuck in the southern and eastern parts of Kabul and were unable to make significant progress. Pakistani authorities decided to shift their support from Hekmatyar to a then-unknown radical movement — the Taliban. 

Along with the ISI the late Benazir Bhutto and Nasrullah Babar — then respectively the prime minister and interior minister of Pakistan — are also to blame because the movement was created under their direct watch. 

Few politicians in Pakistan and in the rest of the world ever questioned Pakistan's dangerous policy of purposely nurturing a radical Islamist group. 

In September 1995, Colonel Imam (a senior ISI official), with impunity and consent of western officials who had an interest in the Turkmen pipeline project, personally led Taliban forces to capture Herat, which is the largest city in western Afghanistan. 

In 1996 when Bin Laden's airplane landed in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, no alarm went off in the capitals of the West. 

When the Taliban were beating women, destroying schools, and holding public executions, Pakistani officials were trying to convince the rest of the world by saying that Afghanistan was a backward, fragmented, and ethnically divided country which needed an iron hand to stabilise it. 

Today, the same ills that destroyed Afghanistan plague Pakistan. Pakistani society today has become fundamentally divided. The home to Pakistan's intellectuals and moderate middle class is Punjab and Sindh, while radicalism, terrorism and poverty thrive in the Pashtun heartland and in Baluchistan province. 

Up to the present moment, Pakistan's military authorities have favoured radical Islamist groups at the expense of moderate and democratic movements. 

For example, President Musharraf didn't hesitate to jail lawyers who protested in favour of rule of law and democracy but appeased murderous radical Islamists and Taliban leaders under the phony Pashtun code of conduct enforced in the tribal area. 

Until now, Pakistani authorities have been able to avoid a full confrontation with local Taliban groups for fear of alienating Pashtuns who constitute over 15 per cent of Pakistan's popu-lation, but are intentionally over-represented up to 25 per cent in Pakistan's army. 

Despite continuous pressure from the US, Pakistan's military authorities have resisted bringing their Punjabi elite units to the tribal battlegrounds against the Pashtun radical movements. 

Instead, they heavily relied on militia forces from the tribal zone to secure the area. Pakistani leaders rigorously want to avoid a rift and direct confrontation between Punjabis and Pashtuns. 

Indeed, there is a real risk that the "war on terror" in Pakistan might transform into a full war for autonomy or independence of Pashtun tribes from Islamabad. 

Pakistani authorities have broken the status quo in the tribal zone by promoting radical Islam and extremist religious leaders at the expense of traditional tribal leaders and institutions. 

Pakistan's policy in the tribal zone has been a continuation of former British colonial policy, which consisted of keeping Pashtun tribes economically dependent, politically fragmented, and intellectually backward. 

The government in Islamabad has continued to subsidise them and bribe their leaders, instead of creating a sustained economy and providing modern education. 

The ageing Al-Qaida leaders and Afghan veterans of the Soviet war are ceding leadership to much younger and emerging local Taliban leaders. 

Baitullah Mehsud is the best example of the new leaders, who want to set the agenda rather than follow anyone's orders. 

Despite the efforts of ISI and Pakistani religious leaders to force him to fight against "infidel troops" in Afghanistan, Mehsud persisted with his goal to take the battle to Islamabad instead of Kabul. 

Many fellow Afghans praise him for taking on Pakistani forces. Indeed, Pakistani authorities created Taliban to protect their interests in Afghanistan and in Kashmir, but are now faced with uncalculated consequences, which seriously threaten Pakistan's own existence. 

The newly elected civilian leaders will have a hard time setting right the mistakes committed by the military over more than three decades. 

(The writer served as a special assistant to late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's former defence minister.)


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## GAP (10 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 10, 2008*

New U.S. commander in Afghanistan vows to stabilize security   
 www.chinaview.cn  2008-04-10 20:10:13  
  Article Link

    KABUL, April 10 (Xinhua) -- New commander of the U.S.-led Coalition forces in Afghanistan Major General Jeffrey J. Schloesser on Thursday vowed to spare no efforts in stabilizing security to the post-Taliban nation. 

    "Today we pledge to work for the progress and prosperity of Afghanistan, we pledge to support Afghan National Security Forces and Afghan security," he told audience at his first remarks after taking over the command from his predecessor General David Rodriguez. 

    At the ceremony held in Bagram Air Field, the headquarters of the U.S.-led Coalition forces 50km north of Afghanistan capital Kabul, he also assured to support Afghan National Security Forces and look forward to work with Afghan people. 

    Presently, more than 21,000 U.S.-led Coalition forces from 21 countries have been serving in Afghanistan to help stabilize security and development process in the war-battered country. 

    More than 43,000 NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have also been deployed in Afghanistan to help ensure durable peace and security in this land. 
More on link

101st Airborne Takes Over Afghanistan
Article Link

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. 101st Airborne Division is taking over in Afghanistan, replacing the 82nd Airborne after 15 months in the country.

Outgoing commander Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez welcomed 101st commander Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser at a handover ceremony Thursday at the main U.S. base at Bagram.

The 101st Airborne will be responsible for security in eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan. The paratroopers are being deployed for 15 months.

The U.S. now has some 32,000 troops in the country, the most since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. That includes about 3,500 Marines sent to southern Afghanistan to train police and fight the rising insurgency there
More on link

Eight civilians killed in S. Afghanistan attack
Updated Thu. Apr. 10 2008 6:21 AM ET The Canadian Press
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A suicide car bomber lying in wait for a passing military convoy killed eight civilians and wounded 22 others Thursday when he blew himself up at the edge of a crowded row of shops. 

The explosion occurred just moments after the convoy, which did not include any Canadian troops, passed by the bomber's car, said Provincial police Chief Sayed Agha Saqib. 
More on link

Officials clueless on cost of choppers for Afghanistan
Article Link

OTTAWA -- Despite weeks of frantic activity and negotiation, Canada's Defence Department can only guess how much it will cost to fulfil the Manley report conditions that extend Canada's Afghan mission until 2011. 

Defence sources say it is expected to cost "a couple of hundred million dollars" to supply six Canadian-owned battlefield helicopters to troops in Kandahar in a project that is over and above the Conservative government's promised $4.7 billion purchase of 16 CH-47 Chinooks. 

A firm price tag has yet to be calculated because National Defence is waiting for the Pentagon to deliver a formal letter of offer in a government-to-government purchase. 

The helicopters destined for Kandahar will be "standard U.S. Army configuration" - or the 'D' model of the Chinook, which cost between $15 million and $20 million per aircraft. 

When logistics, spare parts and training are included, defence insiders conceded that the department currently has "no idea" how much obtaining the helicopters will cost. 
More on link

Wounded Warriors program helps soldiers, families in time of need  
Regional News Apr 09, 2008 10:27 PM By: Michael Power 
Article Link

Sometimes a soldier wounded in combat arrives at a hospital with little more than the clothes they are wearing and little to comfort them during recovery.

But an organization with offices in Thornhill aims to make their hospital stay easier.

The Wounded Warriors fund began in 2006 after a 20-year-old Canadian soldier from Orillia named Mike McTeague was seriously injured in a suicide attack west of Kandahar, Afghanistan.

He and other wounded soldiers were rushed out of the Central Asian nation after the attack and taken to a hospital in Landstuhl, Germany for treatment. 

Mr. McTeague, a Sapper or combat engineer, was treated for life-threatening wounds. 

But some visiting the hospital noticed, while Canadian soldiers received excellent medical care, they lacked the comforts that would make their stay more tolerable.

Cpt. Wayne Johnston was assigned as the wounded soldier’s assisting officer or the officer who helps those injured in combat and his or her family during such a crisis. 
More on link

Afghanistan choppers to cost "a couple of hundred million dollars," sources
April 9, 2008 - 4:27 pm By: Murray Brewster, THE CANADIAN PRESS 
Article Link

OTTAWA - Despite weeks of frantic activity and negotiation, Canada's Defence Department can only guess how much it will cost to fulfil the Manley report conditions that extend Canada's Afghan mission until 2011.

Defence sources say it is expected to cost "a couple of hundred million dollars" to supply six Canadian-owned battlefield helicopters to troops in Kandahar in a project that is over and above the Conservative government's promised $4.7 billion purchase of 16 CH-47 Chinooks.

A firm price tag has yet to be calculated because National Defence is waiting for the Pentagon to deliver a formal letter of offer in a government-to-government purchase, a defence source familiar with the file told The Canadian Press.

The helicopters destined for Kandahar will be "standard U.S. Army configuration" - or the 'D' model of the Chinook, which cost between $15 and $20 million per aircraft.

When logistics, spare parts and training are included, defence insiders conceded that the department currently has "no idea" how much obtaining the helicopters will cost.

"A couple hundred million, but I'm just guessing," said the well-placed source.

Canada made obtaining battlefield helicopters and unmanned spy planes - UAVs - a key condition of extending the army's deployment until 2011. Both purchases are seen as crucial to reducing casualties.

The air force plans to lease UAVs, but a cost estimate on that program is expected to be released soon.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay confirmed last month that Canada has asked to slip ahead of the U.S. Army in the production line at Boeing aircraft to obtain up to six CH-47-Ds.
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French parliament rejects no-confidence vote on Afghanistan  
Article Link

PARIS: France’s parliament rejected a left-wing vote of no-confidence against President Nicolas Sarkozy for his plans to send 700 more troops to bolster NATO forces in volatile Afghanistan, AFP reported. The vote, which also opposed what critics see as France’s increasing alignment with the United States and the EU on foreign policy, was lost by a significant margin, with 227 votes for and 288 against, in the National Assembly where the right holds a strong majority. The leader of the opposition socialist party, Francois Hollande, ahead of the vote denounced Sarkozy’s foreign policy, stating that the no-confidence motion represented "a refusal to change the nature of our engagement in Afghanistan and a refusal of France’s entry into NATO." He warned that France, which he said acted under "American pressure" to boost its 1,600 troops already in Afghanistan, would lose its autonomy with regard to NATO. 

France withdrew its military involvement with NATO in 1964. Prime Minister Francois Fillon reacted by denouncing the left’s "anti-Americanism," accusing it of having no "serious plan" for Afghanistan. Sarkozy pledged to send more French military troops to Afghanistan at a NATO summit Bucharest last week. Since their defeat in the US-led invasion in late 2001, the Taliban have been waging an insurgency that was at its deadliest last year. A total of about 70,000 international troops, most of them under NATO command, are in Afghanistan to battle the insurgency.
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Canada’s air force boosts its heavy lift capacity into Afghanistan
Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service   Published: Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Article Link

ABOARD CANFORCE 99 -- The lights of a lonely village twinkled below as Maj. Tim Burke manoeuvred the giant, camouflaged C-17 Globemaster into position for a spine-tingling, rapid descent into Kandahar Airfield with a 43,000-kilogram load of ammo, mail, medical supplies, computers and paper cups for Canadian troops fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

For Maj. Burke, 44, commanding Canada's newest, biggest and most expensive aircraft was the culmination of a 25-year military career spent flying tiny Challenger executive jets, second-hand Polaris Airbus 310s and venerable C-130 Hercules that were often nearly as old as he is.

Capt. Rob Doucette, 27, was living the dream too. 

The Cape Bretoner was what the air force calls a Pipeliner. A graduate of the Royal Military College and fresh out of flying school, the first job the air force gave him was in the left seat of the cockpit of an aircraft worth somewhere around $200-million.

"This is exactly what we needed because it takes large cargoes efficiently over great distances," said Burke, 27, who like all the pilots, loadmasters and technicians on the C-17 was attached to 429 Squadron in Trenton, Ont.

"Flying into Afghanistan is very different than the usual strategic airlift. This is tactical flying. We are more stressed out, but it is challenging and rewarding."

To prepare to fly C-17s, Burke spent several months attached to the U.S. air force. His "seasoning" included three flights into Iraq.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (11 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 11

Canadian ready to lead NATO forces in Afghanistan
CTV, April 11
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080411/thompson_afghanistan_080411/20080411?hub=TopStories



> The Canadian who will take over the leadership of NATO forces in Afghanistan [surely CF Joint Task Force Afghanistan]
> http://www.cefcom.forces.gc.ca/site/nr-sp/view_news_e.asp?id=2596
> 
> says recommendations made in the Manley panel report should help the war-torn country move towards a fuller democracy.
> ...



Emerson: Canadians should have realistic expectations for Afghanistan
CP, April 11
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1048958.html



> The first step in Canada’s exit strategy from Afghanistan will be for Canadians to shed the rose-coloured glasses about what can be accomplished over the next three years, says a senior Conservative minister.
> 
> The best Canada can hope for in Afghanistan in the short-term is that it will become a "viable state," Trade Minister David Emerson said Thursday during a weekly briefing.
> 
> ...



Afghan Mission Gets High Praise
Canwest News, April 11
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=436573



> Canada's efforts in Afghanistan received high praise from two disparate corners yesterday -- a Clinton-era defence secretary and a British Conservative MP. Both praised Canada's combat mission while criticizing European allies for not pulling their weight on the battlefields of Afghanistan.
> 
> Former U.S. defence secretary William Cohen said some European countries were growing too fond of "soft power" and were shying away from "hard power responsibilities."
> 
> ...



101st Airborne assumes authority of RC-East from 82nd Airborne
ISAF, April 11
http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/pressreleases/2008/04-april/pr080411-136.html



> KABUL, Afghanistan – On the 101st day of 2008, the headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) officially became Combined Joint Task Force-101 (CJTF-101) and took command of the Regional Command East (RC-East) from the 82nd Airborne Division in a transfer of authority ceremony Thursday.
> 
> Major General Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of the 101st Airborne and CJTF-101, praised the 82nd Airborne for their effective service throughout the past 15 months to improve the lives of the Afghan people, and promised to continue in that mission.
> 
> ...



CJTF-101
http://www.cjtf82.com/

US Troop Levels Up in Afghanistan (with slide show)
AP, April 10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/10/AR2008041000887.html



> BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- The 101st Airborne Division took command of American forces in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, helping to boost U.S. troop levels in the country to their highest number since the 2001 invasion.
> 
> Marching in step, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne retired the unit's flag during a ceremony under a light rain beside the main runway at Bagram Air Field. Then 101st paratroopers unfurled their flag, officially marking the *start of their 15-month tour* [emphasis added].
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (14 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 14, 2008*

Ottawa hopes to block probe into Afghan detainees
Updated Sun. Apr. 13 2008 10:38 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

The government is seeking to block an independent investigation by the Military Police Complaints Commission into Canada's handling of Afghan detainees, according to court documents filed in Federal Court. 

Amnesty International Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint with the commission last year, after allegations surfaced that detainees had been tortured by local Afghan authorities. 

Government lawyers filed an application Friday to halt the investigation, saying the commission does not have jurisdiction to probe the complaints. 

"(The) transfer of detainees is a military operation which does not form part of the 'policing duties and functions' for which the MPCC has oversight,'" the application states. 
More on link

NATO’s response to Canada’s demands worse than nothing
By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target Mon. Apr 14 - 5:35 AM
Article Link

AT THE NATO summit meetings held earlier this month in Bucharest, Romania, the Canadian delegation was quick to claim it had achieved its objectives.

Those goals had been outlined in the report tabled by the independent panel on Afghanistan, headed by former deputy prime minister John Manley. The Manley report concluded that Canada’s military commitment to Afghanistan was entirely dependent upon our NATO allies contributing a 1,000-strong reinforcement to Kandahar and upon our own military being able to somehow acquire medium-lift helicopters before February 2009.

The high-fives exchanged by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his entourage in Bucharest came after the French delegation announced France would send an additional 700 soldiers into eastern Afghanistan. While this would in no way help out with the Canadian situation in the south, the Pentagon said that with the French deploying in the east, the Americans will be able to send 1,000 troops to Kandahar by this November.

Here’s where the math gets a little tricky, and the official spinning gets a little intense. Back in January, just one week before Manley tabled his report calling for an extra 1,000 NATO troops, U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates announced that the U.S. would be temporarily bolstering its troop presence in Afghanistan with 3,000 marines.
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Canadian soldiers to go even higher-tech
System connects GPS, goggles to commanders
Apr 12, 2008 04:30 AM Murray Brewster the Canadian Press
Article Link

OTTAWA–Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan's hinterland could soon resemble the cyber-soldiers of the wildly successful Halo video game and novel series.

National Defence has set aside as much as $310 million for an integrated soldier system. Companies hoping to cash in had their wares on display this week at a defence industry trade show.

High-tech systems now coming on the market connect existing pieces of equipment, such as radios, digital maps, night-vision goggles and range-finding binoculars, into one system.

Controlled by a palm-sized computer and linked to a global positioning system (GPS), the network ties individual soldiers to one another and to field commanders kilometres away, who can monitor the whereabouts – even the health – of their people.

"This is a totally integrated system," said Luc Bentolila, a vice-president of Europe-based EADS defence and security. "It helps a soldier accomplish a mission."

EADS's Warrior 21 system is used by German soldiers in Kosovo and the Congo. Spain and Switzerland have orders pending with EADS.
More on link

Time for some positive talk about Afghanistan mission
Matthew Fisher, National Post  Published: Sunday, April 13, 2008
Article Link

Why won't the Harper government tell Canadians about the many successes and occasional failures of our men and women in Afghanistan?

This question is especially pertinent today because the Harper government's new point man on Afghanistan, Trade Minister David Emerson, who is virtually unknown to troops of all ranks, is seeking to create even greater political oversight of what has become such a micro-managed mission that several senior public affairs officers have quit in disgust or are about to. 

The leaders of the military's communications strategy are livid because their jobs have narrowed to the point where their chief role is to seek the Prime Minister's Office's permission to release any scrap of information - and the answer is usually no.

On top of this, several senior officers serving in Afghanistan have complained bitterly in private about being muzzled by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
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Marines Mired in NATO Red Tape in Afghanistan
BY Herschel Smith 
Article Link

Several months ago upon following our commentary on the Afghanistan campaign, a field grade officer, and someone who is definitely in a position to know, contacted The Captain’s Journal and recommended that we focus our attention on the ongoing lethargy of the campaign due to NATO incompetence and inability to formulate a coherent and sensible strategy.

Soon after this we published NATO Intransigence in Afghanistan and The Marines, Afghanistan and Strategic Malaise.  We have also pointed out that however bad a shadow NATO casts over the campaign in Afghanistan, the Taliban and al Qaeda have no such incoherence, and have settled on a comprehensive approach to both Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Now from the Baltimore Sun, we learn just how bad the strategic malaise is and how prescient were our warnings.

Field Report

From the Baltimore Sun:

Multinational force has multiple leaders
By David Wood

Sun reporter

April 11, 2008

KANDAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan

Disagreements and coordination problems high within the international military command are delaying combat operations for 2,500 Marines who arrived here last month to help root out Taliban forces, according to military officers here.

For weeks the Marines — with their light armor, infantry, artillery and a squadron of transport and attack helicopters and Harrier strike fighters — have been virtually quarantined at the international air base here, unable to operate beyond the base perimeter.

Within immediate striking distance are radical Islamist Taliban forces that are entrenched around major towns in southern Afghanistan, where they control the lucrative narcotics trade and are consolidating their position as an alternative to the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
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Bernier outlines modest benchmarks for Afghan mission
GRAEME SMITH From Monday's Globe and Mail April 13, 2008 at 9:25 PM EDT
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier arrived in Kandahar yesterday with a modest definition of his goals for the Afghan mission. Gone was the rhetoric of his visit six months ago when he claimed success at reducing violence in the province.

Taliban attacks continue and Mr. Bernier now says Canada should instead measure progress by setting targets for training Afghan soldiers and police in Kandahar. He also described Canadian soldiers as a bulwark against humanitarian disaster, invoking memories of the Rwandan genocide when foreign troops were forced to stand aside and watch a mass slaughter.

Mr. Bernier's narrow description of Canada's role contrasted with the sweeping speeches by his flamboyant travelling companion, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who said the 700 troops his country is contributing will be fighting for more ambitious causes.
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Senate security committee racks up $3 million in travel spending
Article Link

OTTAWA — The Senate committee on national security and defence has spent $3 million since 2001 on annual tours to military bases and cities in Canada, "fact-finding" missions to Washington, D.C., trips to Europe and two visits to Canadian troops in Kandahar.

Records show the committee's study of military and security operations has been the costliest Senate inquiry in 13 years, perhaps since Confederation.

Annual budgets tabled in the Senate show the committee, under chairman Liberal Colin Kenny, has generously entertained politicians abroad and Canadian military at home, with thousands for hospitality.

The hospitality expenditures are on top of thousands spent on working lunches and dinners, per diems for the senators and accompanying staff, and hotel rooms that cost up to $450 a night in Washington.

The committee's latest budget, $617,150 over the next year, includes $158,000 in sole-source contracts for four consultants: a researcher, a military adviser, an intelligence and national security adviser and a communications specialist.

The nine-member committee routinely takes the consultants and several Senate staff along on its trips.
More on link

German Army Chief Wants More Troops in Afghanistan   
Article Link

The army's head wants more troops in the face of stepped-up attacks 
The German army's chief of staff wants more troops in northern Afghanistan following a string of recent attacks on German soldiers and their Afghan helpers, he said in a magazine interview published on Sunday, April 13.

Wolfgang Schneiderhan told the weekly magazine Focus that the 3,500-strong mission in northern Afghanistan was stretched to the limit. He also said he expects more attacks on his troops by insurgents, although the north is widely seen as more peaceful than the restive southern part of the country. 

The number of troops "takes away flexibility for me to react quickly to any worsening in the situation. I will argue this when the extension of the mandate comes up for discussion in the autumn," Schneiderhan said.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (15 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 15

Canadian pilots being trained to fly new Chinook choppers
U.S. military readying older helicopters for Afghan missions by fall
Ottawa Citizen, April 15 by David ********
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=f12cf96c-cb18-48bb-8303-a65b1781d3aa&sponsor=



> Canadian pilots are now receiving training on Chinook helicopters and should be ready for operations in Afghanistan by the fall.
> 
> The large transport helicopters will move troops and supplies in the field, reducing the time that soldiers have to travel by land. That will cut down exposure to ambushes and suicide bombers or insurgents planting improvised explosive devices. Such attacks have claimed many of the 83 Canadian lives lost so far in Afghanistan.
> 
> ...



The war will be won in Kabul (long article)
_Ottawa Citizen_, April 14 by  Col. (ret'd) Mike Capstick
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=065908de-00b9-48d9-a01d-334c49360e24&p=1


> ...
> To be clear, the Afghan mission can be lost on the battlefields of Kandahar Province, but it can be won only in Kabul.
> 
> The strategic failings of the past few years are dealt with adequately in the Manley report. However, the debate in Canada continues to focus on the military aspects of the mission and questions surrounding the NATO commitment, troop reinforcements in Kandahar and government transparency.
> ...



Weapons of mass construction
Canada.com, April 15 by Sen. Colin Kenny
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=5099bb43-5fc9-4975-8f62-ef17c01fd7c6&k=80424&sponsor=



> The success of the war that Canada is fighting in Afghanistan is going to depend on the intelligent use of weapons. But not the kind that kill people.
> 
> All Canada's automatic rifles and rockets and grenade launchers will have been wasted if Afghans don't soon gain access to the weapons they need the most: education, justice and job opportunities.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (15 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 15, 2008*

Hillier to step down as Canada's top general
Updated Tue. Apr. 15 2008 12:32 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Gen. Rick Hillier, Canada's popular and high-profile chief of defence staff, will be stepping down. The resignation will be effective July 1.

CTV"s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife told Canada AM on Tuesday that Hillier has reportedly decided that he wants to move on. 

Fife said there is no policy disagreement or other troubles with the government.

CTV News reported in October 2007 that Hillier would be replaced when his three-year term expired in February.

Chiefs of defence staff normally serve a three-year term, but that isn't fixed. Defence commentators said at the time that they thought Hillier would welcome an extension or renewal.

The Liberal government of then-prime minister Paul Martin appointed Hillier as chief of defence staff in January 2005.

In his inaugural speech, Hillier called for more money for the Forces, which had born a significant burden of spending cutbacks as the federal government tried to bring chronic deficit spending under control in the 1990s.

Hillier also envisioned a new role for the Canadian military in the 21st century, a more nimble force capable of responding to the emerging threats of terrorism and natural disasters.

In addition to being a strategic thinker with field experience (he served as the senior NATO officer in Afghanistan before being named CDS), Hillier is revered by the troops, particularly the army.
More on link

Two policemen, several insurgents killed in Afghanistan (Roundup)
Apr 15, 2008, 15:27 GMT  Article Link

Kabul - Two Afghan policemen were killed and three were wounded in a roadside attack in southern Afghanistan, while Afghan and coalition forces killed several insurgents in two separate incidents in the same region, officials said on Tuesday. 

The attack on a police vehicle occurred on the road between Spin Boldak district and Kandahar city, the capital of the province of the same name on Tuesday morning, said Sahib Jan, police chief of Spin Boldak district. 

'Their vehicle was blown up by a roadside mine. Two policemen were killed and three others were wounded,' Jan said, adding that one of the wounded was in critical condition. 

The attack came a day after 11 policemen were killed in Taliban's attack in Arghandab district of the same province. 
More on link

Panel to continue probe despite Ottawa
'... what the commission is doing is clearly outside of its jurisdiction,' Prime Minister says 
STEVEN CHASE AND JOE FRIESEN From Tuesday's Globe and Mail April 15, 2008 at 4:30 AM EDT
Article Link

OTTAWA, WINNIPEG — The independent Military Police Complaints Commission has vowed to keep investigating whether Canada turned prisoners over to Afghan security forces knowing they would be tortured, despite the fact the Harper government has begun legal action to end the probe.

"We're surprised and disappointed by the government's decision to seek a court order to block the investigation and to prevent a public-interest hearing into this important case," chairman Peter Tinsley said. "It's especially surprising given the fact that the government did not challenge our jurisdiction a year ago when we first launched our investigation."

The Conservative government's attempt to shut down the probe, filed last Friday, came just weeks before the commission was to begin public hearings into whether the military knew detainees transferred to Afghan custody were likely to be tortured.
More on link

Turkey not to send combat troops to Afghanistan
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Article Link

Turkey has no intention of sending combat troops to Afghanistan, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday. U.S. seeks more troops for Afghanistan from its NATO allies at the summit in Bucharest.

Turkey has no intention of sending more combat troops to Afghanistan, Gul said before he departed for NATO Summit in Bucharest on Wednesday. Gul will meet France President Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the sidelines of the summit. Gul will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul.

Turkey joined the countries who distanced themself from U.S. President George W. Bush's call to send more troops to Afghanistan. French prime minister said on the eve of the meeting that Paris might send just several hundred soldiers and an aide to Sarkozy said France would make any new deployment dependent on an increase in foreign aid for Afghanistan.

Diplomats had hoped Sarkozy would tell a NATO summit starting in Bucharest later on Wednesday that France would make a major new contribution in Afghanistan as part of a revamp of the NATO peacekeeping force in the east and south.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (17 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 17

Beleaguered Canadians face a long wait for the cavalry
_The Times_, April 17
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3761179.ece



> Private Terry John Street was on a routine patrol along a lonely stretch of road flanked by green marijuana fields and deserted towns when his armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb, killing him instantly.
> 
> On the same road, less than three hours earlier, two Canadian soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were wounded in another explosion. As their comrades struggled to clear the remains of the vehicle they hit another bomb.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (17 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 17, 2008*

*Right from the Cod*
Thu. Apr 17 - 4:48 AM
Article Link

LAST YEAR, the prime minister’s office felt obliged to tell Canada’s blunt-spoken and popular chief of defence staff he wasn’t the chief spokesman for the mission to Afghanistan.

That didn’t fool anyone. Constitutional niceties aside, in his three years as CDS, General Rick Hillier has come to be widely regarded and highly respected as a top soldier who will speak plainly and honestly – both for the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces and to the Canadian public. What he talked about mattered: the realities of risking your life to fight terrorists and what you need from the folks back home by way of moral support, proper equipment, a clear mission and an understanding of tactics and the enemy.

Does this forceful openness, and his Newfoundland touch for the irreverently unforgettable phrase, make the "Big Cod" a political general? Yes, but only in a proper and admirable way. He’s not the type who has accumulated stars by telling political bosses what they wanted to hear or trimming his advice to suit the party in power. Rather, this is a soldier who has the political smarts and courage to tell his civilian bosses and the public what they need to know if they’re going to make informed political choices on where and how to deploy Forces personnel.
More on link

9 dead in clashes with troops in central Afghanistan
By NOOR KHAN  
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan and foreign troops battled militants who ambushed their patrol in central Afghanistan on Thursday, leaving nine Taliban fighters dead, a government official said.

The clash occurred in the Gilan district of Ghazni province, said district chief Abdul Wali Thofan. There were no casualties among the troops, he said. He did not specify where the foreign forces came from, but most of the troops in Ghazni are American.

Authorities recovered the militants' bodies along with their weapons and six motorbikes, Thofan said.

Separately, a roadside bomb struck a Canadian military vehicle in southern Afghanistan, the heart of the Taliban-led insurgency.

No one died in the blast on Thursday near Spin Boldak, a town on the Pakistani border, said Lt. Cmdr Pierre Babinsky, a spokesman for NATO troops in the south.

He declined to say whether any soldiers were wounded.

The insurgency has left more than 1,000 people dead so far this year, most of them militants, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.
More on link

Trip to Afghanistan a step in the healing process
Dead soldiers' families tour Canadian base to see mission up close
Ryan Cormier, The Edmonton Journal Published: Thursday, April 17, 2008
Article Link

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - Shortly before he went to Afghanistan, Trooper Darryl Caswell invited his mother to CFB Petawawa and insisted she buy a pair of military-issue hiking boots just like the ones he would wear overseas.

"He said the good thing was, Mom, your boots will never get to Afghanistan," said Darlene Cushman.

This week, they did.
More on link

PM faces challenges on foreign affairs file
 TheStar.com April 17, 2008 Les Whittington Ottawa Bureau
Article Link

OTTAWA–The politics of the Afghan military mission appear to have suddenly become a lot tougher for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Gen. Rick Hillier, who did more than anyone else to convince Canadians that the mission is worthwhile, will soon be retiring, while Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, the man whose comments may have undermined years of Canadian activities in Afghanistan, is staying around.

Bernier sparked an uproar by interfering in Afghan affairs with the suggestion that the governor of Kandahar should be replaced.

Despite opposition party demands that Bernier be fired for causing a diplomatic incident with Canada's partners in Afghanistan, Harper declined and expressed his faith in the 45-year-old newcomer to politics from Quebec.

Bernier, whose appointment as foreign affairs minister last summer after a lacklustre stint in the industry portfolio was widely seen as guided by domestic political considerations, has been in place during a rocky period for the Harper government on the international stage.

"I was always surprised that Bernier was chosen for foreign affairs," said University of Toronto political scientist Nelson Wiseman.
More on link

Latest Canadian Forces ads omit Afghan mission
New commercials depict domestic operations with no reference to overseas combat; critics suggest Tories playing down controversy 
STEVEN CHASE Globe and Mail Update April 17, 2008 at 9:15 AM EDT
Article Link

OTTAWA — One thing is missing from the Canadian Forces' latest generation of TV recruitment ads unveiled this week: any mention of Afghanistan or overseas combat.

It's an odd omission given that Canada is engaged in its biggest military operation since the Korean War in Afghanistan, a mission that has revitalized the Forces and driven a lot of its new equipment spending.

Instead, the two new TV ads - Hard Landing and Drug Bust - paint a job in the Forces as an exclusively domestic career: rescuing survivors of a downed airplane in the Canadian North and catching drug smugglers off the East Coast.

"These ads will be seen on television throughout the spring - including in the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs," the Department of National Defence announced this week
More on link

Two US soldiers killed in Afghanistan: military
Article Link

KABUL (AFP) — A new US Marine force that began deploying in Afghanistan last month said Thursday it had suffered the first casualties since it began operations in country, losing two soldiers in a bomb blast.

The 2,300-strong US Marine Expeditionary Unit confirmed that two soldiers, whose deaths were announced on Wednesday by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), belonged to the unit.

"We lost two Marines on the 16th of April early in the morning in Kandahar," a spokeswomen for the newly deployed force, captain Kelly Frushour, told AFP, referring to southern Kandahar province.

The soldiers were attached to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which began operations in southern Afghanistan on April 10.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the explosion, but similar acts in the past have been blamed on Taliban militants.

The unit was Washington's recent contribution to ISAF, which is fighting the growing Taliban insurgency here.
More on link

Keeping soldiers in uniform becoming a more challenging task: documents
Article Link

OTTAWA — Keeping Canadian soldiers in uniform is proving to be a difficult task as the country settles in for three more years of fighting in Afghanistan - one that is demanding more and more attention from top commanders, newly released documents reveal.

Briefing materials prepared for Defence Minister Peter MacKay show army attrition - the number of people choosing to retire or not renew their contracts - has reached 13 per cent, almost double the average for all three branches of the military.

A presentation given last fall by the army chief, Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, shows the overall size of the land force declined by 1,846 soldiers between May 2005 and May 2007, despite the success in recruiting fresh troops.

The Powerpoint slide show and other briefing materials were obtained by The Canadian Press under access-to-information laws.

MacKay acknowledged attrition is growing, but downplayed its impact and insisted the Conservative government is taking steps to deal with the problem.

"I think that's always been an issue in a competitive job market," MacKay said at the recent launch of new television recruitment ads. "You're always going to see offers coming that cause men and women in the Forces to consider those options."
More on link

Officers may be sent to southern Afghanistan
Norwegian Defence Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen, on a visit to Afghanistan, has stated that Norwegian officers may be sent to the most troubled region of the country as part of their mission to train and lead Afghani troops.
Article Link

From October, 50 Norwegian officers are to begin service training Afghani forces, after which they will be expected to lead the forces in fighting, reports Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).

This means they may be sent anywhere in the country in which the Afghani forces are fighting, including the agitated area in southern Afghanistan, confirmed the defence minister.

"This is a very challenging job and I emphasize that the officers we are sending out are very experienced people," said Strøm-Erichsen. 

On her visit to Afghanistan, a bomb threat forced the Norwegian defense minister and her delegation to change their route through Kabul. 

Norwegian police security forces have been beefed up significantly since a terrorist attack on a Kabul hotel in January this year that resulted in a Norwegian journalist’s death. An American citizen was also killed in the ambush.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (17 Apr 2008)

Afghanistan: a farewell
Conference of Defence Associations, April 17 (a round-up of coverage of General Hillier's stepping down as CDS, and of Afstan)
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1208446997/

Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (17 Apr 2008)

Care packages for Canadian soldiers have gone missing
 Thursday, April 17 - 07:10:00 AM Reaon Ford/Province
Article Link

WHITE ROCK (NEWS1130) - 3,500 care packages headed for Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan have gone AWOL. The shipment, containing things like lip balm, playing cards and toilet paper, was designed to provide troops with some of the comforts of home.

But more than seven months after it was handed over to the Department of National Defence, it still hasn't arrived. The goodies were collected by Clifford Grant of White Rock.

He tells the Province Newspaper he's not trying to make the government look bad, he just wants to find out what happened to his care packages.
More on link


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## GAP (18 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 18, 2008*

Canadian soldier injured in roadside bombing
Updated Thu. Apr. 17 2008 3:58 PM ET CTV.ca News
Article Link

A Canadian military vehicle has been hit by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, injuring one Canadian soldier, according to military officials. 

The attack occurred near the town of Spin Boldak, near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. 

NATO spokesperson Lt.-Cmdr. Pierre Babinsky said no one was killed. Capt. Sylvain Chalifour, a spokesperson for Canadian Forces, said the wounded Canadian soldier received slight injuries and was taken to Kandahar Airfield for treatment. The soldier later returned to work, according to Chalifour. 

Military officials have released no other details about the attack. 

Suicide bombing 

The roadside bombing of the Canadian vehicle occurred on the same day as a deadly suicide bombing in southwestern Afghanistan. 

The suicide bomb attack in the city of Zaranj killed 16 people and injured 30. The attack occurred in front of a Mosque as men were gathering for evening prayer, according to a provincial governor. 

There were also reports of fighting between foreign troops and Afghan soldiers and Taliban insurgents in another part of the country. Afghan officials say only Taliban soldiers were killed in the clash, which occurred in the central province of Ghazni. 
More on link

Suicide bomber kills 24 in Afghanistan
Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:48am AEST
Article Link

A suicide bomb exploded outside a mosque in Afghanistan overnight, killing 24 people as worshippers were leaving after prayers.

Two senior police officers were among the dead and 34 people were also injured in the attack in Zaranj city, the capital of Nimroz province which borders Iran, according to provincial governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad.

"There was a suicide bombing in front of the city's mosque and at this time we have 24 people confirmed dead and 34 wounded, some seriously," he said, adding that most of those killed were civilians.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the explosion, which happened next to a market outside the mosque, but similar acts in the past have been blamed on Taliban militants.
More on link

Nine Taliban Killed in Afghanistan Battle  
Article Link

More good news out of Afghanistan - as usual, the Taliban conduct an ambush on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban get decimated. Nine of the attacking Taliban were killed in the attack with no casualties on our side. From the brief report on the attack here from AP:

Afghan and foreign troops battled militants who ambushed their patrol in central Afghanistan on Thursday, leaving nine Taliban fighters dead, a government official said.
The clash occurred in the Gilan district of Ghazni province, said district chief Abdul Wali Thofan. There were no casualties among the troops, he said. He did not specify where the foreign forces came from, but most of the troops in Ghazni are American
More on link

Al Qaeda still in Pakistan tribal areas, report says
Article Link

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Al Qaeda is still operating within Pakistan's mountainous tribal region bordering Afghanistan, and the United States lacks a "comprehensive" plan for meeting its national security goals there, said a U.S. government study released Thursday.

 Despite the United States providing $10.5 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan, a key U.S. ally, the Government Accountability Office said it "found broad agreement ... that al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven" in Pakistan's Federally Administrated Tribal Areas.

Of the $10.5 billion in U.S. aid, more than half -- $5.8 billion -- was specifically provided for the tribal region, the GAO said.

Furthermore, the report said, "No comprehensive plan for meeting U.S. national security goals in FATA has been developed, as stipulated by the National Security Strategy for Combating Terrorism [in 2003], called for by an independent commission [in 2004] and mandated by congressional legislation [in 2007]."

"Our report does not state that the U.S. lacks agency-specific plans; rather, we found that there was no comprehensive plan that integrated the combined capabilities of Defense, State, USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development], the intelligence community," GAO said.
More on link


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## GAP (18 Apr 2008)

Afghanistan blast kills son of Netherlands military commander
Article Link

The son of the Netherlands' newly named top military commander has been killed in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan.

Another soldier was killed and two injured in the incident that killed the son of General Peter van Uhm.

The general was named top commander of the Dutch armed forces on Thursday. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (20 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 19:

Afghan Commandos Emerge
U.S.-Trained Force Plays Growing Role in Fighting Insurgents
_Washington Post_, April 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041803423.html?hpid=topnews



> KHOST PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- Night after night, commandos in U.S. Chinook helicopters descend into remote Afghan villages, wielding M-4 rifles as they swarm Taliban compounds. Such raids began in December in the Sabari District here, long considered too dangerous for U.S. patrols, and have already resulted in the death or capture of 30 insurgent leaders in eastern Afghanistan, according to U.S. commanders.
> 
> "The Americans are doing this," the Taliban fighters concluded, according to U.S. intelligence.
> 
> ...



Polish troops to take over Afghan Ghazni province
Xinhua, April 19
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/19/content_8006545.htm



> Polish forces in Afghanistan will concentrate in the province Ghazni, Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said Friday.
> 
> Klich said Ghazni had been chosen as in the case of the also-considered province Paktika the soldiers would have had to patrol dangerous border zones, Polish news agency PAP reported.
> 
> ...


    

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (20 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 20

U.S. Military Seeks to Widen Pakistan Raids
_NY Times_, April 20
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/world/asia/20pstan.html?_r=1&ex=1366344000&en=f31f50e004c515e5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin



> American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months urged a widening of the war that could include American attacks on indigenous Pakistani militants in the tribal areas inside Pakistan, according to United States officials.
> 
> The requests have been rebuffed for now, the officials said, after deliberations in Washington among senior Bush administration officials who fear that attacking Pakistani radicals may anger Pakistan’s new government, which is negotiating with the militants, and destabilize an already fragile security situation.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (21 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 21

Training bolsters leap forward for Afghan police
Canwest News Service, April 20
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=41f29398-da0a-4981-a9a1-825259ac6ee5&k=19242&sponsor=



> Panjwaii district, Afghanistan - Security in the Panjwaii district and the expertise of the men who police it are soon both expected to take a much-needed leap forward when nearly 200 officers return better trained than when they left eight weeks ago.
> 
> The Afghan National Police have always been a far-flung second to the Afghan National Army in both skill and professionalism. However, now that rag-tag police officers are being pulled from their posts and uniformly trained district-by-district, there is hope they can gain some ground and manage defined and separate responsibilities from the army.
> 
> ...



The quiet general prepares to exit
_National Post_, April 21, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=459880



> Has NATO been winning the war for Afghan hearts and minds? Does it have enough combat troops in South Asia to vanquish the Taliban? Will the tribulations there cause the alliance to shatter?
> 
> There is no mistaking how General Rick Hillier's much less flamboyant predecessor as Canada's chief of defence, General Ray Henault, feels about all of this.
> 
> ...



U.S. General Sees Afghans Gains in 3 Years
_NY Times_, April 21
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/world/asia/21afghan.html?ref=todayspaper



> The Afghan Army and police forces should be able to secure most of Afghanistan by 2011, allowing international forces to start withdrawing, the American commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, said Sunday [April 20].
> 
> “By about 2011 there is going to be some pretty good capacity in the Afghan National Army,” he said in an interview in the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force.
> 
> ...



Paras tread warily in Helmand province as they learn the skills of ‘going lethal’
The newly arrived troops from 2nd Battalion are eager for action, but first they must get to know their enemy in Taleban heartland
_The Times_, April 21
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3785248.ece



> The British sniper lay on the rooftop of a compound within sight and range of about 20 Taleban armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades in a dugout, and waited for the order to “go lethal”. He had already fired warning shots but the rounds from his long-range 338 rifle had failed to scare them from their bunker.
> 
> Overhead, a lone Desert Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), not much more than a polystyrene model plane but with a fancy camera on board sending pictures back to the commander, detected that the Taleban were preparing for a fight.
> 
> ...



France to deploy new Afghanistan force by August
Reuters, April 21
http://in.reuters.com/article/southAsiaNews/idINIndia-33144320080421



> France will deploy the additional battalion of troops it has promised to send to Afghanistan before the end of August, Defence Minister Herve Morin said on Sunday.
> 
> "They will leave this summer, in July-August," Morin told Europe 1 radio.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (21 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 21, 2008*

Afghan governor blasts plot to oust him
In exclusive interview, embattled Kandahar chief says military officials fed Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister 'bad information' 
GRAEME SMITH From Monday's Globe and Mail April 21, 2008 at 1:30 AM EDT
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Asadullah Khalid says the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to replace him as Kandahar governor is part of a plot hatched at a military base and represents the latest example of dangerous friction between himself and his Canadian allies in southern Afghanistan.

In his first interview since Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister suggested he should be removed, the embattled governor defended himself against charges of corruption and voiced his own complaints about his international allies, saying they broke their promises to help his police when they were locked in deadly firefights with the Taliban.

Mr. Khalid said unspecified officials at Kandahar Air Field must have given “bad information” to Maxime Bernier before Canada's Foreign Minister started a diplomatic storm last week by suggesting that firing the governor would reduce corruption in the province.

Only the elected government of Afghanistan should make such decisions, Mr. Khalid said, and only the Afghan government should investigate its own corruption cases. He recently invited the Afghan Attorney-General's office to examine the administration in Kandahar, he added, and that investigation had cleared him of wrongdoing.
More on link

The quiet general prepares to exit
Matthew Fisher, National Post  Published: Monday, April 21, 2008
Article Link

BRUSSELS, Belgium -Has NATO been winning the war for Afghan hearts and minds? Does it have enough combat troops in South Asia to vanquish the Taliban? Will the tribulations there cause the alliance to shatter?

There is no mistaking how General Rick Hillier's much less flamboyant predecessor as Canada's chief of defence, General Ray Henault, feels about all of this.

"I see this very much as how much we have accomplished in Afghanistan, rather than how little," said the soft-spoken franco-Manitoban air force pilot, who, after 40 years in uniform, is to retire to Winnipeg when his term as chairman of NATO's military committee ends in two months.

Gen. Hillier has been rightly credited with being a straight talker. However, as Douglas Bland, chairman of Defence Management Studies at Queen's University, noted in last month's edition of Policy Options, this trend of senior officers speaking forthrightly was started by Henault and his deputy, Vice Admiral Greg Madison who "astonished" the House Committee on National Defence by flatly denying an assertion by then-defence minister Art Eggleton that he had not been told that Canadian troops had captured Taliban insurgents.
More on link

Air raid, clash leave 11 Taliban militants dead in Afghanistan
Apr 21, 2008, 9:54 GMT   Article Link

Kabul - Afghan and coalition forces killed at least 11 militants in separate raids that included an airstrike in southern Afghanistan, while five Afghan army soldiers were wounded in a roadside bomb attack, officials said on Monday. 

An airstrike by international forces in Gramsir district of volatile Hemand province on Sunday killed seven Taliban militants, the defence ministry said in a statement. 

A Taliban vehicle was also destroyed in the air raid, it said. 

In a separate incident on Sunday in neighboring Kandahar province, Taliban militants attacked a joint patrol of Afghan and international forces near the Posta Haji area of the province, the statement said. 

The combined forces returned the fire and killed four militants, the statement said, adding that there were no casualties among the joint forces. 
More on link

Canadian troops not from 'war-mentality' culture
Lloyd Brown-John, Special to The Windsor Star Published: Monday, April 21, 2008
Article Link

In the 19th century, a Prussian military officer, Carl von Clausewitz, in a classic analysis of war, titled On War, argued that war was a continuation of political intercourse (das politischen Verkehrs) by an intermixing of other means (mit Einmischung anderer Mittel).

I've inserted the original German here for a reason. Clausewitz's observations often have been mistranslated in English to read, "war is diplomacy by other means." Clausewitz's essential argument -- in either language -- was basically that war was an unusual but often necessary addition to diplomacy.
More on link

Dutch support for ISAF mission in Afghanistan declining
Apr 21, 2008, 6:28 GMT  Article Link

Amsterdam - More than 60 per cent of the Dutch think their country should withdraw troops from Afghanistan if the Dutch death toll there hits 25. 

The findings published on Monday came from an internet survey of the Dutch MSN website in which 11,000 people participated. 

However, 25 per cent of Dutch think the number of Dutch military killed in Afghanistan is 'not relevant' in the decision on whether or not to continue the Dutch contribution to NATO's International Security and Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan. 

Some 1,600 Dutch troops are stationed in the southern province of Uruzghan as part of the NATO mission. The Netherlands has committed itself to remain in Afghanistan 
More on link

NATO undermining opium fight, Khalid says
GRAEME SMITH Globe and Mail Update April 21, 2008 at 1:30 AM EDT
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Foreign troops have undermined the Afghan government's poppy-eradication campaign in Kandahar, the governor says, and the lack of support has added to the risks of the operation.

At least 13 police have been killed and one reported missing during poppy eradication so far this month, and the task has been more difficult, Governor Asadullah Khalid said, because his NATO allies refuse to help and, in some cases, appear to be blocking the effort.

The governor was especially upset about a firefight on the morning of April 6 that killed nine officers in the district of Maywand, west of Kandahar city.

He said his office notified the Canadian military three weeks ahead of time that his teams would be visiting certain locations in Maywand to destroy the opium fields. But on the appointed day, he said, NATO troops stationed nearby failed to help his men during an hour-long battle against Taliban fighters.
More on link

Taliban says killed Dutch soldiers over film
Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:22am IST
Article Link

LONDON (Reuters) - The Taliban said a deadly attack on Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan was in retaliation for an anti-Islamic film made by a politician from the Netherlands, a U.S. terrorism monitoring service said on Sunday.

The son of the new chief of the Dutch military and another Dutch soldier serving with NATO-led forces were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Friday.

The attack was one of "a sequence of missions taking revenge for the insulting film", the Taliban said in a message in Arabic on its website, according to the terrorism monitoring service of a U.S. author and analyst who goes by the pseudonym Laura Mansfield.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party, launched the anti-Koran film "Fitna" -- an Arabic term that can mean strife -- on the Internet last month.
More on link

Hero's dad relieved at death of Taliban man tied to son's death
BY MARTIN C. EVANS | martin.evans@newsday.com  9:08 PM EDT, April 20, 2008 
Article Link

The father of slain Navy SEAL Lt. Michael P. Murphy -- a Medal of Honor recipient who grew up in Patchogue -- said he is relieved that a Taliban operative responsible for the death of his son in 2005 was killed by Pakistani police last week.

"Maureen and I never believed in revenge," Murphy's father, Daniel Murphy, of Wading River, said of himself and Murphy's mother, Maureen Murphy, of Patchogue. "We would rather have our son back."

Qari Mohammad Ismail, who police in Afghanistan describe as the most wanted man in Kunar Province, was cornered in a shootout near Peshawar, Pakistan, according to Rahimullah Yusufzai, editor of Peshawar-based "The News International," the second-largest English language daily in Pakistan.

"Some Taliban mourned his death, but most others were angry with him for turning into a kidnapper after having fought the U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan earlier," Yusufzai, who frequently writes for Time Magazine and the BBC news service, told Newsday in an e-mail interview.
More on link

Training bolsters leap forward for Afghan police
Ryan Cormier, Canwest News Service Published: Sunday, April 20, 2008
Article Link

Panjwaii district, Afghanistan - Security in the Panjwaii district and the expertise of the men who police it are soon both expected to take a much-needed leap forward when nearly 200 officers return better trained than when they left eight weeks ago.

The Afghan National Police have always been a far-flung second to the Afghan National Army in both skill and professionalism. However, now that rag-tag police officers are being pulled from their posts and uniformly trained district-by-district, there is hope they can gain some ground and manage defined and separate responsibilities from the army.  

"They're both fighting the same foe right now. What we're trying to do is bring the police towards the more usual community-policing role you see in Canada," said Col. Jean-Francois Riffou, commander of the Canadian Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team, or OMLT. "The army should focus on the fighting the insurgents."
More on link

Afghanistan spending to top $1-billion in 2008
Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service  Published: Sunday, April 20, 2008
Article Link

OTTAWA -- Canada's yearly cost of the war in Afghanistan doubled in 2006 and was projected to crack the $1-billion mark this year.

An internal Defence Department report of the Afghanistan mission's costs, dated this past Jan. 25, shows that the incremental cost of the Afghan mission spiked noticeably to $803 million in the fiscal year of 2006-2007, nearly doubling the $402 million from the previous year.

This sharp increase in spending coincides with the massive escalation of the Taliban insurgency in 2006, which set off a wave of unprecedented violence across southern Afghanistan.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg. It shows what mission creep is really doing," said NDP defence critic Dawn Black, who obtained the new figures through Access to Information.
More on link

War rugs from Afghanistan show rifles, landmines amid flowers and birds
Article Link

TORONTO — The rugs from Afghanistan featured in a new exhibition at the Textile Museum of Canada reflect the strife that country has endured over the last three decades.

Mixed in with traditional images of flowers and birds are depictions of helicopters, AK-47 assault rifles, armoured personnel carriers and landmines.

"As a cultural document, the rugs are unprecedented," said Max Allen, curator of "Battleground: War Rugs From Afghanistan," opening Wednesday.

The 120 rugs in the show form the largest exhibition of its kind ever staged, said Allen, who bought them from dealers in North America, Europe and elsewhere that he located on the Internet.

All were made since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, said Allen, a longtime CBC radio producer who co-founded the museum almost 35 years ago.

"Weavers have always put in their rugs the things that are important to them . . . whether those are flowers and sheep or prayer arches or whatever," Allen said, noting that oriental carpets have long been a major export for Afghanistan.
More on link

Colt's grip on military rifle market called bad deal
By RICHARD LARDNER 
Article Link

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — No weapon is more important to tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the carbine rifle. And for well over a decade, the military has relied on one company, Colt Defense of Hartford, Conn., to make the M4s they trust with their lives.

Now, as Congress considers spending millions more on the guns, this exclusive arrangement is being criticized as a bad deal for American forces as well as taxpayers, according to interviews and research conducted by The Associated Press.

"What we have is a fat contractor in Colt who's gotten very rich off our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

The M4, which can shoot hundreds of bullets a minute, is a shorter and lighter version of the company's M16 rifle first used 40 years ago during the Vietnam War. At about $1,500 apiece, the M4 is overpriced, according to Coburn. It jams too often in sandy environments like Iraq, he adds, and requires far more maintenance than more durable carbines.
More on link

Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan: 'I was kidnapped'
By MAGGIE MICHAEL 
Article Link

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan appeared on a video aired Saturday by an Arab satellite channel, saying he was kidnapped by Taliban militants more than two months ago.

Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin, flanked by his driver and his bodyguard, was shown sitting on the ground amid green brush in front of three masked men wearing traditional robes and holding automatic weapons.

"For 27 days, we have lived comfortably ... They take care of us and they respect us," Azizuddin said, in comments dubbed over in Arabic. The roughly two-minute clip appeared on Al-Arabiya television.

It was the first word from Azizuddin since he disappeared Feb. 11 near Pakistan's volatile border with Afghanistan. But his reference to having been held for 27 days suggests that the video was made more than a month ago.

"We don't have any problems but I suffer from health issues such as hypertension and heart pain," the white-bearded Azizuddin said.

He urged Pakistan's ambassadors in Iran and China, as well as the country's Foreign Ministry, to comply with Taliban demands. He did not elaborate.
More on link


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## GAP (21 Apr 2008)

Pakistan recovers 2 UN employees after gunbattle near Afghan border
The Associated PressPublished: April 21, 2008
Article Link

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Pakistani security forces recovered two U.N. employees after a gunbattle Monday with their captors in a militant stronghold near the Afghan border, an official said.

One paramilitary soldier was killed and four were wounded in the clash in Khyber tribal region, said Mohammed Iqbal, a local government official. The two employees of the World Food Program, both Pakistanis, escaped unharmed, he said.

Unidentified gunmen captured the U.N. workers earlier Monday as they traveled by road to Torkham, U.N. spokeswoman Amina Kamal said. Torkham is the main international border checkpoint linking northwestern Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It was not clear whether the gunmen belonged to an Islamic militant group or were criminals kidnapping for ransom.

Iqbal had no information on whether any of the gunmen were killed or wounded in the gunbattle.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (21 Apr 2008)

Afghan lawmakers push cultural bans of Taliban era
A draft proposal put forth last week would ban loud music, women and men mingling in public, billiards, and more.
_CSM_, April 21
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0421/p01s03-wosc.html



> Kabul, Afghanistan -  – Shafi Samandari thought the days of the Taliban would never come back. "I love listening to music and going to wedding parties," the Kabul resident says. "After the Taliban was toppled, I was sure that we could start living normally again."
> 
> The Taliban may not be returning anytime soon, but if some Afghan lawmakers have their way, Taliban-era laws will once again reign over the country. Last week, a group of members of parliament (MPs) put forth draft legislation that would ban T-shirts, loud music, women and men mingling in public, billiards, video games, playing with pigeons, and more – all regulations from the notorious Taliban era.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (21 Apr 2008)

UK troops in new Afghan push
BBC News video, April 21
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7358831.stm

(*Canadians in combat in support of Brits, 02:26*)

Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (22 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 22

Cabinet blitz continues in Afghanistan
CP, April 22
http://thechronicleherald.ca/World/1051341.html



> KABUL — The federal cabinet’s march through Afghanistan continued its brisk pace Monday as International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda surfaced in Kabul, the latest emissary in Ottawa’s ongoing push to refine the goals and objectives of Canada’s Afghan mission.
> 
> Following closely on the heels of Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, Oda’s stated objective in Afghanistan is to help establish new "benchmarks, timelines and objectives" that dovetail with existing international goals and also fit within Canada’s new 2011 timeline.
> 
> ...



Forget Iraq, Afghanistan's turning into a disaster too
_Daily Mail,_ April 22 by Max Hastings
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=561183&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=464&in_check=N



> After two years hard fighting in Afghanistan, the British Army is suffering an attack of gloom about the way the war is going.
> 
> Soldiers' morale is still high. Nobody is demanding to come home. The cost of acknowledging defeat by the Taliban is too high for the Western alliance to contemplate.
> 
> ...



Forces heading toward 'failure' in Afghanistan
NATO members must convince Pakistan and Afghans of will to guarantee security and safety, U.S. officer says
_Ottawa Citizen_, April 22 by Richard Foot
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=c3bbe0b8-7986-49ce-9551-f4de85693c4c&sponsor=



> NATO and coalition forces are "stumbling toward failure" in Afghanistan and no amount of military success against the Taliban will bring an end to the war without a fundamental change in political policy, says a provocative article written by a serving U.S. army officer.
> 
> Col. Thomas Lynch, contributing in the latest edition of The American Interest, a Washington-based policy journal, says the U.S. and NATO cannot win in Afghanistan without convincing both Afghans and Pakistanis that western military and economic support is there to stay.
> 
> ...



Afghans Build an Army, and a Nation
WSJ, April 22 by Bret Stephens
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882357323133161.html?mod=todays_columnists


> ...
> Lt. Col. Fanning, of the New York National Guard, has recently deployed to nearby Camp Alamo to help train the Afghan National Army. Adjacent to the camp is the rehabilitated Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC), whose principal ornament is a Soviet T-55 tank chassis mounted with a T-62 turret. In the past six years, more than 70,000 recruits have spent 10 weeks or more learning the basics of soldiering. Of that number, about a third trained here in the last year alone.
> 
> I came to Afghanistan with the idea that the key to building a nation is building its army. Militaries attract young men who otherwise would have remained strangers, if not enemies, and might well have joined militias or criminal gangs. Militaries instill discipline, purpose, patriotism, values and the brotherhood of the foxhole. Militaries create their own middle class: The salary of an Afghan private, at $1,300 a year, may seem minuscule but is twice the Afghan average. And militaries get soldiers to fight a common enemy, instead of each other.
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (22 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 22, 2008*

Kandahar chief was out - until Bernier spoke
 TheStar.com April 22, 2008 James McCarten The Canadian Press
Afghan politician says controversial governor was packing his bags
Article Link

KABUL–Asadullah Khalid was packing his bags and poised to leave his post as the governor of Kandahar province when Canada's foreign affairs minister inadvertently called for his ouster last week, a prominent Afghan politician says.

The controversial governor's imminent departure was almost immediately thrown into disarray when Maxime Bernier publicly urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to remove him, said Khalid Pashtun, a veteran parliamentarian who represents Kandahar.

Government operatives in the governor's palace had been warned of Khalid's departure to ensure bodyguards didn't start looting the palace, Pashtun said.

"They reported to us that the governor is collecting and gathering all his gear, his stuff, and he's leaving for Kabul," he said.

"It was happening. And all of a sudden, the guy is back, and making a very strong allegation that `No one has the right to remove me.'"

Pashtun said he believes Karzai, sensitive to the political dangers of being perceived by his constituents as a puppet of international forces, was forced to delay his plan to replace Khalid to avoid the impression he was doing the bidding of the Canadian government.

Pashtun described Khalid as a "robot" controlled by the president's powerful older brother, Qayum.

"The people don't support the governor because you're not on your own," he said. "Somebody else is controlling you by remote."

In the aftermath of the Bernier debacle, Pashtun said he met with senior tribal leaders from Kandahar who were perplexed at the fact Khalid was still in his job.

"They were complaining, expressing concerns – what happened?" he said. "Why all of a sudden was everything switched off?" 

Khalid surfaced over the weekend, speaking publicly for the first time since Bernier's remarks – later retracted – touched off a diplomatic firestorm with Kandahar's controversial leader at its heart.

"I think the (Canadian) foreign affairs minister got wrong information. I'm happy for this: that he took his words back," Khalid said in an interview published in yesterday's Globe and Mail.

In a television interview that aired Sunday, Khalid sounded more defiant.
More on link

Foreigners kidnapped in Afghanistan    
  Article Link 

Taliban fighters have been blamed for a string of abductions int he country [File: AFP] 

Two foreign nationals have reportedly been kidnapped in western Afghanistan.

Police initially said the men missing from Herat province since late Monday were an Indian and a Nepalese, but later said both were Indian nationals.

However, the Indian government later confirmed that only one of this nationals was missing. 

He was said to be employed by EOD Technology Inc, a US security company, and had gone missing in Herat's Adraskan district. 

Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, a police spokesman, said both men had called police on Monday and said they were "in trouble".
  
"After we sent our police to the area, they had gone missing. We found their vehicle abandoned," he said.

Police had not been contacted by any group that may have taken the men.

Policemen killed  
Elsewhere, Taliban fighters stormed a police post overnight, killing six officers, according to a police commander in the southern border province of Kandahar.

"Armed Taliban attacked one of our police posts in Arghistan overnight. Six policemen in the post were martyred," Rahmatullah Khan told the AFP news agency.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack.

In a separate incident, Afghan police killed nine Taliban fighters, officials said.
Authorities recovered the bodies of four dead fighters after Tuesday's gun battle, while the fighters took away five more dead fighters as they retreated, Raziq said.

Checkpoint battle

The clash came a day after a Taliban attack on a checkpoint left six border policemen dead in Arghistan, officials said.

About 200 police clashed with fighters during a search operation launched following Monday's attack, General Abdul Raziq, a police commander in the area, said.

In other violence, a British soldier was killed in the southern Afghan province of Helmand when his vehicle was hit by a suspected mine explosion, the British ministry of defence said late on Monday.
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RAF destroys £10m spy plane in Afghanistan
By Stephen Adams Last Updated: 3:58pm BST 22/04/2008
Article Link

Faced with the prospect of the technology falling into enemy hands, commanders immediately despatched an elite unit to remove "sensitive items" from the unmanned Reaper spy drone.
   
Reapers are used to relay real-time information about the enemy's position back to battlefield planners 
The items were thought to be a high-intensity camera and memory chips.

A military source said: "There was no way we could take even the slightest risk of the Taliban getting hold of any parts." 
More on link

World's oldest oil paintings in Afghanistan
Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:55am EDT
Article Link

KABUL (Reuters) - Scientists said on Tuesday they have proved the world's first ever oil paintings were in caves near two destroyed giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan, hundreds of years before oil paint was used in Europe.

Samples from paintings, dating from the 7th century AD, were taken from caves behind two statues of Buddha in Bamiyan blown up as un-Islamic by Afghanistan's hardline Taliban in 2001.

Scientists discovered paintings in 12 of the 50 caves were created using oil paints, possibly from walnut or poppy, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France said on its Web site on Tuesday.

"This is the earliest clear example of oil paintings in the world, although drying oils were already used by ancient Romans and Egyptians, but only as medicines and cosmetics," said Yoko Taniguchi, leader of the team of scientists.

It was not until the 13th century that oil was added to paints in Europe and oil paint was not widely used in Europe till the early 15th century.

Bamiyan was once a thriving Buddhist centre where monks lived in a series of caves carved into the cliffs by the two statues.

The cave paintings were probably the work of artists traveling along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia to the West and show scenes of Buddhas in vermilion robes and mythical creatures, the ESRF said.

Afghanistan's Taliban government used dozens of explosive charges to bring down the two 6th century giant Buddhas in March 2001, saying the statues were un-Islamic.
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Afghanistan: TV Stations Ordered To Stop Broadcasting ‘Un-Islamic’ Content 
By Farangis Najibullah
Article Link

The Afghan government has ordered independent television stations in Kabul to stop broadcasting programs deemed “un-Islamic” or that “undermine Afghan culture.”


Indian soap operas, hugely popular among Afghans, are among the shows that have been branded “un-Islamic,” and television stations have been given orders to take them off the air.

Abdul-Qadir Mirzai, chief news editor for the private television station Ariana, told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that Ariana has had to stop airing "Kumkum," a popular Indian soap opera.

“The Ministry of Information and Culture -- for the second time -- sent an official letter to Ariana television demanding the station refrain from airing the ‘Kumkum’ drama,” he said. Mirzai added that the popular soap opera had attracted many advertisers, and by pulling it off the air, the station would lose both a considerable number of viewers and a significant amount of money.

Mirzai insists the Indian soap opera, based on the love story of a Hindu couple, does not undermine Afghan culture or corrupt young Afghans’ morals. Indian movies and television series do not usually include sex or nude scenes.
More on link


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## GAP (23 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April , 2008*

Afghanistan: no way out, says serving U.S. officer 
Tuesday, April 22, 2008  
Article Link

NATO and coalition forces are "stumbling toward failure" in Afghanistan and no amount of military success against the Taliban will bring an end to the war without a fundamental change in political policy, says a provocative article written by a serving U.S. army officer. 

Col. Thomas Lynch, contributing in the latest edition of The American Interest, a Washington-based policy journal, says the U.S. and NATO cannot win in Afghanistan without convincing both Afghans and Pakistanis that Western military and economic support is there to stay. 

Only a permanent NATO force - of the kind that guaranteed the security of western Europe after the Second World War, and still safeguards the security of South Korea - can bring about peace and stability in Afghanistan, says Lynch in his article titled "Afghan Dilemmas: Staying Power." 

Lynch served as special assistant to the U.S. ambassador to Kabul in 2004. For the past four years he was stationed with the U.S. army in Afghanistan, Iraq and Qatar, and is now on a temporary fellowship with the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank. 

In an e-mail interview with Canwest News Service, Lynch also says Canadian forces should consider leaving Kandahar - handing their hard, counter-insurgency role to the Americans - and taking on a new "stability" mission in the less volatile areas of northern or western Afghanistan. 

"I am a longtime fan of Canadian military forces," he says. "I served with them in Europe during the Cold War in my early career, and saw them daily in their NATO-ISAF stability and security duties around Kabul in 2004 and 2005. They are good troops." 

Yet, despite his admiration for Canadian soldiers, Lynch says Canada, like most European allies, lacks the equipment and resources - helicopters, close-air support, logistics and "economic support tools" -to take charge of the tough, counter-insurgency work required in southern Afghanistan. 

He says the U.S. "miscalculated" when it gave NATO control of the counter-insurgency mission in southern Afghanistan in 2006, thinking that peacekeeping and stability work would follow. 

Instead, the Taliban insurgency flared up, forcing Canada and other NATO members into a combat role they were not expecting. That in turn, prompted the bickering over troop commitments that now plagues the alliance. 

Lynch says NATO's troop commitments are not what ails the mission. 

"The mission in Afghanistan is not in jeopardy mainly because NATO members refuse to provide sufficient troops," he says. "The real issue is the transitory and uncertain U.S. military posture in Afghanistan." 
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Canadian pilots flew U.S. transports into Iraq as part of training plan
David Akin ,  Canwest News Service Published: Monday, April 21, 2008
Article Link

OTTAWA - Canadian Forces personnel learned to operate Canada's newest military plane, the giant Boeing C-17, by training on American jets, including flying those planes into Iraq in support of the U.S. war, according to a memo written by Canada's top general and obtained by Canwest News Service.

Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of Canada's defence staff, wrote to Gordon O'Connor, then-minister of national defence, in May 2007 that in the summer and fall of that year, Canadian military aircrew would fly into Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That decision was taken without informing Parliament.

"Canadians have been very clear from the beginning that they wanted no part of George Bush's war on Iraq," said NDP MP Dawn Black, her party's defence critic, "and they certainly don't want to see Canadians getting involved through a back door."
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Suicide bombings, attacks in Afghanistan kill 13
NOOR KHAN Associated Press April 23, 2008 at 5:58 AM EDT
Article Link

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — A spate of suicide bombings and other attacks on security forces in southern Afghanistan Wednesday left 13 people dead and 24 others wounded, officials said.

In Kandahar province, a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a vehicle carrying intelligence agents in the border town of Spin Boldak, killing three civilians, Kandahar Gov. Assadullah Khalid said.

Two children and three intelligence agents were among the 14 hurt, Mr. Khalid said. He blamed the Taliban for the attack.

In neighbouring Helmand province, a suicide bomber struck a police convoy, killing two officers and wounding three, said district police chief Khairudin Shuhja. Shuhja was in the convoy but was not injured in the attack.

As the bomber approached the car, guards opened fire, wounding the attacker, who then blew himself up, Mr. Shuhja said.

Southern Afghanistan is the centre of the Taliban-led insurgency. Militants regularly use suicide attacks in their fight against Afghan and foreign troops in the country, but most victims are civilians.

In eastern Kunar province, Taliban militants attacked a police border post, killing five officers and wounding seven others, said provincial police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal.
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Denmark evacuates embassies in Algeria, Afghanistan due to terror threats  
The Associated Press Wednesday, April 23, 2008 
Article Link

COPENHAGEN, Denmark: Denmark has evacuated staff from its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of terror threats following the reprint in Danish newspapers of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad, officials said Wednesday.

Embassy employees in the Algerian capital, Algiers, and the Afghan capital, Kabul, would continue to work out of "secret locations" in those cities, and would be reachable by phone and e-mail, Foreign Ministry spokesman Erik Laursen said.

The threat "is so concrete that we had to take this decision," Laursen told The Associated Press. "The decision is based on intelligence," he added, declining to elaborate.

The Netherlands took similar precautions, announcing Wednesday that it had closed its embassy's offices in Kabul two days earlier after reassessing the security situation in the Afghan capital.

Last week, Dutch Embassy personnel in Pakistan shifted to a luxury hotel in Islamabad due to heightened security concerns following the release of a film critical of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders.

The Netherlands has stationed 1,600 combat troops with the NATO-led security force in southern Afghanistan.
More on link

Deaths haunt Afghanistan mission
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Even before the Marines here began fighting Taliban insurgents in the lawless southern provinces, they were holding a memorial service for two of their own.
Cpl. Kyle Wilks was remembered as a NASCAR-loving prankster. First Sgt. Luke Mercardante, the highest ranking non-commissioned officer in his logistics battalion, was "the glue that held us together," Maj. Keith Owens says. "He helped our small problems from becoming big problems."

"It hit us hard," says Staff Sgt. Liandro Barajas, 28, of Yakima, Wash.

The deaths last week during a supply run — the Marine unit's first major foray outside the safety of the sprawling military base at Kandahar Air Field — are a brutal reminder of an enemy that is tenaciously hanging on and possibly gaining strength seven years after U.S. and allied forces toppled the Taliban leadership for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

The Marines are here to help turn the tide against Taliban insurgents and to give pro-U.S. Afghan President Hamid Karzai a chance to assert his government's authority in this impoverished, ravaged country.
More on link

Pakistan's brief honeymoon
Simon Tisdall The Guardian, Wednesday April 23 2008 
Article Link

This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday April 23 2008 on p16 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:11 on 
April 23 2008. Pakistan's new leaders are doing the easy stuff first. Judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf, including the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, will probably get their jobs back soon. Curbs on the media are being lifted. Earlier this week the supreme court cleared the way for the late Benazir Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to run for parliament in June. That in turn could put the Pakistan People's party co-chairman in line for the premiership.

All this honeymoon excitement is partly about getting back at Musharraf whose influence dwindles almost daily following February's election defeat. A possibly more significant development was Monday's decision by North-West Frontier province to free a senior pro-Taliban mullah, Sufi Muhammad.
More on link

 Pakistan prisoner release to win over militants
April 22, 2008 -- Updated 1831 GMT (0231 HKT) 
Article Link

(CNN) -- Pakistan's new government has made good on its promise to negotiate with militant groups within its borders by releasing a jailed pro-Taliban leader who recruited thousands of fighters to battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

 Sufi Mohammed agreed to cooperate with the government upon his release from prison Monday after serving a six-year sentence, according to Sardar Hussain Babek, the information minister for North West Frontier Province.

Mohammed was captured in Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan in 2002, months after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban rulers there.

Under the terms of his release, the provincial minister said, Mohammed's banned hardline group, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi, is expected to lay down its arms and forgo violence.

Babek said the agreement is evidence that the new government has done in a month what the old government under President Pervez Musharraf could not do in years in terms of developing better relations with people in the North West Frontier Province.

But Mohammed's son-in-law Fazlullah, who took over his group during his jail stint, announced Tuesday in his radio broadcast that he will continue his fight to impose fundamentalist Islamic law in northwest Pakistan, according to local reports.

Last year, Fazlullah's followers battled the Pakistani military for control of Swat, a mountainous region of the frontier province that was once a popular tourist destination.

Pakistan's Daily Times and other local media are reporting that Mohammed's release was a demand of those who kidnapped Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan in February.
More on link

Oda joins controversial governor at literacy event in Kandahar city
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid shared a laugh with the ambassador, snipped a pink ribbon alongside a cabinet minister and showered Canada with praise Tuesday to demonstrate he holds no ill will toward the country that let slip it was seeking his ouster.

Khalid was making his first appearance in public since Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier triggered a diplomatic maelstrom last week by telling reporters Khalid should be replaced - an inadvertent admission that was swiftly retracted.

The embattled governor was met by International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, who was wrapping up her three-day visit to Afghanistan by becoming the first Canadian minister to host a news conference in the heart of perilous Kandahar city.

Together with Arif Lalani, Canada's affable ambassador to Afghanistan, the trio took a pair of scissors from an ornately decorated platter and cut the ribbon on a new Department of Literacy building aimed at buttressing vital skills in a province where 26 per cent of men and barely five per cent of women can read.

Speaking slowly, without notes and in strong English, Khalid reminded the gathered dignitaries, ministry officials and aid workers about Canada's sacrifices in Afghanistan and the country's importance to his province's future welfare.
More on link

Lions Clubs send books to troops in Afghanistan  
14 Wing expresses gratitude  by Carolyn Sloan/Annapolis County Spectator 
Article Link

Capt. Scott Spurr knows how welcome such kindnesses are when serving overseas, miles away from the comforts of home. 

On behalf of his fellow comrades, the 14 Wing public affairs officer expressed his gratitude to local Lions Clubs providing books and magazines to the troops in Afghanistan.

“I know firsthand that they really do [appreciate it],” he told the Lions at a dinner meeting April 14 in Annapolis Royal.

A special guest that evening, Spurr was there to witness the presentation of a commemorative print to the Annapolis Royal legion. The print, entitled “Fallen Comrades,” had been given to the Annapolis Lions a few months ago as a gift from the troops, and in turn, the club had decided to offer it to the legion, where it could be properly displayed.

“On behalf of the Legion, I thank the Lions Club for this,” said Lion and Legion service officer Royal Hall upon receiving the print. “This one will be worth appreciating.”

The collection of books and magazines for the troops was initiated by the Annapolis Royal Lions Club about a year ago, inspired by Lion Charlotte Taylor’s daughter, Corp. Susan Cameron, who was serving in Afghanistan. After suggesting to her mother that the troops have reading materials to enjoy during their downtime, Charlotte and her daughter started to send a few books overseas at their own expense. 
More on link

Gates Assails Pentagon on Resources for Battlefields
By Josh White and William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writers  Tuesday, April 22, 2008; Page A16 
Article Link

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday criticized the U.S. military services for not moving aggressively enough to provide critical resources to the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying it has been "like pulling teeth" to get the Pentagon's conventional Cold War bureaucracy to adapt to the needs of current wars. 
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (23 Apr 2008)

Afghanistan: spring developments  (media roundup)
Conference of Defence Associations, 23 April 
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1208959866/

Mark 
Ottawa


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## GAP (24 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 24, 2008*

Ottawa on the hook for harm to Afghans
Tom Blackwell, National Post   Published: Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Article Link

The incidents range from accidental shooting deaths of civilians to deadly friendly fire mishaps, vehicle crashes and even lost cellphones.

The federal government has paid out tens of thousands of dollars in compensation to Afghans who have been hurt, killed or had property wrecked by Canadian troops in the past two years, internal documents obtained by the National Post indicate.

The list of reparations paid by the middle of last year includes five cases of civilians injured or killed at the hands of Canadian troops and three friendly-fire deaths of Afghan soldiers or police.

Compensation for deaths ranged from about $2,000 to almost $9,000, according to Justice Department claims reports, obtained under the Access to Information Act but censored of much personal and other information. None of the claims dealt with damage from air strikes called in by Canadian troops.

"Compensation claims are taken seriously," said Sarah Cavanagh, a National Defence Department spokeswoman. "Each request is fully and expeditiously investigated."

Yet the papers underline a highly charged issue for the NATO mission in Afghanistan: the usually inadvertent but often inflammatory collateral damage inflicted by the foreign forces on an already shattered population.
More on link

Be honest: We're at war in Afghanistan, panel told
STEVEN CHASE From Thursday's Globe and Mail April 24, 2008 at 4:18 AM EDT
Article Link

OTTAWA — The Canadian government should be more frank about its military engagement in Afghanistan and call it a "war" instead of describing it in innocuous terms such as restoring "security" or offering "humanitarian assistance," a former chief of staff to two Liberal defence ministers says.

"Even today you won't see much use of the term war, insurgency or counterinsurgency on government of Canada websites. You will see more anodyne terms like security, governance and humanitarian assistance," Eugene Lang told a panel discussion on Canada's military in the 21st century yesterday in Ottawa.

"This suggests to me that we are not honest with ourselves and the Canadian public about what we are actually involved in abroad," Mr. Lang told the discussion sponsored by the Walrus Foundation, publisher of The Walrus magazine.

Mr. Lang, who served as chief of staff to former Liberal defence ministers Bill Graham and John McCallum, acknowledged the Harper government has made progress in the past 18 months in using blunter language to describe Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
More on link

US Considering Changes to Afghanistan Coalition Command Structure  
By Al Pessin Pentagon 23 April 2008
   Article Link

Pessin report - Download (MP3)  
Pessin report - Listen (MP3)  

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says Pentagon officials are discussing possible changes to the NATO and coalition command structure in Afghanistan. But he says the United States is not ready to make a formal proposal to its allies. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

When Secretary Gates announced Wednesday that the current U.S. and coalition commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, is being nominated as the new head of U.S. Central Command, the secretary said he recommended the move because Petraeus is the U.S. military's top expert on "asymmetric warfare." 

That term refers to the type of conflict common to Iraq and Afghanistan, where conventional armies are fighting insurgents. Petraeus is widely credited with making enormous strides against insurgents in Iraq during the year he has led coalition forces there.

Central Command normally supervises U.S. military involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But a year and a half ago most of the international forces in Afghanistan, including most of the U.S. troops, were put under NATO control, leaving the Central Command chief outside their chain of command.

That is something Secretary Gates says U.S. officials might want to change. 
More on link

Denmark Evacuates Embassies in Algeria, Afghanistan Amid Terror Threats
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Article Link

COPENHAGEN, Denmark —  Denmark has evacuated staff from its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of terror threats following the reprint in Danish newspapers of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad, officials said Wednesday.

Embassy employees in the Algerian capital, Algiers, and the Afghan capital, Kabul, would continue to work out of "secret locations" in those cities, and would be reachable by phone and e-mail, Foreign Ministry spokesman Erik Laursen said.

The threat "is so concrete that we had to take this decision," Laursen told The Associated Press. "The decision is based on intelligence," he added, declining to elaborate.

The Netherlands took similar precautions, announcing Wednesday that it had closed its embassy's offices in Kabul two days earlier after reassessing the security situation in the Afghan capital.

Last week, Dutch Embassy personnel in Pakistan shifted to a luxury hotel in Islamabad due to heightened security concerns following the release of a film critical of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders.
More on link

'Attacks won't stop India from aiding Afghanistan'
24 Apr 2008, 0328 hrs IST,TNN
Article Link

NEW DELHI: Despite the deliberate targeting of Indians in Afghanistan with killings and abductions, India on Wednesday said it will not succumb to pressure and will continue with its efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged country. 

"We cannot succumb to the pressure of Taliban or any extremist group. Our approach is of zero tolerance," declared external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee. 

"This is exactly what the Taliban want. They do not want any development activity in Afghanistan. Almost everyday we are facing this problem. Threats and minor attacks are taking place on a daily basis," he added. 

The stepped-up attacks against Indians in Afghanistan is seen to be the handiwork of Taliban acting at the behest of Pakistan. The minister said India was helping Afghanistan with the construction of the crucial 218-km Zaranj-Delaram road project, a hydel power project and a Parliament building. Mukherjee asserted that India had made adequate security arrangements and had even arranged for its own security forces there in the form of ITBP commandos. 
More on link

Afghan MPs may ban jeans and makeup
Pia Heikkila in Kabul The Guardian, Thursday April 24 2008
Article Link

The Afghan parliament is considering a law to ban makeup, men's jeans, long hair and couples talking in public, amid fears that the country is sliding back to Taliban-style rules and conservative power. 

The proposal is seen as part of a wider push for Islamic values by Afghanistan's ruling religious elite. It follows government attempts to ban hugely popular Indian soap operas and a recent decision by the high court to confirm the death sentences of nearly 100 people.

Haji Ahmad Shah Khan Achakzai, an MP in Kandahar province, said the law would boost moral and religious values for Afghan people. "Kabul has seen a wave of liberal, unwelcome influences of late," he said. "There are women dressed immodestly, prostitution can be found openly and even alcohol is available on the market. Our job is to protect the Afghan people from being exposed to this un-Islamic way of life and poor morals."

But more liberal MPs fear the loss of hard-fought freedoms. "I am worried there will be another Taliban era ahead of us. We have fought for many years to gain some freedom here and it is our responsibility not to let this happen again," said Najiba Sharif, deputy minister for women's affairs. 

Last week parliament tried to stop several private TV channels from broadcasting a number of Indian soap operas. But many stations, including the popular local Tolo TV, are defying the ban. The ministry of information and culture issued a "final warning" to Tolo and Afghan TV to stop broadcasting the Indian soaps by April 29, saying that "otherwise they will be referred to the judiciary".
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U.S. unhappy with Pakistani plan for militant peace deal
Article Link

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House on Wednesday expressed concern with reports that Pakistan's new government is working on a peace accord with militant leaders in its tribal regions.

"We are concerned about it and what we encourage them to do is to continue to fight against the terrorists and to not disrupt any secure military operations that are ongoing in order to prevent a safe haven for terrorists there," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Pakistan's new government -- led by the Pakistan People's Party of slain leader Benazir Bhutto -- is nearing an agreement with the Mehsud tribes of South Waziristan that involves exchanging prisoners and withdrawing Pakistani forces, according to a party spokesman. 

Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who has ties to al Qaeda, is a member of the Mehsud tribe.

Pakistan's previous government under President Pervez Musharraf said he was behind Bhutto's assassination last year, a conclusion reached by the CIA as well.

Bhutto's party has rejected that assertion, saying it believes Musharraf's government may have orchestrated the attack.

The deal is being negotiated by the Awami National Party -- part of the ruling coalition -- whose power base is in the North West Frontier Province, where South Waziristan is located, the party's leader told CNN.

"Progress is being made through dialogue and shouldn't be seen in a negative light," Awami National Party leader Zahid Khan said. "It should be given a chance." 

The reported peace deal may include releasing some suspects tied to Mehsud who are facing trial for Bhutto's assassination.
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (24 Apr 2008)

New Jobs Set for 2 Generals With Iraq Role
_NY Times_, April 24
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/washington/24military.html?ref=todayspaper


> ...
> The nomination of General Petraeus could...portend a renewed American focus on Afghanistan, where the American war effort is widely recognized to be lagging, with violence by the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the rise. *Mr. Gates [Secretary of Defense] already has expressed the desire to send several thousand additional troops to Afghanistan next year, although that could require further reductions in troop commitments to Iraq* [emphasis added]. General Petraeus would be expected to apply his views of counterinsurgency to Afghanistan, which may include a push toward increased troops.
> 
> Mr. Gates said he and President Bush settled on General Petraeus for the post because his counterinsurgency experience in Iraq made him best suited to oversee American operations across a region where the United States is engaged in “asymmetric” warfare, a euphemism for battling militants and nonuniformed combatants
> ...



Petraeus promotion ensures future for Bush war policy
_LA Times_, April 24
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-petraeus24apr24,0,6086713.story?page=2&track=ntothtml


> ...
> In his new job, Petraeus will have responsibility for overseeing military operations from the Horn of Africa through the Persian Gulf to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
> 
> Oversight of the war in Afghanistan is split between the U.S. Central Command and NATO.
> ...



Bush Nominates Petraeus To Lead Central Command
_Washington Post_, April 24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042301249_2.html?sid=ST2008042302829


> ...
> *Top U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, where a record 32,000 American troops are deployed, have asked for as many as three more brigades, which senior commanders say would be available only if drawdowns from Iraq continue* [emphasis added]. Pentagon officials are weighing *whether the command structure in Afghanistan should be changed, Gates said* [emphasis added], while the overall strategy for the country is also under review. Violence in Afghanistan increased sharply last year.
> 
> "One fascinating question will be the degree to which Petraeus's Iraq counterinsurgency doctrine will work in Afghanistan," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (25 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 25, 2008*

Hidden head injuries the new combat wound for Canadian soldiers?
Article Link

WINNIPEG — Soldiers who are exposed to explosions in countries such as Afghanistan might be suffering a mild brain injury without even realizing it, says an American doctor.

Harriet Zeiner, a clinical neuropsychologist with the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in

California, spoke Thursday at a conference on military trauma.

"It's these other folks that we're missing," Zeiner said in an interview. "That's one thing we have to do, is figure out how to identify people who aren't complaining,"

Unlike moderate or severe brain injuries, where the damage is apparent, mild brain injuries aren't obvious, but can cause a series of problems, including learning impairment, memory loss, severe fatigue, headaches.

"It just looks like a regular person who's not functioning very well, and so you think of them as lazy, or manipulative, or not wanting to work, or just dumb," Zeiner said.

Medical schools really don't offer enough training about head injuries, said Zeiner.

"In the civilian sector, you end up with a lot of physicians who hold up two fingers and say, 'how many fingers?' (The patient says) two and they say, 'great, go home'," she said.
More on link

Canada wants close working relationship with Pakistan
Article Link

ISLAMABAD: Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier phoned his Pakistani counterpart on Thursday to express Canada’s desire to work closely with Pakistan in areas of mutual interest.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told Bernier Pakistan wanted to build a strong relationship with Canada through deepening co-operation, and emphasised the importance of expanding trade, economic and investment ties.

Qureshi said the fight against extremism and terrorism was in Pakistan’s national interest, stressing the importance of a multi-pronged approach combining political, socio-economic development and security measures. The two foreign ministers also discussed Afghanistan.
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NATO mentors hope Afghan police academy graduates will regain public trust
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Hundreds of grinning Afghan police-academy graduates crowded like excited schoolboys into a dimly lit assembly hall Thursday for some words of encouragement before resuming their dangerous duties as keepers of the peace in a province racked by war.

Having completed an intensive eight weeks of basic training by largely American mentors, the officers - now known as members of the Afghan Uniformed Police - were being dispatched back to the Taliban heartland to work side by side with Canadian forces.

Formerly members of the oft-maligned Afghan National Police, it's the hope of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that they take with them a new sense of professionalism, responsibility and propriety - one that will restore the country's shattered confidence in its fledgling government.

"You are the future of Afghanistan," Brig.-Gen. Harm de Jonge, deputy commander for NATO troops in the segment of the country known in military circles as Regional Command South, told graduates.
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India formally joins Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan gas pipeline project
04.25.08, 3:09 AM ET
Article Link

MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - India has been formally admitted as a member of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project at a steering committee meeting in Islamabad on April 23-24, where a framework agreement to facilitate implementation of the project was signed by the oil and gas ministers of the four countries, an Indian government statement said.

The 1,680 km TAPI pipeline, which will supply 90 million standard cubic metres (mmscmd) of gas a day, will be executed by a consortium, the statement said. 

Afghanistan will use about 5.0 mmscmd during the first and second year and 14 mmscmd from the third year onwards, with the rest of the gas being equally shared by India and Pakistan, the statement said. 

The gas will be supplied from Douletabad and other fields in Turkmenistan and the principle of unobstructed transit of natural gas, in accordance with international norms, will be followed, the statement said. 

The safety and security of the pipeline and related infrastructure will be provided by the concerned governments in their respective territories and transport tariff will be based on the cost of service method, the statement said.
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A Q & A with Naeem Muhammad Khan
Stewart Bell, National Post  Published: Thursday, April 24, 2008
Article Link

Torontonian Naeem Muhammad Khan openly supports the Taliban and calls Osama bin Laden a hero. Stewart Bell speaks to a self-avowed fundamentalist:

Q) Your profile picture on Facebook is a black flag with an AK-47 and the words "Support Our Troops." Which troops are you encouraging people to support and why?

A) "Support our Troops" means supporting the mujahideen [soldiers of God] who are fighting for their freedom and rights against illegal occupation in many, many places over the world like Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine and Somalia.

Q) So in Afghanistan, where Canadian troops are deployed, you are rooting for their enemy, the Taliban? As a landed immigrant, how do you reconcile enjoying the benefits of Canadian society while at the same time cheerleading for an armed group that is killing Canadian soldiers?

A) Firstly, I disagree that Taliban are our enemies, neither did they ever attack us and nor did they support any attacks on Canada. Mullah Muhammad Omar clearly stated, "We assure the whole world that neither Osama nor anyone else can use Afghan territory against anyone." So how are Taliban our enemies to begin with? When the Taliban demanded proof of Osama's involvement in September 11, 2001 which he himself denied in an interview with Ummat on 28th September, 2001, none were presented to them and none have been presented to the world ‘til this very day. Even the FBI website does not mention September 11 attacks in Osama's profile. Besides I have been to protests where the anti-war groups protested over our involvement in Afghanistan and wanted our troops to be back from a war that does not exist. I want our Canadian troops back in Canada and not in Afghanistan to fight the fake war on terror which is baseless and is making things worse for the Afghans rather then improving it.
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## MarkOttawa (25 Apr 2008)

U.S. to heighten Afghan role?
Pentagon weighs lead role in NATO's combat mission in the south to better fight Taliban.
CSM, April 25
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0425/p01s03-wosc.html



> The Pentagon is considering whether it should push to change the NATO mission in volatile southern Afghanistan to give the US greater control in the fight against a growing Taliban threat.
> 
> The move is one of many being assessed as fears rise that the collective effort of NATO forces there lacks coherence. The Taliban's comeback over the past two years has been marked by a spike in suicide bombings and other violence – at the same time that critics say the complex command structure governing NATO and US forces has stifled combat and reconstruction efforts.
> 
> ...



India drawn deeper into Afghanistan
_Asia Times_, April 24
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD24Df03.html



> India's presence and influence in Afghanistan has come under fire again. While an Indian road construction project was attacked by suspected Taliban militants a little over a week ago, Indian television serials are being taken off the air in Afghanistan under pressure from religious conservatives.
> 
> In the years since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, India's presence in Afghanistan has grown dramatically. India does not have a military presence in Afghanistan, but it does play a significant role in the country's reconstruction and has won support across Afghanistan's ethnic groups.
> 
> ...



BND Agents 'Knew What They Were Doing'
_Spiegel Online_, April 25
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,549765,00.html



> German intelligence agents have been caught spying on a German journalist -- again. The controversy over e-mails collected from a SPIEGEL reporter has become a national scandal. Chancellor Merkel says her faith in her spy chief has been rattled, while German papers wonder if the service can be trusted at all...
> 
> The latest scandal is like déjà vu. E-mails by a German journalist -- this time at SPIEGEL -- have been collected by German intelligence agents. The apparent target of the surveillance was Mohammed Amin Farhang, Afghanistan's Economy Minister, who traded e-mails with SPIEGEL reporter Susanne Koelbl between June and November 2006. She was sending him pieces of an in-progress book about Afghanistan.
> 
> ...



Dewar makes a great to-do about Afghanistan and energy, no? 
The Hill Times, April 21st, 2008, LETTERS
http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/cover_index.php?display=story&full_path=/2008/april/21/letter1/&c=1



> Re: "Parliament is ignoring 'New Great Energy Game' in Afghanistan, says MP," (_The Hill Times_, April 14, p. 1). NDP MP Paul Dewar makes a great to-do about Afghanistan and energy. That is simply silly. Afghanistan has no role in the production or transportation of Central Asian oil, the big prize in this great game, and only a potential, not terribly significant, role regarding natural gas.
> 
> Most of that oil is in Kazakhstan, far to the west of Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan has no need for Afghanistan as a pipeline route. Kazakh oil is now exported by pipeline via Russia and to China. Kazakhstan is also, as the story notes, planning an oil pipeline (a natural gas pipeline is also under consideration) through its own territory to link up across the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan with the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.  This pipeline ends at the eastern Mediterranean in Turkey.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (26 Apr 2008)

*Articles found March 26, 2008*

Afghanistan with a laugh track
Is TV censorship in Kabul really a sign of 're-Talibanization'? 
DOUG SAUNDERS Globe and Mail Update April 26, 2008 at 12:05 AM EDT
Article Link

KABUL — On a side street in downtown Kabul, behind the inevitable concrete barriers, bomb-resistant walls, heavy steel gates and barbed-wire spools, are two modest-sized houses, indistinguishable from neighbouring abodes except for one or two extra layers of security and a surprising number of people coming in and out.

That, and the sound of laughter that blasts from a TV mixing console inside this homegrown broadcast centre.

On the screen is an episode of the unlikely hit Laugh Bazaar, which has introduced stand-up comedy to Afghanistan. This shoestring broadcast empire created by Afghan entrepreneurs also includes Afghan Star, a vastly successful take on American Idol, and a number of very good investigative-news shows.

The humour on Laugh Bazaar tends toward the sardonic and is sometimes aimed at the Afghan government. One classic joke has a respected wise man dragged before one of the country's more ruthless leaders. "If you cannot prove that you are as perceptive as you claim," the leader says, "I will have you hanged." The man announces that he can see golden birds in the sky and demons under the earth. How, asks the leader, can you have such visions? He answers: "Fear is all you need."
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Police say bomb kills 2 officers in central Afghanistan
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A police official says a roadside bomb destroyed a police vehicle, killing at least two officers in central Afghanistan.

Deputy provincial police chief Mohammed Zaman says the remote-controlled bomb went off in Waghaz district of Ghazni province early Saturday.

He says two police died and three were wounded.

But an Associated Press Television News cameraman saw three saw three burned, mutilated bodies at the scene and four wounded people at a hospital. All appeared to be police.
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Taliban hamper dam project in Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO
Article Link

KAJAKI, Afghanistan (AP) — British Maj. Mike Shervington watches over a stunning aqua-green lake and a 50-year-old story about U.S. struggles to aid Afghanistan.

Inside a security perimeter is an old American-built dam with the potential to provide Afghanistan with 6 percent of its power. Outside the line roam enough Taliban fighters to prevent Washington's largest single aid project in Afghanistan from ever reaching that goal.

The Kajaki Dam, built in the 1950s to help Afghan farmers irrigate their fields, is in Helmand province in southwest Afghanistan, which grows more opium poppies than any place in the world. And, thanks to an influx of Taliban fighters the last two years, it is one of the most dangerous regions in the country.

Western officials say the Taliban opposes any project carried out by international aid workers — schools, clinics or, in this case, the dam — because locals might turn toward the government. Militants also are likely trying to protect their lucrative drug trade in the area around Kajaki.

A small building at the base of the dam houses one working Westinghouse turbine, one of two the U.S. installed in the 1970s. The second turbine is dismantled for repairs. In between those is a large hole where the U.S. hopes to install a third turbine.

Even a small boost in output would be meaningful in a nation where only 6 percent of the population has electricity.
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## MarkOttawa (26 Apr 2008)

Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War
_NY Times_, April 26 by Carlotta Gall
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?ref=todayspaper



> President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions.
> 
> Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms.
> 
> ...



UK troops to hand control of Helmand 'hot spots' to Afghan army
_Independent_, April 26
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/uk-troops-to-hand-control-of-helmand-hot-spots-to-afghan-army-815849.html



> British troops in southern Afghanistan could hand control of key areas to Afghan forces within months, the commander of British forces said yesterday.
> 
> Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said he hoped the Afghan army would "deliver security" in the most dangerous parts of Helmand by the end of the year. He said the provincial governor was keen to see Afghan troops take over in three hotspot towns in "the heart of Helmand", and it was his job to help that happen.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (27 Apr 2008)

ARTICLES FOUND APRIL 27

Karzai, Canadian ambassador flee gunfire
AP, April 27
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080427.wafghanceremony0427/BNStory/International/home



> KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Canadian ambassador Arif Lalani were among the dignitaries forced to take cover Sunday when automatic gunfire erupted during a ceremony marking 16 years since the overthrow of the country's Soviet-backed rule.
> 
> Three people, including a lawmaker, were killed and eight were wounded. Mr. Karzai, his cabinet and foreign diplomats who were present — including Arif Lalani, Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan — were all safe, a statement from the presidential palace said.
> 
> ...



US Marines deploying in Afghanistan for 1st time in years
AP, April 26
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080426/ap_on_re_as/afghan_marines



> HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan - U.S. Marines are crossing the sands of southern Afghanistan for the first time in years, providing a boost to a NATO coalition that is growing but still short on manpower.
> 
> They hope to retake the 10 percent of Afghanistan the Taliban holds.
> 
> ...



Two Fronts, Same Worries
_Washington Post_, April 27, by David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042502779.html



> KABUL -- For many Americans who are weary of Iraq, Afghanistan is the "good war" in which the United States and its European allies are destroying what's left of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. That view certainly holds with the Democratic presidential candidates, who talk of adding troops in Afghanistan next year even as they pull troops out of Iraq.
> 
> But "bad" Iraq has more in common with "good" Afghanistan than people sometimes realize. Both have evolved into classic counterinsurgencies with a "clear and hold" strategy for providing security; both show the benefits of a military surge; both run the risk of failure because of weak and corrupt host governments.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (28 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 28, 2008*

Iranian president discusses Afghanistan, gas pipeline during brief Pakistan visit  
The Associated Press Monday, April 28, 2008 
Article Link

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Iranian and Pakistani leaders resolved issues related to a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline project opposed by the United States during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brief Monday visit to Pakistan, state media reported.

Ahmadinejad, on his first trip to the neighboring country, met with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in Islamabad during his four-hour stay before leaving for Sri Lanka.

Musharraf and Ahmadinejad were satisfied that "all issues that had delayed a final agreement" on the natural gas pipeline project were resolved, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan. The report did not specify the issues resolved.

The two Muslim countries' foreign ministers will set a date for signing the pipeline accord, Qureshi said, according to APP.

India has also been involved in the project. The proposed pipeline would run 2,615 kilometers (1,625 miles) from Iran to India through Pakistan and initially carry 60 million cubic meters (2,120 million cubic feet) of gas a day.
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US military: 12 insurgents killed in Afghanistan
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. military says a dozen insurgents have been killed during a clash in eastern Afghanistan.

The military said in a news release that the fighting erupted after coordinated militant attacks on five U.S. and Afghan military outposts.

The military says another 12 insurgents were wounded. No U.S. or Afghan soldiers were hurt.

The clash happened Sunday in Korengal Valley of volatile eastern Kunar province. 
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Militants behead 'spy' in Pakistani tribal area: police
Article Link

WANA, Pakistan (AFP) — Pro-Taliban militants beheaded a policeman in Pakistan's troubled tribal belt bordering Afghanistan on Monday after accusing him of spying for security forces, police said.

The body of 35-year-old Shaukat Khan was found dumped in a field at Dabar village in the tribal zone of South Waziristan, a day after he was abducted by gunmen, senior police officer Mumtaz Zarin told AFP.

A note found near the body said he was involved in the killing of Islamist warlord Nek Mohammad in a suspected US missile strike in June 2004 in the region, Zarin said.

"He had admitted his role in providing intelligence to the authorities," the note said. "We have repeatedly said we will teach such people a lesson."

Khan had been working as a tribal policeman at the local administration office in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, which is inundated with Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants.
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Australian Commando Killed, 4 Wounded in Afghanistan (Update2)  
By Madelene Pearson and Michael Heath
Article Link

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- An Australian commando was killed and four others wounded when they were attacked by Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan. 

Afghanistan is ``moving into the fighting season'' as the snows melt, Angus Houston, Australia's defense force chief, said today in the capital, Canberra, as he announced the death of Lance Corporal Jason Marks. Fighting will probably intensify in coming weeks and months, he added. 

The four wounded soldiers were transported to the hospital after their patrol was hit by ``heavy arms fire'' in Uruzgan province, Houston said. Their injuries aren't life-threatening. 

Australia is a partner of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan that is battling supporters of the Taliban regime that was ousted by a U.S.-led military coalition in 2001. Australia has 1,000 personnel in Uruzgan province and around Kandahar Airport in the south. 

The death was Australia's fifth in combat operations in Afghanistan and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said today the country's forces face a tough period ahead as the offensive by the Taliban gets under way. 

This year ``will be difficult and dangerous and bloody and the Australian nation needs to prepare itself for further losses,'' he told reporters in Canberra. Rudd said the government has no plans to dispatch more troops to Afghanistan. 
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New ways to quell Al Qaeda?
Pakistan's new leaders go soft with jihadists. But that takes hard tactics to pull off.
from the April 28, 2008 edition
Article Link

Americans can hardly complain that Pakistan is on the verge of a deal with jihadists. The US has already done a similar deal with Iraqi Sunni terrorists. In both cases, a prime goal is simply to isolate Al Qaeda. 

In Iraq, the US military's payoffs of radical Sunni leaders since 2005 have largely achieved that aim. The former terrorists now openly oppose Al Qaeda, which appears to be on the run in Sunni areas. 

In Pakistan, the stakes are even higher, with a new government trying to strike a pact with the local Taliban. Osama bin Laden probably operates somewhere along the 350-mile border, working in cahoots with Taliban terrorists from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. If Al Qaeda is planning another 9/11-style attack, that area is the launching pad. 

Negotiating with one type of terrorist in order to isolate more-lethal terrorists has become a necessary but distasteful part of the post-Sept. 11 world. While President Bush has had to back into such a hold-your-nose tactic in Iraq, one issue in the Democratic primaries is whether the US should often negotiate with its enemies, such as Iran. Barack Obama says he would, and events unfolding in Pakistan serve as a current test case of that let's-talk approach. 
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U.S. troops join British forces fighting Taliban in Helmand
 TheStar.com April 27, 2008 
Article Link

HELMAND PROVINCE–U.S. Marines are crossing the sands of southern Afghanistan for the first time in years, providing a boost to a NATO coalition force that is growing but still short on manpower.

The troops are working alongside British forces in Helmand province – the world's largest opium-poppy region and site of some of the fiercest Taliban resistance over the last two years. 

The director of U.S. intelligence has said the Taliban controls 10 per cent of Afghanistan – much of that in Helmand.

"Our mission is to come here and essentially set the conditions, make Afghanistan a better place, provide some security, allow for the expansion of governance in those same areas," said Col. Peter Petronzio, the unit's commander.

Taliban fighters have largely shunned head-on battles since losing hundreds of fighters in the Panjwayi region of Kandahar province in fall 2006.

More than 8,000 people, mainly militants, were killed in insurgency-related violence last year, the United Nations says. The number of suicide attacks spiked last year at 140 bombings.
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Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan might soon have a free way to call home
Saturday, April 26 - 10:05:19 PM Reaon Ford VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) 
Article Link

They're laying their lives on the line for their country, they don't need to get hit with huge phone bills to boot. Now, a US charity's plan to set up a satellite link between Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and their families here at home. The Freedom Calls Foundation was originally created to give US troops in Iraq an alternative to costly communication services provided by military contractors. 

The group's Kathryn Hudacek says it's been so successful she now wants to help Canadian soldiers too, "Our foundation does have the authority to provide communications in Afghanistan as well. We just haven't been able to raise the money to get in there and that's my personal goal for 2008, is to build at least two centres in Afghanistan." Hudacek says she'll need about $200,000 in donations to set the centres. 

They use a combination of satellite and internet technology to provide soldiers with a free 24/7 link to their families.
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Soldiers sometimes walk a beat in Kandahar
Ryan Cormier ,  Canwest News Service Published: Saturday, April 26, 2008
Article Link

HAJJI MOHAMMAD, Afghanistan -- Walking through the green fields and crops of Panjwaii district in Kandahar province, Capt. John Weingardt tries to determine what social and security issues are concerning the locals.

A man stands by the side of the road, holding his bicycle and warily looking at the soldiers and armoured vehicles coming down the road. Weingardt flashes a smile as wide as he is tall, takes off his helmet and beckons the man over.

"We're walking through the area today seeing what people think of the current situation," he says through an interpreter. "What would you like to see from this government?"
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## MarkOttawa (28 Apr 2008)

'The Taliban Are Celebrating a Symbolic Victory'
_Spiegel Online_, April 28
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,550095,00.html



> The Taliban's assassination attempt on Afghanistan's president has sent shockwaves around the world. German media commentators say that the attack has once again exposed the government's vulnerabilty and could further damage the president's credibility.
> 
> Their targets might have escaped without injury but the Taliban's message rang out loud and clear: no one is safe in Afghanistan, not even the country's president.
> 
> ...



Afghanistan situation 'grim': Rudd
ABC News (Australia), April 28
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/28/2228850.htm



> [Labour] Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the security situation in Afghanistan is "grim" and Australians need to prepare themselves for more casualties in a "difficult, dangerous and bloody" year ahead.
> 
> Mr Rudd was speaking in Canberra after an Australian special forces commando was killed and four of his comrades were wounded in a firefight with Taliban militants near their base in the southern Uruzgan province.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## GAP (29 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 29, 2008*

Afghanistan: joined-up thinking
Britain needs to connect its military and reconstruction roles in Afghanistan
April 29, 2008
Article Link

The arrival of 3,500 US Marines in Helmand province of Afghanistan will be welcomed widely, not least by the 7,800 British troops stationed there, who, along with their Canadian allies, have borne the brunt of the fight against the Taleban. In military terms, that struggle has been a broadly encouraging one with UK Forces inflicting a far higher level of attrition on their foes than they have been forced to receive in return. The notion of an exclusively military solution to this conflict is, however, one that is at odds with Afghanistan's history. The best that arms can do is create the opportunity for reconstruction, which will allow this country to take its first steps towards modernity. Without some advance of this form, this mission will never end.

As we report today, the coming of the Americans offers Britain a chance to think again about its strategy in southern Afghanistan. Contrary to some of the stereotypes initially made in Iraq, it is the United States Army, radically reshaped by General David Petraeus and his associate, General Dan MacNeill, that has been notably successful at combining offensive operations on the ground with the building of roads, schools and hospitals that win the hearts and minds of the local population. In Helmand, by contrast, Britain has been impressive on the battlefield but the track record on the humanitarian front has been patchy. Although General MacNeill, the overall commander in Afghanistan, is too diplomatic to put it so bluntly, there are lessons that Britain should learn from the way in which the US military conducts business.

Much of this happened because Britain has sharply divided its efforts between the Ministry of Defence for warfare and the Department for International Development (DfID), which assumes charge of the humanitarian dimension. This is a division that works less well in practice than it might in theory. Culturally, DfID remains much happier at organising aid schemes in Africa than it is at dovetailing with the military in what is in essence a warzone. 

Outsourcing this operation can only work smoothly if DfID comes to regard itself as a direct arm of British foreign policy and not a semi-detached entity more content in the company of worthy NGOs than squaddies. As this deficiency will not be remedied overnight, the military itself, like the American Army, will have to become more forcefully involved in the reconstruction endeavour.
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Canadian Forces adapts command structure for Rangers
Bruce Valpy Northern News Services Published Monday, April 28, 2008 
Article Link

NUNAVUT - In any army, orders are issued by officers and carried out by soldiers without a lot of discussion. 

As with so many things, the Canadian Forces command structure works a little differently on a Ranger patrol

"It's more of a relaxed atmosphere," said Major Luc Chang. "There is a sharing of the plan with the Rangers, consulting them on the campsite, petrol supply, more of a traditional approach." 

Chang, who served in Croatia in 1995, Haiti in 1997, Bosnia in 2001 and Afghanistan in 2004, described Operation Nunalivut 08 as an excellent soldiering experience. "It was interesting watching Rangers from Yukon, NWT, Nunavut learning from each other. Dynamic!" 

The Rangers who go on such land and sea operations are chosen in a Northern fashion as well. Notice is sent to the Ranger units in 25 communities that a patrol opportunity is coming up. 

The units, which can have as many as 30 Rangers, decide who would best represent them. 
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Blast kills 15 Afghans, wounds 25
Reuters Tuesday, April 29, 2008; 4:19 AM 
Article Link

KABUL (Reuters) - At least 15 Afghans were killed and 25 wounded on Tuesday in an explosion in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan, a spokesman for NATO-led forces said. 

"Initial reports are that 15 local nationals were killed and another 25 were wounded in an explosion in Nangarhar province," the spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. 

Residents in the district, south of the city of Jalalabad, said Afghan forces and civilians were among the dead, which they said could total as many as 31. 

One resident, reached by phone from Kabul, said the dead included 11 members of the Afghan security forces and two children. 

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion but suicide bombers have carried out attacks in the area in the past. 
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US Marines move into Taliban-held area of Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO 
Article Link

OUTSIDE GARMSER, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. Marines exchanged gunfire with militants Tuesday after pouring into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan in the first major American operation in the region in years.

Several hundred Marines, many of them veterans of the conflict in Iraq, pushed into the town of Garmser in pre-dawn light in an operation to drive out the insurgents, stretching NATO's presence into an area littered with opium poppy fields and classified as Taliban territory.

U.S. commanders say Taliban fighters were expecting an assault and planted homemade bombs in response. The British have a small base on the town's edge but Garmser's main marketplace is closed because of the Taliban threat.

Marines moved into town by helicopter and Humvee for Tuesday's assault in the southern province of Helmand, the first major task undertaken by the 2,300 Marines in the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which arrived last month from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for a seven-month deployment. Another 1,200 Marines arrived to train Afghan police.

Maj. Tom Clinton, the American commander at Forward Operating Base Dwyer, a British outpost 10 miles west of Garmser, said militants and Marines exchanged fire in two parts of Garmser on Tuesday. There was no immediate word on casualties.
More on link

Italy to stay in Afghanistan’
Article Link

ROME: Italian troops will stay in Afghanistan despite the change of government in Rome, the incoming foreign minister said in an interview published Monday.

“It’s not time to pull out,” Franco Frattini told the Corriere della Sera. “The attack on Hamid Karzai shows once again that Italy and its partners not only cannot withdraw from Afghanistan but also that they should pursue the UN and NATO goals” of democratising the country and fighting the Taliban, he said. President Karzai escaped Sunday after militants attacked a military parade with rockets and gunfire, leaving three people dead including an MP and a 10-year-old boy who was killed apparently in return fire.

Italy has some 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, stationed in the relatively calm western province of Herat and the capital Kabul. Italian soldiers do not take part in military operations against the Taliban in the south of the country. Media magnate Silvio Berlusconi is to return to lead a centre-right government in Italy after his convincing win in Italy’s general elections two weeks ago. afp
More on link


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## MarkOttawa (29 Apr 2008)

U.S. brings Iraq-like surge to Afghan conflict
_Globe and Mail_, April 29
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080429.AFGHANISLAND29//TPStory/International



> LASH KARGAH, AFGHANISTAN -- A force of 3,500 U.S. Marines charged into southern Afghanistan this morning in an effort to reduce the heavy casualties suffered by Canadian and British soldiers in the region, bringing with them new pressures on Canada and its allies to adapt to U.S. tactics and methods.
> 
> The planned marine attack on Taliban positions on the southern border, described as an Iraq-like "mini-thrust" by some U.S. officers, is a welcome development to Canadian and British NATO commanders who have seen ground lost to the insurgents and increasing deaths and terrorist attacks during the past year.
> 
> ...



Nato's Afghan mission in trouble, says Brown
_Daily Telegraph_, April 29
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/29/wafghan129.xml



> The Nato mission in Afghanistan is "critically" short of key troops and equipment, Gordon Brown has told allies.
> 
> The Daily Telegraph has obtained a confidential Foreign and Commonwealth Office paper which admits to a catalogue of problems and weaknesses in Western attempts to stabilise the country.
> 
> ...



Afghanistan's insurgency spreading north
Militant attacks are increasing outside the Taliban's southern stronghold, such as Sunday's on President Hamid Karzai.
_CSM_, April 29
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0429/p07s02-wosc.htm



> The attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai Sunday came as the latest sign of a trend worrying Western officials: that the insurgency is spreading from the Taliban stronghold of the south to the central and northern regions of the country.
> 
> The militant attack, the biggest in Kabul since mid-March, came during a public ceremony. Despite a massive security presence, militants managed to fire bullets and rockets at the president, killing two nearby lawmakers and a boy.
> 
> ...



We're Not Losing Afghanistan
_WSJ_, April 29, by Bret Stephens
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120942878644051293.html?mod=todays_columnists



> Elaborate security preparations on the eve of Afghanistan's Independence Day nearly kept me from making my flight out of Kabul on Saturday. But they did little to stop insurgents from nearly assassinating President Hamid Karzai, Sadat-like, from his review stand on a military parade ground the very next day.
> 
> Are we "losing Afghanistan," as people like John Kerry seem to think? Sunday's attack illustrates a point, made to me by Brig. Gen. Mark Milley of the 101st Airborne Division, that "security is perception" – meaning that not only must the streets be safe, but people must believe them to be so. By that token, a spike in suicide bombings and kidnappings suggests Afghanistan is considerably less secure today than it was three or four years ago. It also suggests Afghanistan's ostensible weakening can be used as a political alibi to accelerate troop withdrawals from Iraq.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (29 Apr 2008)

Afghanistan: spring movements
Conference of Defence Associations media round-up, April 29
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1209495269/


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## GAP (29 Apr 2008)

Push for 1500 more troops in Afghanistan long haul  
Mark Dodd | April 30, 2008 
Article Link

THE Rudd Government would need to deploy an additional 1500 troops backed by tanks and military jets if Australia took over from the Dutch in Afghanistan's war-battered southern Oruzgan province.

On Monday Kevin Rudd committed to the "long haul" in the Afghanistan conflict, expressing support for a rejuvenated NATO-led combat mission in which Australia is part of a 57,000-strong international force. 

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Raspal Khosa said Canberra had some tough decisions ahead if the Dutch made good on their pledge to withdraw from Oruzgan by 2010. 

The Australian Defence Force has 700 Diggers, including a 300-strong special forces task group, serving in Oruzgan under a 1600-strong Dutch provincial reconstruction task group based at Tarin Kowt. 

Mr Khosa, a respected Afghan analyst, said southern Oruzgan was the birthplace of the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, and was among the most violent and unstable provinces in Afghanistan. 

Seven years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime, corruption is rife, government institutions remain weak and a booming opium economy is helping to fuel the re-energised insurgency against the NATO-led forces. 

The Dutch military will stay in the province until 2010, but are expected to draw down their forces after then to focus on civil reconstruction. 

If Canberra opts to provide the main overwatch role in Oruzgan, the ADF would need to deploy a brigade-strength force (2500 troops) backed by military jets, troop lift helicopters, tanks and heavy artillery, Mr Khosa said. 

"We've only got six Chinooks (twin-rotor medium-lift helicopters), and when two of them are deployed that is a significant capability that's gone," he said. "You would also need artillery. The Dutch have got self-propelled guns and they've got tanks there as well, Leopard 2s. So you would need all of that organic fire support if you were to deploy in that capacity and take possession of the province." 

A bigger provincial security role for the ADF would mean the risk of more combat deaths. The low number of Australian fatalities in Afghanistan - five so far, most recently Lance Corporal Jason Marks on Sunday - is due to the Government's emphasis on using special forces to carry the brunt of the combat missions rather than infantry battalions, military analysts told The Australian. 

It is understood some ADF commanders are increasingly uneasy about the continuing use of the special forces in this role, rather than the regular infantry. 

Along with the US, NATO members Canada, Britain, Denmark and The Netherlands have borne the brunt of fighting in the volatile south and east of the country. They have suffered more than 600 combat deaths since December 2001. 
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Afghanistan: Key Road Toward Pakistan To Improve Trade, Security  
By Ron Synovitz Tuesday, April 29, 2008
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The new road is seen as vital to improving security along Afghanistan's southeastern border 
(epa) 
A contract has been signed for a $100 million highway project in Afghanistan intended to dramatically reduce travel time from Kabul to border areas near Pakistan's volatile tribal region of North Waziristan.

The 100-kilometer stretch of road will link the provinces of Khost and Paktia to Afghanistan's "ring road," which will circle the country. The contract was signed on April 26 by the Afghan and U.S. governments. The project is being funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and is scheduled to be completed in 2009. 

The new asphalt road is seen by Kabul as one of the most important reconstruction projects in southeastern Afghanistan. One reason is its economic impact. The road is intended to reduce travel time between Kabul and the Khost by four hours, making it much easier for agricultural produce from the border areas to be transported elsewhere in the country. 

Loren Stoddard, the director of USAID's Agriculture and Alternative Development program in Afghanistan, explains that the primitive condition of roads on the Afghan side of the border has kept economic activity in Khost tied more to Pakistan's tribal regions than Kabul. 

"The Khost area has long been isolated from the rest of Afghanistan," Stoddard says. "Khost has a fairly vibrant economy because of its closeness and interaction with the Pakistan economy, but it has always been somewhat of a regional economy that has been tied more to Pakistan than to the rest of Afghanistan. What we expect with this road is that Khost's economy will then begin to be somewhat more oriented toward the rest of Afghanistan, which is new." 

Improving Security 

Kabul also considers the road development as vital to the goal of improving security along Afghanistan's southeastern border with Pakistan. Khost lies at a strategic position across from Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan, an area that serves as a base for Al-Qaeda-linked militants, as well as pro-Taliban fighters who signed a peace accord earlier this month with Pakistan's new government. Despite the accord, militants continue to use Pakistan's tribal regions as a staging area for crossborder attacks. 

Security officials say road improvements to Khost would make it easier for Afghan and international security forces to rapidly send ground troops and equipment into blocking positions along the border just a few kilometers from the Pakistani tribal town of Miram Shah. 

Indeed, U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have told RFE/RL that completion of Afghanistan's ring road -- as well as secondary roads to connect that main highway to Afghanistan's provincial administrative centers -- is central to their strategy of deploying "rapid-reaction forces" overland for counterinsurgency operations. 

That is why the regional and national highway system meant to link Afghanistan's major cities and economic centers has been a focus of the U.S. military and reconstruction aid groups since the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Work began in 2002 to rebuild and improve the ring road's southernmost section, much of which had been destroyed by the Taliban in late 2001 as the regime fled Kabul. 

Reconnecting Kabul with the western Afghan city of Herat required some 700 kilometers of USAID-funded construction work through the cities of Ghazni and Kandahar, and through volatile provinces like Helmand and Zabul where the Taliban remains active. 
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## GAP (30 Apr 2008)

*Articles found April 30, 2008*

Aust soldier stable after Afghanistan shooting
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An Australian soldier is being treated for a gunshot wound to the arm after a battle with insurgents in Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province.

The soldier's injuries are not life threatening and the Defence Department says he is in a stable condition in hospital.

The incident follows the death of another Australian soldier and injuries to four others in a battle earlier this week.
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Cost overruns endanger copter deal
Ottawa warns it could kill contract after U.S.-based Sikorsky requests up to $500-million more in its bid to replace aging Sea Kings 
DANIEL LEBLANC and STEVEN CHASE AND BRIAN LAGHI From Wednesday's Globe and Mail April 30, 2008 at 1:30 AM EDT
Article Link

OTTAWA — Federal officials are threatening to cancel a $5-billion contract with Sikorsky Inc. because the U.S.-based helicopter maker is asking for up to $500-million in extra funds to replace Canada's 40-year-old Sea Kings.

Senior sources said the relationship between Ottawa and Sikorsky took a turn for the worse after the firm acknowledged this year that it was running late in its plans to provide 28 high-tech Cyclone helicopters to the Canadian Forces.

The government's controversial efforts to replace the Sea Kings, which go back to the early 1990s, are now complicated by Sikorsky's request for more funds to deliver replacement helicopters.
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Is Afghanistan worth it? A brigadier general answers
DENNIS TABBERNOR  Special to Globe and Mail Update April 29, 2008 at 11:35 PM EDT
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I was recently asked if Afghanistan was worth the death of a Canadian soldier. It is a question that goes to the root of our nation's involvement in this vitally important region, a question made all the more poignant by the losses here that our nation has endured.

Let me answer.

The terror of 9/11 was born and bred in the lawless vacuum that was Afghanistan, a shattered land of shattered lives left desperate after 30 years of war and corruption. Around this vacuum swirled the regional turbulence afflicting Iran, Pakistan, China, India and Russia. An Afghanistan left unstable and vulnerable to the inrush of these forces would prove an immense incubator for terrors beyond the compass of imagination.

So, as part of a coalition, we went to Afghanistan. If we fail here, if we leave Afghanistan without security forces, without sound governance, without the rule of law, without an infrastructure and an alternative to narcotics, we will invite back the forces that spawned 9/11.
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Hunger on rise in Afghanistan despite aid
GRAEME SMITH From Wednesday's Globe and Mail April 30, 2008 at 5:12 AM EDT
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KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Afghanistan's food crisis may turn into a festering problem as prices remain stubbornly high, a United Nations official says, and local authorities are already complaining that emergency measures are not enough to handle the rising hunger.

The World Food Program has launched a $77-million program to provide extra food for Afghans who found themselves shut out of the market as prices climbed sharply in recent months.

But during a tour of food distribution points in Kandahar yesterday, the WFP's top official in the region said he's hearing complaints that the new help is not enough, and expressed concerns about what will happen if the crisis continues.

"What comes next after this program expires in June?" said Tony Banbury, WFP Asian director. The emergency program has eased prices, he said, but wheat remains two or three times as costly as it was in Afghanistan at the end of last year.
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Poppies and Russian guns keep Taliban in business       
Written by WL Mackenzie Redux Tuesday, 29 April 2008  
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I have long believed since the Canadian involvement in Afghanistan began We fight a war against a Narco-state....a sentiment echoed and validated by General Rick Hillier that Opium poppy trade fuels the Taliban terrorists and that destruction of the Afghan poppy production will do as much to win this conflict as strategic military engagement:

The heroin flooding Britain's streets is threatening the lives of UK troops in Afghanistan, an Independent investigation can reveal. 

Russian gangsters who smuggle drugs into Britain are buying cheap heroin from Afghanistan and paying for it with guns. (...)

Russian arms dealers meet Taliban drug lords at a bazaar near the old Afghan-Soviet border, deep in Tajikistan's desert. The bazaar exists solely to trade Afghan drugs for Russian guns.

The drugs are destined for Britain's streets. The guns go straight to the Taliban front line. The weapons on sale include machine guns, sniper rifles and anti-aircraft weapons (...)

 "We never sell the drugs for money," boasted one of the smugglers. "We exchange them for ammunition and Kalashnikovs."

Nato claims the Taliban get between 40 and 60 per cent of their income from drugs. The smugglers' claims suggest the real cost could be far higher. 

Many military sources have stated that the continuence of poppy production keeps this conflict going. One of the first suggestions Hillier made at a NATO command summit, was to destroy the poppy production and subsidize the farmers. This eradication policy was adopted by  US and UK diplomatic inputs... but to date little direct action has been done due to the lack of sanctions from the Karzai government. 
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Attack on anti-drug forces kills 19 in Afghanistan
The assault in the east is the latest by militants against government teams responsible for destroying the opium poppy crop. U.S. Marines encounter little resistance in their offensive in the south.
By M. Karim Faiez and Laura King, Special to The Times April 30, 2008 
Article Link

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- A suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a drug-eradication team in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 40 others, authorities said. 

Twelve police officers were among the dead in the assault, the latest in a string of attacks by militants against government teams responsible for destroying the lucrative opium poppy crop during the planting season. The insurgency is fueled with profits from the drug trade. 
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Toby Keith USO Performance in Afghanistan Halted by Mortar Fire
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Article Link

OKLAHOMA CITY —  Country music star Toby Keith had a performance in Afghanistan last week interrupted by mortar fire, according to his booking agent.

Curt Motley, the agent, told The Oklahoman in an e-mail that the 46-year-old Keith was playing his song "Weed With Willie" for troops during a USO Tour stop at a base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Thursday when mortar fire sent the singer and most of the about 2,500 soldiers in the crowd scrambling for shelter.

Motley is traveling with Keith, a native Oklahoman, on the tour. The agent said in his e-mail that they ran about 100 yards to a concrete bunker, where they stayed for about an hour. During the wait, Keith signed autographs and posed for pictures with troops, Motley said.

After the scare was over, Keith returned to the stage and finished his show.

"He went right to the verse he was in and finished his show," Motley said.

Motley said the mortar fire wasn't the only difficulty encountered by Keith while on the tour. The agent said a giant sandstorm stranded Keith's traveling party on Sunday morning during a stop at Camp Fallujah in Iraq.
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## MarkOttawa (30 Apr 2008)

An Afghan officer, NATO behind him, leads an assault
In Afghanistan's troubled south, one mission shows how far the Afghan Army has come –and what remains to be done.
_CSM_, April 30 (long story)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0430/p01s06-wosc.html



> ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan
> 
> It is just after dawn when the Afghan soldiers creep into lush fields splashed with morning light. Their job is to turn back an insurgency whose members lurk among the grapevines, almond trees, and red-flowered poppy fields that border their military compound. Today, that means stopping a stream of attacks that has disrupted supply routes here in Kandahar Province, in the troubled southern reaches of Afghanistan.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (30 Apr 2008)

Pakistan’s Planned Accord With Militants Alarms U.S.
_NY Times_, April 30
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/washington/30policy.html?ref=todayspaper



> Bush administration officials are expressing increasing alarm that a deal being negotiated between the new Pakistani government and militant tribes in the country’s unruly border area will lead to further unraveling of security in the region.
> 
> Cross-border attacks into Afghanistan by militants based in Pakistan doubled in March from the same period a year ago and have not diminished in April, a Western military official said, while Pakistani counterinsurgency operations in the tribal areas have dropped sharply during the talks.
> 
> ...



Pakistan's Moment
We Will Fight Terrorism -- Our Way
_Washington Post_, April 30, by Yousaf Raza Gillani



> It is important for Pakistan -- which has transited from an authoritarian regime to democratic governance -- that the message of this first critical post-election period be bold and clear. Like newly elected governments in other democratic societies, we intend to set the tone and agenda. We want to show the world that our nation is back in business, with an overwhelming mandate from our people.
> 
> This is not an easy transition. The scars of the past decade are deep. The problems facing our country are great. But the sacrifices of millions of Pakistanis -- including Pakistan's quintessential democratic leader, Benazir Bhutto -- were not made so that our new government could be timid. We know our people expect action and progress. Our boldness is a manifestation of our awareness of the stakes -- both of success and failure...
> 
> ...


  

Mark
Ottawa


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