NATO assumes command in southern Afghanistan

[big bad john]

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/NatoAssumesCommandInSouthernAfghanistan.htm

NATO assumes command in southern Afghanistan
31 Jul 06
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) assumed command from Coalition forces in southern Afghanistan today, July 31 2006, continuing a process that began with ISAF's establishment at Kabul in August 2003.


Potent force: a British AH-64 Apache attack helicopter at Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan. British Apaches supporting the ISAF mission have performed in excess of expectations in the harsh conditions of southern Afghanistan since they deployed earlier this year.
[Picture: Cpl Rob Knight]
ISAF assists the government of Afghanistan and the international community in maintaining security in its area of operations.

Since its formation it has expanded into the 13 provinces of northern and western Afghanistan, regions in which it also commands the military components of nine provincial reconstruction teams.

The southern Afghanistan area of operations includes six provinces – Day Kundi, Helmand, Kandahar, Nimroz, Uruzgan and Zabul.

Since May, ISAF has been led by NATO's Allied Rapid Response Corps, commanded by British Army Lt. Gen. David Richards who said:

"NATO is here for the long-term, for as long as the government and people of Afghanistan require our assistance, we are committed to Afghanistan and its future."

ISAF will bring in more international military forces and will continue the efforts of the Coalition to provide security as well as reconstruction projects and humanitarian assistance.

Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, Commander of Coalition Forces, said:

"Today's transfer of authority demonstrates to the Afghan people that there is a strong commitment on the part of the international community to further extend security into the southern province. This is a seamless transfer of responsibility and authority from the Coalition's Operation Enduring Freedom to NATO/ISAF.

"Having NATO, an organisation consisting of 26 partners, including the United States, committed to Afghanistan's future is good for the Afghan people and the entire international community."

The Coalition maintains responsibility for Afghanistan's eastern region, also known as Regional Command East, comprised of the provinces of Paktika, Ghazni, Bamyan, Maydan Wardak, Logar, Khowst, Nangahar, Kabul, Parwan, Laghman, Kunar, Nuristan and Panjsher.

Afghan and Coalition forces conduct regular combat patrols in the eastern region, to deny insurgents freedom of movement and sanctuary, to defeat the Taliban and related movements and to prevent the re-emergence of terrorism in Afghanistan.

In addition, a significant Coalition effort is underway to expand governance, reconstruction and medical assistance to the eastern provinces.

 

[big bad john]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/07/21/pf-1695902.html

July 30, 2006

Cdn soldiers: NATO to go beyond peacekeeping

By TERRY PEDWELL

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - The way Canadian soldiers operate in southern Afghanistan under NATO won't differ from how they're working under Operation Enduring Freedom, Canadian military officials said.

NATO will take over command of security operations in areas surrounding Kandahar this week from the U.S.-led coalition.

In the past, Canadians operating under the NATO umbrella in Afghanistan, as part of the International Security Assistance Force - or ISAF - carried out missions that could best be described as peacekeeping.

Under Operation Enduring Freedom, however, they have been heavily involved in dangerous combat missions.

That role will continue, with troops engaging in combat and NATO commanders able to order pre-emptive strikes against suspected Taliban fighters, Lt.-Col. Brian Irwin said.

"I don't expect to see significant change under NATO," said Irwin, who is responsible for getting the next rotation of Canadians into Kandahar.

The rules of engagement for the Canadian and other international forces under NATO, which cannot be made public, won't change much from those used by the U.S.-led troops, he added.

Many of the roughly 2,000 soldiers who will move into Kandahar in the coming month - replacing an equal number of Edmonton-based troops who are heading home - have served under ISAF over the past few years in Kabul.

The majority will come from CFB Petawawa, Ont., comprised of troops from the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment.

It will take roughly 40 C-130 Hercules flights to carry out the Relief In Place handover operation, also known as a RIP.

The incoming soldiers have been trained mainly at CFB Wainright, in Alberta, since last September. They prepared for combat operations in temperatures ranging from having snow on the ground to highs of near 30 C.

Once in Kandahar, they are to be given four days to get used to the dust and heat, which on most days in August can reach 20 C above the highest typical Alberta summer temperatures.

After another period of time getting used to the local landscape and their equipment, the soldiers can expect a very different situation than ISAF forces faced in the Afghan capital, said Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, the Canadian commander of coalition forces in southern Afghanistan.

"We are seeing what we thought we were going to see this summer . . . an increase in insurgent activity," Fraser said.

Coalition troops led by the Americans - consisting mainly of Canadian, British and Dutch soldiers - have been pushing into parts of the south where no foreign or Afghan government troops have been.

That has stirred up a hornet's nest, forcing both Taliban supporters and local warlords to fight for control of territory where they have historically dominated.

NATO's move into southern Afghanistan was initially seen as a way to expand the relative security created in Kabul into other provinces.

Earlier this year, some NATO officials even spoke of ISAF troops as "peacekeepers." But that was before the escalation of violence by Taliban fighters and their supporters in southern Afghanistan to its worst level since 2001.

Since the Taliban don't appear to be letting up in their violent quest to regain control of Afghanistan, NATO forces cannot let up in their efforts to suppress the Taliban insurgency, said Fraser.

"The effects that we are delivering today for Afghans will be the same effects that we will deliver under NATO," the general said.

"The enemy that's out there today is the same enemy that's going to be out there under NATO," he said. "We're not going to change what we're doing here."

In fact, the rules of engagement for NATO troops in Afghanistan have been expanded dramatically beyond those of a peacekeeping mission.

"NATO forces - and that is in the south as well as everywhere else - will have a mission to extend the authority of the Afghan government (and) to provide security for the Provincial Reconstruction Teams," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

"But they will have the right and the responsibility to protect that mission, " he said. "And that means if they need to fight to protect themselves (and) if they need to fight to extend the authority of the Afghan government, they will do it."

 

[big bad john]

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1989616.php

NATO assumes command in southern Afghanistan

By Fisnik Abrashi
Associated Press


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — NATO took command of southern Afghanistan from the United States on Monday and the new commander of the push to pacify the insurgency-wracked region vowed that he would not fail millions of Afghans seeking peace and stability.

An American soldier holding the flag of the U.S.-led coalition walked out of a tent shading U.S., European and Afghan officials from the baking sun, and was replaced by a soldier with the banner of the new, NATO-led force.

 
U.S. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry transferred command to British Lt. Gen. David Richards, telling the audience at the dusty airfield outside the main southern city of Kandahar that, “The United States will not leave Afghanistan until the Afghan people tell us the job is done.”

The NATO alliance’s southern deployment includes some U.S. troops, effectively making Lt. Gen. Richards the first non-U.S. general to command American forces in combat operations, officials said.

“I hope and believe the huge significance of this renewed international commitment will not be lost on the majority who yearn for peace, stability and increased prosperity we came here to deliver,” Richards said. “These millions of people should be reassured that they will not be let down.”

The ceremony took place against a backdrop of continued violence. A bomb blast intended for a provincial governor killed eight people at a mosque service. And officials said that more than 30 Taliban had been killed in clashes Sunday, most in southern provinces where NATO has taken command

About 8,000 mostly British, Canadian and Dutch troops have deployed in southern Afghanistan as NATO’s International Security Assistance Force expands its presence from the more stable north and west of the country.

The mission is considered the most dangerous and challenging in the Western alliance’s 57-year history. It coincides with the deadliest upsurge in fighting in Afghanistan since late 2001 that has killed hundreds of people — mostly militants — since May.

“Those few thousand who oppose the vast majority of Afghan people and their democratically elected government should note this historic day and should understand they will not be allowed to succeed,” Richards said.

Taliban-led rebels have stepped up attacks this year, sparking the bloodiest fighting in over four years and threatening Afghanistan’s slow reconstruction and democratic reform after a quarter-century of war.

The insurgents have escalated roadside bombings and suicide attacks, mounting brazen attacks on several small towns and district police stations — a tactic rarely seen in the previous four years.

NATO hopes to bring a new strategy to dealing with the Taliban rebellion: establishing bases rather than chasing militants. It is also wants to win the support of locals by creating secure zones where development can take place.

But questions remain whether it can quell the violence enough to let aid workers get to work in a lawless and impoverished region, where about a quarter of Afghanistan’s huge opium crop is grown.

Another challenge for NATO will be to stem what Afghan and some Western officials say is cross-border infiltration of militants from neighboring Pakistan.

Eikenberry said the United States remained committed to Afghanistan.

“The war on terrorism began here in Afghanistan and it continues today. We must never forget that,” he said.

He told the ceremony, attended by Afghan officials, and officers and diplomats of nations who have contributed to the NATO force, that the international community, too, must remain “fully committed.”

“The war on terrorism began here in Afghanistan and it continues today. We must never forget that,” the American general said. “The United States will not leave Afghanistan until the Afghan people tell us the job is done.”

The U.S.-led coalition now is focusing its attention on eastern Afghanistan, where al-Qaida and Taliban also are active.

The U.S.-led coalition first deployed in Afghanistan nearly five years ago to unseat the hard-line Taliban regime for harboring Osama bin Laden.

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said the increase in NATO forces would not mean a cut in the support from the United States, which he thanked for its contribution in bringing “peace and security to a war-torn nation.”

NATO conducted aerial combat operations during the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, but has yet to conduct major ground combat operations since being founded in 1949 as a deterrent against the Soviet bloc.

The takeover in the south follows three days of intense fighting that left more than 50 Taliban and eight others dead.

A bomb planted in a car exploded near a mosque Monday in Farmay Adha, an area 12 miles south of the Nangarhar provincial capital of Jalalabad, killing eight, including five police and three children, officials said. Sixteen others were wounded.

Thousands of mourners had gathered in and around the mosque to mark the death of Younis Khalis, a former mujahedeen commander and Islamic hard-liner, who died July 19.

The provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Basir Solangi, blamed the Taliban for the bombing, which he believed was aimed at Nangarhar provincial Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai, who drove away from the mosque minutes before the explosion.

Sherzai escaped a May 3 assassination attempt when a bomb planted in a jeep exploded outside his office.

Some 200 Afghan forces killed 23 Taliban insurgents Sunday in raids on two hide-outs near the Helmand provincial town of Garmser, which Taliban forces overran and briefly took control of earlier this month, police said.

Another 10 insurgents were killed Sunday while fighting Afghan troops in clashes in southeastern Paktika province, and four were detained. Four militants died in separate explosions while planting bombs in southern Kandahar province.

Coalition and Afghan troops killed 20 militants on Saturday in southern Uruzgan province, where some 1,500 Dutch troops have deployed.

On a visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said many Taliban fighters were crossing from Pakistan to stage attacks, and urged Pakistan to step up efforts to stop them.

Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in its war on terrorism, says it does all it can to patrol the porous Afghan border.

 

[Good2Golf]

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1989616.php

NATO assumes command in southern Afghanistan

By Fisnik Abrashi
Associated Press


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — NATO took command of southern Afghanistan from the United States on Monday and the new commander of the push to pacify the insurgency-wracked region vowed that he would not fail millions of Afghans seeking peace and stability..........

.....Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in its war on terrorism, says it does all it can to patrol the porous Afghan border.   

:boring:  whatever

 

[big bad john]

Hey, I just post the news, I don't necessarily believe all of it.  But it is worth a chuckle.

 

[Good2Golf]

yup, BBJ. 

Pakistani soldier patrolling the border: "OK, I am now bending down to tie my boot lace.  While I do so, there had best not be any Taleban running across the border behind me.  I most surely mean it...................OK, I am getting ready to stand up again.  1....2....3....ah, there I go; standing up again with no Taleban who have crossed the border behind me while my attention was most dutifully being paid to the boot lace for which I was applying a re-tying."  ;D