Articles found January 21, 2009
Commander says choppers needed for Olympics will strain Afghan mission
THE CANADIAN PRESS
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The commander of Canada's air wing says Canadian Forces helicopters needed to secure the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver will put "pressure" on the military's chopper requirements in Afghanistan.
Col. Christopher Coates says the air force, like other branches of the military, will be forced to juggle its resources during the Olympics. Coates says he doesn't know if the diversion of helicopters to Vancouver will affect the military mission in Afghanistan.
The newly sworn-in commander of 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, Lt.-Col. Jeff Scott, also says the security requirements for the Vancouver Olympics will put a "big drain on helicopter resources."
Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie recently said up to 4,000 Canadian soldiers will be on the ground in Vancouver for the Games - stretching the military's resources as the war in Afghanistan continues.
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US commander briefs Karzai on US Afghanistan surge
1 day ago
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KABUL (AFP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the top US commander for southwest Asia discussed new strategies in the "war on terror" and an imminent surge of US forces to the country, Kabul said Wednesday.
Karzai received General David Petraeus at the presidential palace in the Afghan capital late on Tuesday ahead of the inauguration of Barack Obama in Washington, the president's office told AFP.
They discussed the deployment of extra US soldiers in Afghanistan this year, Karzai's spokesman Homayun Hamidzada said.
The reinforcements of up to 30,000 soldiers are seen as an Iraq-style "surge" -- in reference to the strategy masterminded by Petraeus and which turned around a Sunni Muslim insurgency -- and illustrate a new focus on Afghanistan by Obama's government.
The incoming US president has identified the battle against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan as one of his administration's priorities.
Karzai reissued a call for "reviewing the war in Afghanistan -- how we do it, where we do it, the issue of minimising civilian casualties, and empowering the Afghan forces with training and equipment," Hamidzada said.
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Report:
Al Qaeda Group Bungled Test of Unconventional Weapon
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 By Eli Lake, Washington Times
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An Al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday.
The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 Al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.
He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication between the leadership of Al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQIM) and Al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal region of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. The communication suggested that an area sealed to prevent leakage of a biological or chemical substance had been breached, according to the official.
"We don't know if this is biological or chemical," the official said.
The story was first reported by the British tabloid the Sun, which said the Al Qaeda operatives died after being infected with a strain of bubonic plague, the disease that killed a third of Europe's population in the 14th century. But the intelligence official dismissed that claim.
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New tools aid Afghan mission
Armoured helicopters will be operated by Edmonton-based troops
By ALYSSA NOEL, SUN MEDIA
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In 2006, during his first tour in Afghanistan, Master Cpl. Shawn Crowder witnessed suicide bombers blow up an armed military vehicle, killing two soldiers.
Although he's hopeful that the country is safer and more stable than it was three years ago, he says the new CH-146 Griffon helicopters that Canadian troops are currently being trained to operate will prevent deaths like the ones he has seen.
"I know what it's like to be (on the ground)," he told Sun Media from Kandahar yesterday. "I've had people killed behind and in front of me."
The first of eight armed helicopters arrived at Kandahar Airfield last month.
With extra sensors, Gatling guns on top of their existing side door machine-guns and armour plating, the helicopters will be used to escort larger Chinook transport helicopters as well as to spot roadside bombs, which have killed more than half of the Canadian soldiers who have died in Afghanistan.
"(We're doing) anything we can do to lessen the load of convoys," Crowder said.
Crews from the 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron based in Edmonton will operate the helicopters.
TROOP LIFE CHANGES
Crowder, who's based in Edmonton with his wife, Jacqueline, and two teenage sons, is in charge of transport, overseeing everything from water and fuel runs to repairs. "It's been busy," since he arrived for his second tour in November, he said.
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On run with Ignatieff
'I also believe passionately a country can't spend more than it earns, it's got to pay its way'
By CHRISTINA SPENCER, NATIONAL BUREAU 20th January 2009, 2:52am
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Canada shouldn't extend its military mission in Afghanistan past 2011 even if U.S. President Barack Obama asks us point-blank to do, says Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
In an interview with Sun Media yesterday, touching on everything from a possible Liberal-NDP coalition to elections to his own decades living outside this country, Ignatieff said Canada has "made a decade-long contribution (in Afghanistan) and we think it's time to come home."
But Canada should stay involved in other crucial ways, he added, including through humanitarian aid, development and diplomacy. "We know a great deal about Afghanistan."
In the interview in his Parliament Hill office a week before Parliament meets to consider a federal budget, Ignatieff also balked at the idea, floated by the Conservatives, of broad, middle-class tax cuts, saying these would drive the country into a permanent deficit.
"My vision of tax cuts we can afford are those targeted at the lowest end of income distribution, to boost their purchasing power," Ignatieff said. "If (Stephen Harper) is talking about much, much broader tax cuts with a much wider target, he's going to have to explain to Canadians how that doesn't pitch us into structural deficit,"
The following is an edited excerpt of the interview:
Question: I don't think there are more than about two people on the Hill who think you would go through with a coalition government with the NDP, so why do you keep this idea alive?
Answer: We have already discovered what the coalition has done to force Mr. Harper back from an attack on the right of public sector workers to strike, on the financing of political parties, on pay equity for women, on the timing of the budget itself.
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Czech government slashes 2009 troop numbers for Afghanistan
Europe News Jan 19, 2009, 13:07 GMT
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Prague - The Czech Republic government agreed Monday to reduce its planned troop numbers in Afghanistan for 2009 in a bid to cement parliamentary support for country's military deployments abroad, officials said.
The parliament's lower house spiked an earlier cabinet proposal on this year's military deployments on December 19. The rejection has threatened troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Kosovo by March.
Under the revamped proposal, the government asks lawmakers to approve up to 480 soldiers for NATO's International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan, down from cabinet's original request for up to 645 troops but a slight boost from the 2008 limit of 415 soldiers.
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