The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread October 2010

[GAP]

The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread October 2010              

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

 

[The Bread Guy]

Canada gaining momentum in Kandahar: general
Canadian Press, 1 Oct 10

SPERWAN GHAR, Afghanistan - Canada's senior commander in Afghanistan says a recent series of operations in the Panjwaii district of Kandahar has given troops momentum in their fight against the Taliban.

The Canadian manoeuvres were timed to coincide with the U.S.-led Operation Dragon Strike, which got underway in the Arghandab and Zhari districts of Kandahar last week.

Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner says the operations have given a new sense of security to villagers in Panjwaii.

He made the comments during a recent two-day tour of Canada's frontline positions ....

Canadian fatality rate drops in Afghanistan
Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News October 1, 2010

KANDAHAR -- While NATO has already suffered its worst year for deaths in Afghanistan, Canada's fatality rate has dropped more than 40%, according to calculations by Postmedia News.

An analysis derived from statistics kept by iCasualties.org and other sources shows 14 Canadians have died so far this year, compared to 25 during the first nine months of last year, with the rate of decline accelerating throughout the so-called summer fighting season.

Over the past four months, for example, six Canadians have died. There were 13 Canadian deaths during the same four months in 2009, when fighting usually peaks.

"We've been very aggressive with some specific operations during the summer," said Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner in explaining the dramatic drop in Canadian deaths. "There has been a huge increase in Afghan troops and police, and that has kept insurgents off balance.

"For example, there have been operations to interdict the freedom of movement of IEDs." ....

Canadian Helicopters Income Fund Awarded Additional Work in Afghanistan by the United States Transportation Command

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - Oct. 1, 2010) - Canadian Helicopters Income Fund (TSX:CHL.UN) (the "Fund"), the largest helicopter transportation services company operating in Canada, is pleased to announce that it has been advised it has been awarded additional work in Afghanistan by the United States Transportation Command ("USTRANSCOM"). This new contract, similar to previous awards, entails the movement of supplies and passengers to military forward operating locations, and involves the provision of two crewed and supported Sikorsky S61 heavy category and four Bell 212 medium category helicopters. One of the aircraft will be provided from the existing fleet of Canadian Helicopters,  and five will be acquired ....

NATO trucks set on fire in Pakistan
Faisal Aziz, Reuters October 1, 2010 7:55 AM

Suspected militants in Pakistan set fire to more than two dozen tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Friday, officials said, a day after three soldiers were killed in a cross-border NATO air strike.

Angered by repeated incursions by NATO helicopters over the past week, Pakistan has blocked a supply route for coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is a crucial ally for the United States in its efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, but analysts say border incursions and disruptions in NATO supplies underline growing tensions in the relationship.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official said the border incursions could lead to a "total snapping of relations".

Senior local officials blamed "extremists" for the attack on the tankers in the southern town of Shikarpur. About 12 people, their faces covered, opened fire with small arms into the air to scare away the drivers and then set fire to 27 tankers.

"Some of them have been completely destroyed and others partially. But there is no loss of human life," Shikarpur police chief Abdul Hameed Khoso told Reuters.

Police arrested 10 people after the attack, including five netted from a raid on an Islamic seminary, or madrassa ....

More on links

 

[Dog Walker]

Turnout of Afghan elders at Canadian meeting spurs hope
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News October 1, 2010 3:20 PM
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/Turnout+Afghan+elders+Canadian+meeting+spurs+hope/3610754/story.html

SPERWAN GHAR, Afghanistan — Canadian and Afghan officials say that an unusually well-attended gathering with tribal elders this week is an indication that a crucial turning point in the long, bloody war for Panjwaii may be at hand.
About 100 elders from the district packed several tents on a very hot day Thursday to hear half a dozen senior Canadian and Afghan officials discuss an upcoming offensive against one of last major Taliban redoubts and voice their concerns about the war and economic development. Four previous attempts by Canada to hold shuras this year produced three total no-shows and one event at which four locals appeared.
"The issue is that they were scared before the NATO surge, and they are no longer scared," said Haji Baran, the Panjwaii district leader, citing greatly improved security in the area, which has long been a Taliban hot spot.
The Canadian reaction was slightly more guarded, but upbeat.
"It is almost a turning tide," Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, the task force commander, said when the meeting ended. "They are sensing it is time to support their government."
It was a rare chance for Milner and Afghan officials to talk with a group of men whose numbers undoubtedly included many who were at least somewhat sympathetic to the Taliban cause. What motivated the turbaned elders, with their craggy, inscrutable faces, to turn out in force for this shura and not for others was hard to divine. Except when the route of a new road was mentioned, the men never betrayed any emotion throughout the proceedings, although they appeared to pay close attention.
"We were scared of the insurgents," one man said later in explaining why he had stayed home before, then matter-of-factly added: "We are still scared of them today, but we came."
Some of his kinsmen said that what they most of all wanted from the shura was to make sure that the new road did not cut across their farmland but was built "to curve at the right place."
Other concerns included that tribal leaders were not asked to investigate who shot at Afghan or NATO forces before there were counter-attacks that sometimes destroyed the homes of bystanders in the process, and frustration with the Afghan army because it did not hold and interrogate detainees but handed them over to the National Security Directorate, which many Afghans regard as a law on to itself.
Before voicing their concerns, the elders listened to often emotional speeches from several Afghan officials. Each in turn let them know, as Milner did, of an imminent offensive that is designed to try to finally rout the Taliban from its spiritual homeland in Panjwaii.
"You can't sit on the fence. The government needs your support," implored Col. Habibula, chief of operations for the Afghan army brigade in Kandahar.
"The army needs civilians to stand beside them. Even just praying for us would be a plus."
Comparing Panjwaii, where only one school is open, with other parts of the country that are at peace and where schools operate freely, the colonel asked the audience: "Why do you have to take your women to Quetta to be seen by female doctors but you won't let them be seen by doctors here because you don't let your females study to be doctors?"
The officer told the elders that: "the Canadians have come here to help. They don't need to be here. They would be much more comfortable at home."
Habibula, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, added: "If there is peace here, do you think NATO will stay? No. It will be just our people.
"Anyone in our country who respects the government will have no problem. They will live freely. I know that there are a lot of difficulties, but we should put the effort. God has given us a chance. Let's not miss it."
The sounds of war were never far away during the two-hour shura. The thwack of artillery and bombs in the distance competed with the clatter of helicopters, whine of Predator and Reaper armed drones and roar of fighter jets.
"Those bombs you hear in the background are dropping on the heads of the Taliban," Milner told the gathering.
After warning them to expect "operations in the Horn of Panjwaii and central Panjwaii in the coming weeks," he said: "It is an excellent time to rise up and help us."
If the Taliban were driven from the area, Milner promised, "the international community and Canadians are poised with lots of money to build schools because your children need to be in school."
Again, it was difficult to know what the elders thought of Milner's messages.
"Who is winning?" one elder asked before tucking into a feast of rice and lamb prepared by the Afghan army.
"We will know when the operation is over. The insurgents attack and then they are gone. They are mobile."
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 3

Embedded In Afghanistan: Day Two
Unambiguously Ambidextrous, Oct. 2, by Adrian MacNair
http://unambig.com/embedded-in-afghanistan-day-two/

I actually filed the bottom story to the National Post, but I don’t think they had room or time to run it. It’s written news style for publishing, but I didn’t bother modifying it for the blog.

I also rode in a Cougar to forward operating base Camp Nathan Smith today to see Canadian police mentor Afghans, as well as Sarposa prison in Kandahar City. Scroll to the bottom for those pictures...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found October 4, 2010

Afghanistan Wartime Women April 2010
Article Link

Picture tribute....

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Chopper shootdown still puzzles military
  Article Link
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News October 4, 2010

Canadian investigators continue to be mystified about how the Taliban brought down a CH-47D Chinook transport helicopter this summer, causing it to burn up after making a hard landing.

"What we can't find out is exactly what happened," Col. Paul Prevost, the Canadian wing commander, said Saturday, adding the accident report had been endorsed by those in the field and sent to Ottawa.

The bus-like, khaki green aircraft "got hit by enemy action and the pilots did an emergency landing," the wing commander said. But he acknowledged that much had been known the day the helicopter was hit.

"The facts are the same," the F-18 pilot said. "We knew from the get-go that it was brought down by enemy action. . . . There was a bang. Every testimony was the same."

Eight of the 21 crew and passengers aboard the aircraft sustained minor injuries in the hard landing, according to reports at the time.
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Afghanistan begins disbanding private security firms
Article Link
Sun Oct 3, 5:34 PM

By Sayed Salahuddin
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KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has begun disbanding private security companies operating in the country, shutting down eight firms and seizing over 400 weapons, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

The move is part of President Hamid Karzai's ambitious plan to take over all Afghan security responsibilities from foreign troops by 2014.

Since Karzai's decree in August, a plan has been drawn up for the process which is expected to be complete by the end of the year, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. The United Nations and NATO-led International Security Assistance force had given it their support, he added.

"The interior ministry is implementing this plan with seriousness and decisiveness," he told a regular briefing.
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The cost of ignoring the ongoing war and alleged wrongdoing in Afghanistan
By Robert Weller  l Published: Sunday, October 03 2010 18:41
Article Link

admmikemullen1Before examining the U.S. predicament in Afghanistan, a review of history is essential, but not just Vietnam. Go all the way back to Rome.

If the Roman army had a problem with a group of soldiers, such as those who now stand accused of disobeying the rules of engagement and killing Afghans for sport, their "generals" or consuls employed unit decimation. The soldiers involved would draw lots and the loser would be stoned to death, as would the commander.
An indecisive chain of command, coupled with a mission of dubious merit, has the U.S. Army virtually decimating itself. What is a soldier to think when the secretary of defense admits the public doesn't accept the casus belli for war in Iraq.

Retired Canadian Army Maj. Karl Gotthardt, who served in the bloody Balkans, was the Officer Commanding the Canadian Airborne School, and trained with Americans and Germans, said a clear chain of command and mission are missing in Afganistan.

Objectives should be:

"1. Secure all of Aghanistan.
2: Train a specified number of Afghan troops by a certain date.
3. Train a specified number of Afghan police by a certain date.
4. Provide security for both the UN and NGO entities to improve the life of Afghans.
5. Provide security for diplomats and assist in governance.
The latter is a must if NGOs and the diplomatic corps want to do their work throughout the country. It also behooves the other NATO countries to take over certain sectors in the country all pulling on the same rope."

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the media and the public have given the military the kind of slack commanders would have loved to have had in Vietnam. But a rising number of suicides, murders at home by solders, and alleged war crimes, is a warning sign that is ignored at one's peril. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has warned the number of suicides will rise.

Speaking to reporters last week, he noted there had been five suicides during the previous weekend. "I think we're going to see a significant increase in the challenges that we have in terms of troops and our families. Things that have been pent up, or packed in, or basically suppressed or sucked up -- whatever term you want to use -- we're going to start to see that as well."
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[MarkOttawa]

Embedded in Afghanistan: Day Five
Unambiguously Ambidextrous, Oct. 4, by Adrian MacNair
http://unambig.com/embedded-in-afghanistan-day-five/

An Afghan mentor teaches ANA soldiers from all over the country in a classroom about topography. Oct 4, 2010. Photo: Adrian MacNair.

KABUL – Under the guidance and assistance of Canadian military mentors, the Junior Officer Command and Staff training program in Kabul [JOCSC] is expected to be able to produce over 200 senior officers per year by 2011.

Although the mentoring is done by Canadian, German and Turkish officers, JOCSC is managed by Major General Kaz Mohammad and Colonel Abdul Aziz in keeping with the “Afghan-led” mandate of development and governance.

The Junior Officer college program was established a year ago by Canada using mentoring and training techniques that can be used to train highly skilled military leaders for the Afghan National Army [ANA]. The program uses the most modern counter-insurgency training in a two-part course that spans a total of 20 weeks.

The first part of the course, at six weeks, is composed of 50 students at present and will train ANA soldiers to become company commanders. The second part of the course, 14 weeks, consists of 188 students who can go on to be operations officers at a Kandak [battalion] level.

JOCSC initially had much difficulty in producing quality officers to be redeployed in combat against the insurgents, but expansion and construction has allowed exponential growth in the college. Derek Fraser, head of the construction team at the college, said that the Canadian government has invested $6.1 million in the expansion facility, slated for completion June 7, 2011 [emphasis added]...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 5

Afghan offensive fails to reassure residents
As NATO steps up its operation around Kandahar city, vowing that the Taliban will have nowhere to hide, residents remain fearful, saying militants simply bide their time and return.
LA Times, Oct. 5
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-kandahar-20101005,0,3453950.story

Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan
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On a recent bell-clear autumn afternoon a few miles outside Afghanistan's second-largest city, villagers listened courteously as a U.S. military officer, speaking through an interpreter whose grasp of the local language seemed shaky, exhorted them to let Afghan police or American soldiers know if the Taliban came to town.

Nodding in agreement amid the group were three men in beards, turbans and sandals who looked, dressed and talked like the other villagers. They were Taliban.

"They were standing right there with us, and everyone was too scared to say anything," a farmer named Farid, who grows pomegranates in the Arghandab district, northwest of Kandahar, said as he described the encounter last month. Soon afterward, fearing both insurgents and the presence of foreign troops, he and his family fled.

Together with its outlying districts, Kandahar — a cacophonous, chaotic metropolis of more than 1 million people — is the focal point of NATO's most ambitious military offensive of the 9-year-old war. Long delayed but now gathering in intensity, the campaign's outcome is described as pivotal to the Western war effort.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials characterize the ongoing confrontation as the inexorable tightening of a noose around the Taliban, an enemy depicted as increasingly beleaguered and on the run. In interviews and daily news releases, the coalition tells of firefights in which insurgents are wiped out by airstrikes, carefully plotted night raids by elite Afghan and U.S. troops that pick off Taliban ringleaders one by one, and enhanced security for villagers and townspeople.

But for Kandaharis, both urban dwellers and villagers from the surrounding farmlands, the narrative is somewhat different. They speak of lingering fear and deep skepticism about the NATO operation, despite what they acknowledge to be a decline in overt violence such as suicide bombings and assassinations in the city itself.

Taliban militants, they say, retain near-total freedom of movement inside and outside Kandahar, as long as they stash weapons in a widely scattered network of caches rather than carrying them around. "Night letters," the insurgents' dreaded warning missives often aimed at civil servants and prominent tribal elders, still arrive with clocklike regularity. Most disappointingly, local people say, the improved government services touted as equal in importance to the military drive have largely failed to materialize...

In conversations with Kandaharis, the perceived impermanence of the Western presence is a constant theme — coupled with the Taliban's ability to fade away and then reappear [emphasis added]. Even in areas declared secured by the foreign forces, the insurgents simply bide their time, and then filter back — much as they did in Marja in neighboring Helmand province, which remains a dangerous place more than seven months after a U.S. Marine-led offensive...

Afghan, U.S. forces face growing insecurity in key province
McClatchy Newspapers, Oct. 4
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/10/04/101581/afghan-us-forces-face-growing.html

PUL-I-KHUMRI, Afghanistan — Abdul Rehman Rahimi, the police chief of Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan, was just saying that the Taliban threat was under control when his counter-terrorism chief walked in, smirking with self-satisfaction and holding up a homemade detonator and a tangle of charred electrical wire tipped by a blasting cap.

"They tried to set this off as I was digging it up," Col. Ahmad Jan said. "The wire began burning — see, it still smells — but I cut it in time."

In the past year, Jan has defused about 650 such bombs. Many of them were planted along the two key supply routes of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force.

While the U.S. military has focused on the Taliban's southern strongholds, the militants and allied groups have been gaining ground in the north. The difficulties in Baghlan are emblematic of the uphill battle the United States and its allies face in trying to stabilize Afghanistan enough to begin drawing down troops next year.

The smaller NATO units that operate in the north are under restrictions driven by opposition to the war at home [emphasis added]...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found October 5, 2010

No pattern of abuse in Afghan prisons: General
By Laura Payton, Parliamentary Bureau Last Updated: October 4, 2010
Article Link

The man who stopped and then restarted detainee transfers in Afghanistan says there was no pattern of abuse in the country's prison system.

Maj. Gen. Guy Laroche, who commanded the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan from Aug. 2007 to May 2008, called off the transfers after a Canadian observer reported a case of torture to a Canadian-transferred detainee. That report stopped transfers for about four months, starting in Nov. 2007, when Laroche let them resume.

But he told the Military Police Complaints Commission Monday there was no evidence of systemic abuse in Afghan prisons.

“There was no reason then to think someone would be abused,” Laroche said, arguing it wasn't possible to see a systemic pattern of abuse, and that it was up to foreign affairs officials to investigate allegations.

Laroche says there were several changes that satisfied him the risk of abuse had gone down before he restarted the transfers, including one of the abusers moving from the National Directorate of Security prison in Kandahar to a facility in Kabul, the promise of more regular visits by foreign affairs officials, video cameras in the prison and training for NDS officials.

Amnesty International lawyer Paul Champ said of the interviews conducted by Canadian officials, about one in five yielded allegations of torture. But Laroche said it's easier in hindsight to see the risk.

“The fact there were allegations doesn't mean they were confirmed,” he said. “With all the information you have now, three years later, with everything that's happened, it's easy to come to a conclusion ... In that moment in the field, we didn't have that luxury. We couldn't look at all the minute details then, sitting in our office.”
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Supply route may decide outcome of Afghan war
Article Link
Olivia Ward  Foreign Affairs Reporter

If countries were rated on how tough it is to fight wars on their soil, Afghanistan would come close to the top of the list.

Landlocked, with an extreme climate and paralyzing dust storms, it’s also bordered by dizzying mountains and safe highways are sparse.

That’s why escalating militant attacks on NATO fuel trucks heading from Pakistan to Afghanistan — the most recent on Monday — are a sign that the war against the Taliban is limping badly, if not hobbled. And they show the scarcity of supply line options may be a decisive factor in how and when the conflict concludes.

“The U.S. has tried to develop the northern distribution system, but the heavy duty supplies still have to go through Pakistan,” says Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center in Washington. “Given the short timetable the coalition is operating on, the chances of finding an alternative are dim.”

Between 75 and 80 per cent of NATO supplies are trucked from the Pakistani port of Karachi through the forbidding Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan. The most crucial is fuel. But they include vital items from water to weapons.

The pass has been shut down several times, and after a helicopter fired on and killed three Pakistani frontier troops last week Pakistan blocked the supply lines. It had complained earlier of similar cross-border attacks.

For NATO, the route has been dogged by years of mayhem and uncertainty.
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[MarkOttawa]

AfPak complications
Unambiguously Ambidextrous, Oct. 6
http://unambig.com/afpak-complications/

The US and how it gets along–or rather does not–with the Paks...[plus Kabul negotiating at high level with the Taliban]

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found October 6, 2010

Taliban, Afghan government in talks to end war: report
Washington The Associated Press Published Wednesday, Oct. 06, 2010
Article Link

Secret talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan have begun between representatives of the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Washington Post reported on its website Tuesday night.

Afghan and Arab sources cited by the Post said they believe for the first time that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mohammad Omar, according to the newspaper. The sources requested anonymity to discuss the development.
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Afghans getting an eyeful of election fraud
CAMBPELL CLARK KABUL— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Tuesday, Oct. 05,
Article Link

Afghanistan’s fast-paced Tolo TV has a scoop handed to it almost daily, receiving frequent new mobile-phone videos of election fraud in last month’s parliamentary elections.

Though the Sept. 18 parliamentary election has attracted little attention in the West, it has been Tolo TV’s hottest running news story for a month.

The final results are still not in, and Afghanistan’s Independent Elections Commission pushed back its own Oct. 9 deadline for announcing preliminary results from across the country to Oct. 17, a month after the vote. Many expect it to delay the final results, due Oct. 30.

In the meantime, Afghans are getting a televised eyeful of fraud perpetrators seemingly caught red-handed on mobile-phone videos: 10- and 11-year-old boys displaying their voting cards and inked fingers to show they voted; ballot-box stuffing; people ticking off stacks of ballots; and elections officials sitting on a carpet laughing with other people as they prepare tally sheets and put them into the blue boxes that will be shipped to vote counters in Kabul.
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Logistics Facility turned over to the Afghan Police
Article Link

he Afghan National Police took full ownership of a key supply center during a ceremony Oct. 2 in Kabul.

With the transfer of all ownership at the Interim Logistics Facility, the ANP is now in charge of managing more than $100 million worth of equipment, 800 conexes and four warehouses.

“It is very important because the turnover is over $100 million for the materials and we will take very good care of it,” said Afghan Col. Mohammed Karim, Chief of Logistics at ILF.

The ILF is the ANP national supply depot for all equipment other than weapons, ammo and vehicles. Previously, the ANP owned one-third of the facility, with the U.S. in control of the other two-thirds. The U.S. section supplied all Regional Logistic Centers and more than 97,000 ANP and Afghan National Civil Order Police throughout Afghanistan. The Afghan section filled all other ANP requests.

In preparation of the transfer of ownership, the U.S. and ANP personnel at the facility conducted a joint inventory of all equipment. After the inventory was complete, the equipment was signed over to the ANP. The ANP now runs all sections of the ILF as a single body. Rather than the U.S. pushing out a majority of the supply orders, a self-reliant ANP pushes the orders, with U.S. personnel taking a back seat to monitor and observe the process.
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[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 7

Despite rising doubts at home, troops in one corner of Afghanistan see signs of progress
Washington Post, Oct. 7
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100607331.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead

SARKARI BAGH, AFGHANISTAN - One recent night, a buried bomb sliced through a hulking military vehicle near here, killing two U.S. soldiers. Last month, the Taliban murdered an Afghan man, stuffed his nose with cash, placed a Koran in his hands and hung his body from a tree. Almost every day, insurgents fire on American troops stationed in this rural village.

Even so, their company commander, Capt. Mikel Resnick, says: "We're winning the war up here."

As a major new offensive gets underway here in the Arghandab River valley and elsewhere in Kandahar province, criticism is rising in Washington about the coherence of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. President Obama is said to be troubled by mounting casualties, many in this southern Taliban stronghold. Skeptics in Congress and the White House are demanding more data on the progress of the war.

But the Delta Company soldiers in this one corner of one district have a different view. They arrived two months ago in what was clearly Taliban land. Today it is contested land. To them, violence is a sign of progress: Now the Taliban has someone to fight.

Theirs is, by necessity, a narrow perspective. Mere miles away, the battle is more pitched and the ground more treacherous. Yet, although he does not have charts or graphs to prove it, Resnick, 27, insists that he also sees what the military calls changed "atmospherics": busy stores and streets, tea served to U.S. soldiers. These are glimmers of what commanders say could amount to longer-term success.

"They don't want the Taliban," the battalion commander of troops in the region, Lt. Col. Rodger Lemons, said of Afghans in the valley. "But I think they're still waiting to see what happens."

That assessment highlights the awkward arithmetic behind the influx of U.S. forces into southern Afghanistan, where troops carry the hefty assignment of ejecting the Taliban and linking isolated villagers to local governments. The clock is ticking in Washington midway between Obama's December 2009 troop surge announcement and his July 2011 troop drawdown pledge. But many soldiers have only recently carved bases into remote mountainsides and begun chipping away at a mission they say is difficult but doable...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found October 8, 2010

Target Pakistan
Article Link
Posted by Matt Gurney on Oct 8th, 2010

In diplomacy, it is important to be armed with carrots as well as sticks. In recent days, the United States has been using both in its attempts to get its relationship with Pakistan back on track. The uneasy but vital alliance was rocked by the recent deaths of three Pakistani soldiers, killed by friendly fire from American helicopters that had invaded Pakistan’s territory to engage Taliban forces operating there. The Pakistani troops, stationed at a border monitoring  station, witnessed the battle between the American Apache helicopters and the militants (who were wiped out) and when the helicopters approached their position, the Pakistani soldiers unwisely fired warning shots. The American gunships, mistaking the warning shots for hostile fire, engaged with missiles. The resulting deaths have placed a serious strain on an already frightfully complex relationship.

~~~~

The friendly fire incident that set off this latest crisis, while an unusually serious event, did not happen in isolation. President Obama, who has gone far out on a political limb by taking ownership of the war in Afghanistan, has ramped up the pressure on enemy forces seeking refuge in the largely lawless northern PakistanI tribal areas, including an ever-growing number of missile attacks by unmanned Predator drones on terrorists inside Pakistan. These attacks were deeply troubling to Pakistan, and embarrassing to its military. An actual invasion by manned aircraft, resulting in the deaths of Pakistani soldiers, was too much for it to take, and last week, Pakistan shut down a vital overland crossing from its territory into Afghanistan. This route is key for NATO’s efforts to resupply its combat forces currently waging war against the Taliban in the American and Canadian operational areas to the south of Kandahar City.
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Amid growing grassroots resistance to Taliban, Canada mulls training villagers
Article Link
By: Jonathan Montpetit, The Canadian Press Posted: 8/10/2010

The Canadian military is considering taking part in a controversial program to help Afghan villagers defend themselves against the Taliban amid reports that a growing number of locals are standing up to insurgents in the incendiary Panjwaii district — often with violent results.

In recent weeks, Canadian soldiers operating in Panjwaii, the district southwest of Kandahar city where the bulk of Canada's fighting force is based, have recorded several incidents where locals have independently confronted members of the Taliban.

It is viewed as a positive sign — not just for Canadian troops, but for NATO as a whole, which has been seeking to organize grassroots resistance to the Taliban in the more remote regions of the country.

Earlier this year, NATO officials secured a deal with the Afghan government to establish a program to train local defence forces. The program is already underway in parts of northern Kandahar, helping to stabilize areas where the coalition has deployed fewer troops.

Until recently, the Canadian contingent has been leery about getting involved in such programs, which have been criticized by some as little more than fostering the growth of organized militias.

But with troops scheduled to begin leaving Afghanistan next year, that reluctance appears to be easing.

"This is something that's been discussed, this is something that they're looking at in (Panjwaii)," Brig. Gen. Dean Milner, the commander of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, said during a recent tour of the district.
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[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 8

General tells Camp Pendleton group that Marines are 'winning the fight' in Afghanistan
LA Times, Oct. 7
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/10/general-tells-camp-pendleton-group-that-marines-are-winning-the-war-in-afghanistan.html

The top Marine in Afghanistan, speaking at Camp Pendleton on Thursday, gave an upbeat assessment of the Marines' progress in Helmand province, long a Taliban stronghold.

"They're paying a price but they're winning the fight," Maj. Gen. Richard Mills  said at a ceremony in which he relinquished command of the 1st Marine Division.  "They're hurting the enemy,” he said.  The enemy “is backpedaling, he's desperate.”

While optimism is a common attribute among Marine officers, Mills has seemed more guarded in previous comments about Helmand province.

Mills assumed command of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) in March, with a headquarters at Camp Leatherneck on the edge of the Afghan desert. From there, he commands 20,000-plus troops, about half of them from Camp Pendleton...

Marines in Marjah face full-blown insurgency
AP, Oct. 8
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i3G--XI8g0ik1qMgC4nmNuC9ZCyQD9INCTDG0?docId=D9INCTDG0

MARJAH, Afghanistan — The young Marine had a simple question for the farmer with the white beard: Have you seen any Taliban today?

The answer came within seconds — from insurgents hiding nearby who ended the conversation with bursts of automatic rifle fire that sent deadly rounds cracking overhead.

It was a telling coincidence — and the start of yet another gunbattle in Marjah, the southern poppy-producing hub which U.S. forces wrested from Taliban control in February to restore government rule.

Eight months on, the Taliban are still here in force, waging a full-blown guerrilla insurgency that rages daily across a bomb-riddled landscape of agricultural fields and irrigation trenches.

As U.S. involvement in the war enters its 10th year, the failure to pacify this town raises questions about the effectiveness of America's overall strategy. Similarly crucial operations are now under way in neighboring Kandahar province, the Taliban's birthplace.

There are signs the situation in Marjah is beginning to improve, but "it's still a very tough fight," said Capt. Chuck Anklam, whose Marine company has lost three men since arriving in July. "We're in firefights all over, every day."

...Residents say the town is more insecure than ever.

"There was peace here before you came," farmer Khari Badar told one Marine patrol that recently visited his home. "Today, there is only fighting."

Marines say the Taliban can no longer move freely through the town with fighters and weapons. But the militants are still doing so clandestinely — so much so, that "we have areas where every time we go in, we know we're going to become engaged" in fighting, Anklam said...

The coalition has succeeded in setting up a nascent government in the town's district center. But the local officials' connection to the people they govern is thin. The most visible signs of authority today are sandbagged police checkpoints that frequently come under attack...

Anklam said the Taliban enjoy "the tacit support of probably the vast majority of the population," but said they had known little other rule for years and were still too scared to stand up to them. He said several dismembered bodies, apparently of suspected coalition sympathizers, had been found over the last few months in the town's canals...

The White House's report on Af-Pak: Hold the optimism
Washington Post, Oct. 8, by David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705482.html

What’s notable about the new White House report on Afghanistan and Pakistan  sent to Congress this week is its bleak assessment of the security picture. You could almost read President Obama between the lines warning the military: This strategy isn’t working the way we hoped. Don’t ask me for more troops…

You can sense in this report the tension that lies ahead between Obama and his commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus. The military didn’t write this assessment (one top military leader hadn’t even read it before it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal)…

What drew a front-page headline in the Journal was the report’s discussion of the deteriorating political situation in Pakistan and the refusal of the Pakistani military to mount a new offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in North Waziristan, as the United States wants. “This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets,” the report notes, although it concedes that after the devastating floods in August, the Pakistani military was swamped with relief work.

The sharp critique will add a little more fuel to the combustible U.S.-Pakistani relationship…

Reading the Pakistan section, you can’t help wondering whether a soft coup is taking place [emphasis added]: The military (whose popularity is increasing even as that of the politicians declines) is assuming ever-greater responsibility for Pakistan’s welfare, even though it is nominally staying out of politics…

The cornerstone of the U.S. strategy — the plan to begin transferring responsibility to Afghan forces starting in July 2011 — also looks shaky. The Afghan army and police are expanding, but their “operational effectiveness is uneven.” An effort to recruit more Pashtuns from the south has had “inconclusive” results. A highly touted Afghan army operation in August was botched (“hastily planned, poorly rehearsed”)…

Given the temptations to fudge the facts, you have to credit the White House for making an independent evaluation, without the weasel-words that often fill such reports…

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

"There is no military solution..."
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, Oct. 8
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1286561460/0#0

‘Hope Is Not a Strategy’
Outgoing Security Advisor Jones Voices Concern on Pakistan
Spiegel Online, Oct. 8
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,722139,00.html

...
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Should your cooperation with the Pakistani army fail, is there a possibility that Pakistan would become the next military target of the US?

Jones: I am going to take the optimistic view that rational people do rational things and that -- with the help of friends and allies and common goals -- Pakistan will avoid, or hopefully avoid, that unfortunate eventuality. But hope is not a strategy, so we have to be cognizant of the fact that there are things which could happen that could alter the relationship if we are not careful...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Afghans Linked to the Taliban Guard U.S. Bases
Article Link

WASHINGTON — Afghan private security forces with ties to the Taliban, criminal networks and Iranian intelligence have been hired to guard American military bases in Afghanistan, exposing United States soldiers to surprise attack and confounding the fight against insurgents, according to a Senate investigation.

The Pentagon’s oversight of the Afghan guards is virtually nonexistent, allowing local security deals among American military commanders, Western contracting companies and Afghan warlords who are closely connected to the violent insurgency, according to the report by investigators on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The United States military has almost no independent information on the Afghans guarding the bases, who are employees of Afghan groups hired as subcontractors by Western firms awarded security contracts by the Pentagon. At one large American airbase in western Afghanistan, military personnel did not even know the names of the leaders of the Afghan groups providing base security, the investigators found. So they used the nicknames that the contractor was using — Mr. White and Mr. Pink from “Reservoir Dogs,” the 1992 gangster movie by Quentin Tarantino. Mr. Pink was later determined to be a “known Taliban” figure, they reported.

In another incident, the United States military bombed a house where it was believed that a Taliban leader was holding a meeting, only to discover later that the house was owned by an Afghan security contractor to the American military, who was meeting with his nephew — the Taliban leader.

Some Afghans hired by EOD Technology, which was awarded a United States Army contract to provide security at a training center for Afghan police officers in Adraskan, near Shindand, were also providing information to Iran, the report asserted. The Senate committee said it received intelligence from the Defense Intelligence Agency about Afghans working for EOD, and that the reporting found that some of them “have been involved in activities at odds with U.S. interests in the region.”
More on link

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 9

Assignment Kandahar: Afghanistan’s fiery, fragile future
National Post, Oct. 8, by Brian Hutchinson
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/10/08/assignment-kandahar-afghanistan%E2%80%99s-%EF%AC%81ery-fragile-future/

The war that Canadian soldiers are helping wage in Afghanistan is not being lost. Having spent nearly six months in the country since 2006, most of that time embedded with our troops, I’ve just come home again, convinced of it.

But the war isn’t being won, either; the conflict, with sporadic fighting and death by remote control, just continues.

So it will, barring some miracle truce, and long after the last Canadian battle group has left Kandahar province next summer.

Other armies that comprise the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have enough capacity — if not the desire — to keep killing Taliban with relative ease, for many years. The United States might one day reduce its troop count in Afghanistan but having established its presence there with massive military fortresses, it won’t just up and leave.

The Taliban, for their part, have the resolve and resources to see that their fight lasts.

If anything is being lost, it’s the counterinsurgency, the crucial allied attempt to win local confidence and co-operation. Without those, this long war cannot be won.

The counterinsurgency is failing in the hinterland. Rural Afghans are still wary of foreign troops, even after almost nine years of intervention. They don’t trust their own politicians, whom they accuse of corruption and double-dealing. They’re frightened of the Taliban, who dominate village society and who use a medieval system of justice to mete out rough punishment and perform executions.

The situation is worst in rural Kandahar, where Canadian soldiers have operated since early 2006 and where they have never been made to feel welcome. Coalition soldiers no longer speak of winning local “hearts and minds.”

Kandaharis are in “self-survival mode,” a senior Canadian officer serving in Kandahar told me recently. “They’ve lived with war for 30 years,” the officer said. “They don’t trust anyone outside of their immediate family.”..

Afghan governor killed in rising violence in north
AP, Oct. 8
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD9INMB700?docId=D9INMB700

A powerful bomb killed an outspoken Afghan governor and 19 other worshippers in a crowded mosque Friday in northern Afghanistan, where insurgents are trying to expand their influence beyond the embattled south.

A wounded survivor said he believed a suicide bomber praying to the right of the governor carried out the attack, which wounded 35 people and took place in Taluqan, the capital of Takhar province.

The death of Mohammad Omar, the governor of neighboring Kunduz province, came just days after he publicly warned of escalating threats from Taliban and foreign fighters across the north. If steps aren’t taken to counter them, Afghan and coalition forces will face “disaster,” he said.

“Violence in north and northeastern Afghanistan will increase like it has in Kandahar and Helmand,” Omar said, referring to two provinces in the south where the Taliban have their greatest influence. “It will be very difficult for the government and the international community to conduct clearing operations and fight gunbattles in all parts of the country.”

Security has been deteriorating for the past two years in Kunduz and surrounding provinces — known hideouts for the Taliban, al-Qaida and fighters from other militant factions, including the Haqqani network, Hizb-i-Islami and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

NATO has sent more troops to the north [including a US Army brigade combat team
http://www.army.mil/-news/2010/08/18/43865-life-in-the-north-country---the-story-of-the-110th-mtn-brigade-logistics-support-team-in-afghanistans-rc-north/  ]
and has been pushing harder into militant-held areas the past several months…

Mark
Ottawa

 

[George Wallace]

Here reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act:


Convoy attacks expose Achilles' heel of Afghan war

CTV News


LINK

The imminent reopening of a crucial border crossing in the Khyber Pass has laid bare one of the vulnerabilities NATO forces are grappling with in prosecuting the war in Afghanistan -- the uneasy, love-hate relationship between Pakistan and the United States.


After nearly two weeks, the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad issued a statement Saturday stating that it will soon reopen the Torkham border post, which lies on a busy supply route to Kabul.

The Pakistani government shuttered the border crossing on Sept. 30, after three of its soldiers were mistakenly killed in an attack by a U.S. helicopter.

The American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, apologized for the incident. But the closure has sparked fresh tensions between Washington and Islamabad, partly due to the indispensable role Pakistan plays in supplying the 142,000 coalition troops stationed in Afghanistan, most of whom are American.

The bulk of NATO's fuel and other non-lethal material crosses Pakistan overland from the port of Karachi. Three-quarters of those goods enter Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass, making the Torkham border crossing logistically vital.

"Afghanistan is a very hard place to fight a war because of its physical geographic location," said Sunil Ram, a security expert and professor of land warfare at American Military University. "This is one of the strategic bottlenecks."

Taliban attacks

Aggravating the situation, groups of armed men have attacked tankers laden with NATO fuel on Pakistani soil. The militants are believed to have torched more than 100 tankers in a string of assaults since Oct. 1.

They have targeted fuel trucks that were backed up waiting to cross the Khyber Pass, as well as those making their way to Pakistan's second border crossing to Afghanistan, near the city of Quetta farther south.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for at least two of the assaults. A spokesperson for the group, Azam Tariq, told CNN the fuel trucks were "logistic support for the NATO forces who killed our innocent sisters and brothers in Afghanistan."

However, Ram said private contractors, who are tasked with transporting the fuel, may have spurred the attacks by failing to keep up on payments to the Taliban after the Torkham border post closed.

"The bottom line is, it's about the payoffs," he said, citing sources in military intelligence on both sides of the border. "In the background, the Taliban are saying, ‘Let's get our payoffs back in place and we'll stop blowing your stuff up.'"

The issue of private contractors paying militants has been well documented in Afghanistan. In the latest reported instance, private security forces linked to the Taliban were hired to guard a U.S. base, according to an investigation by the U.S. Senate.

Kamran Bokhari, South Asia director with the global intelligence firm STRATFOR, described the fuel tankers as "a target of opportunity."

"The supply line is just so long, and it runs through several areas where militants are active, that it's not hard for them to hit these trucks," he said. "All you need is a bunch of guys and the ability to torch stuff."

Uneasy allies

The wayward helicopter attack, the subsequent border-crossing closure and fuel tanker attacks have strained already troubled relations between Islamabad and Washington.

Pakistan's high commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, said Friday that U.S. authorities were acting on "internal political dynamics" relating to the upcoming midterm elections when they issued a travel alert about militants in Pakistan planning to attack European cities.

On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad criticized the U.S. for what it believes is an increase in the frequency of drone attacks. The Pakistani government has also forbidden cross-border raids by foreign forces, seeing them as violations of the country's sovereignty.

For its part, Washington has accused Islamabad of failing to take action against elements of the Taliban who are keen to fight in Afghanistan but are not hostile to the Pakistani state.

Earlier in the week, a White House report to the Congress warned that Pakistan's military had made a "political choice" to "avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or al Qaeda forces in North Waziristan," according to an unclassified version of the report obtained by Agence France-Presse.

Some officials in Washington suspect the recent fuel tanker attacks were encouraged by elements within Pakistan's intelligence service "to put pressure on the United States not to make incursions into Pakistan," Bokhari said.

He called the current state of U.S.-Pakistan relations "the most tense period between the two sides since this war began."

"But that doesn't mean there will be a breach," he added. "It's kind of like a love-hate relationship."

Pakistan depends on the $2 billion in aid money that flows into its economy from Washington every year. The U.S., in addition to relying on ground supply routes in Pakistan to fuel the NATO war effort, has become increasingly focused on crushing Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas.

At the heart of the problem, the two governments have failed to agree on "which Taliban groups can be accommodated and which have to be militarily dealt with," Bokhari said.

"That's the clash," he added. "They need to find a middle path, but so far that's not happening."

=========================================================================

 

[MarkOttawa]

Supply route for NATO convoys opened in Pakistan
CNN, Oct. 10
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/10/pakistan.supply.route/?hpt=T1

The Torkham border crossing in Pakistan was opened for NATO supply convoy traffic Sunday morning, authorities told CNN.

Trucks are free to pass once they have cleared customs, said Amjad Ali, a constable for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Pakistan closed the main land route for NATO supplies crossing from Pakistan to Afghanistan after U.S. helicopter strikes across the border killed two Pakistani soldiers.

A report from a NATO and Pakistan assessment team concluded that soldiers fired warning shots to let them know of their presence, but the helicopter crews assumed they were insurgents and fired the shots.

While the main route has been closed, at least seven attacks on convoys carrying supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan have taken place in Pakistan. The convoys are generally operated by contracted Pakistani firms, using Pakistani trucks and drivers.

Since October 1, at least six people have been killed in attacks on supply vehicles.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the most recent attack, which took place Saturday in Pakistan's western Baluchistan province.

Assailants attacked 28 oil tankers with a machine gun and rockets, said Meeran Bukhsh, a police official in the Bolan district, said. Police said the tankers caught fire, and two people were injured...

A second supply route through Chaman in western Pakistan was open during the Torkham closure, [emphasis added, near Quetta] but the Pakistani Taliban has threatened violence on any route used for NATO purposes.

The real question about Pakistan's border closure
Foreign Policy, "AfPak Channel", Oct. 8
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/10/08/the_real_question_about_pakistans_border_closure

...
Within hours of last Thursday's helicopter strikes, the Pakistani government retaliated by shutting down the Torkham border crossing, which lies north of Peshawar on the Grant Trunk Road. Torkham is the crossing through which a majority of non-lethal NATO supplies pass into Afghanistan from Pakistan, once they are offloaded from ships based in Pakistan's port city of Karachi. The other main crossing into Afghanistan, at Chaman linking Baluchistan and Kandahar, has remained open...

While the anxiety surrounding the road closures that attract attacks is understandable, the real puzzle is not how to prevent these outcomes generally or even why this one happened in particular. The real question is why doesn't this happen more often and with greater consequence? Even garden variety pilferage of the supply line is minimal according to U.S. officials and this current episode has been a nuisance but not a strategic threat. The 120 or more trucks that have been destroyed comprise less than one percent of the total traffic in any given month, according to U.S. Department of Defense officials.

So, why haven't attacks on the supply line to Afghanistan been more common? It's reasonable to argue that a dedicated and sensible insurgent would target these trucks along the way from Karachi to Torkham or to Chaman in Pakistan and from Torkham or Chaman to their final destinations within Afghanistan. This would be simple to do as the Pakistani security forces do not protect those privately-owned trucks and much of the route in Afghanistan winds through narrow mountain passes.

The answer is simple: trucking mafias and organized criminal and insurgent networks are all making money off of this system. The system of payoffs is elaborate yet elegant. Pashtuns dominate the trucking mafia in Pakistan and represent enormous financial interests in the fundamental integrity of the supply line system. The drivers and their companies must pay off Pakistani police and any other relevant government officials to secure "safe" passage and to resolve any "paperwork complexities."

Insurgents and criminal organizations also get their courtesy payment in exchange for safe passage to Afghanistan. Ordinary smugglers and blackmarketeers get their pieces of the pie too. Cargo containers are pilfered in small amounts. They are in turn auctioned off and the buyers sell their contents in the "bara bazaars" (black markets) throughout Pakistan. Some of the contents of the trucks have made their way into the hands of Pakistani insurgents. Overall, pilferage is low. This seems deliberately calibrated to ensure that such loss is an irritant to be tolerated rather than a problem to be fixed...

Sooner -- rather than later -- the mafias and the militants will want their revenue streams reopened. To get the trucks rolling, there will be a slew of renegotiated contracts with trucking firms and protection rackets demanding a higher price to get the job done. The drivers -- who make the least off of this racket -- will also likely see increased pay in recognition of the increasing dangers of the task. In the end, the loss of profit to all parties during this last week will be recouped in spades when the traffic resumes at higher prices.

It is the non-state actors who will likely decide when enough is enough and get the traffic and their profits moving again. And they will again decide when it's time to renegotiate their contracts by blowing up more trucks. 

Mark
Ottawa

 

[George Wallace]

Here reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act:


Secret base to be shuttered over failed airline talks: source
10/10/2010 9:33:15 PM
CTV News


LINK

The Canadian Forces may be getting the boot from a semi-secret Middle East base, as the United Arab Emirates warns Ottawa's refusal of its repeated requests will "undoubtedly" affect relations between the two countries.

Established in late 2001 as a hub for Canadian operations in nearby Afghanistan, Camp Mirage's existence and location has been an open secret.

Now, sources in Dubai tell CTV News Canada has less than one month to get out.

Steve Staples of the Rideau Institute says the ouster isn't unexpected.

"This is always one of the dangers when you set up secret military bases around the world, and the host country turns around to try to get something gained out of you in some other area."

The "something" in question is commercial landing rights for UAE's two commercial airlines.

A 1999 agreement allows Emirates Airlines and Ethiad Airways to fly into Canada as many as six times a week. But the UAE government says that with 27,000 Canadians living in that country, and a significant trade relationship -- the UAE is Canada's largest trade partner in the Middle East and North Africa -- six flights per week are not enough.

The UAE has demanded that Ottawa allow daily direct flights to several major Canadian cities including Calgary and Vancouver. In response, Air Canada cried foul and Ottawa refused reportedly telling the UAE it would rather give up the base than give in to unacceptable demands.

That led to the UAE playing its trump card.

"The UAE entered negotiations in good faith on the understanding that a solution would be reached and that constructive ideas would be brought to the negotiating table. The fact that this has not come about undoubtedly affects the bilateral relationship," UAE ambassador to Canada Mohammed Abdullah Al-Ghafli said in a statement issued Sunday.

"The Emirates knew we were leaving in a year's time. So they had a period of time where they could apply pressure on Canada and hope to get concessions," Col. Alain-Michel Pellerin of the Conference of Defence Associations explained.

On Thursday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay conceded Foreign Affairs was in discussions with UAE, even as he refused to comment on "operational matters."

But it appears those discussions failed to produce a result.

NDP MP Paul Dewar says the Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is guilty of bad diplomacy.

"Why did Minister Cannon basically not return phone calls, not meet with the ambassador?" Dewar told CTV. "I think this was the final straw, they've decided to pull the plug."

The question now is: where will Canadian troops set up next? Analysts say Cypress, Turkey or Germany are likely candidates.

The Canadian military has already deployed supply missions from an air base in Cyprus to Kandahar. Officials have also asked Pakistan to use its air bases when Canada withdraws forces from Afghanistan next year.

With files from CTV Ottawa's Richard Madan and The Canadian Press

 

[The Bread Guy]

Next on the ramp preparing to depart -

:

Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister said its 3,400 troops will have left the country by 2014.

The Italian decision follows the withdrawal of Dutch troops earlier this year and the Canadian decision to leave next year, as commanders struggle to sure up an alliance which is still short of troops.

Nato commanders have found it increasingly difficult to persuade members to stay in Afghanistan in the face of mounting death tolls and domestic opposition.

Mr Frattini spoke as Italy mourned four Italian soldiers killed at the weekend when their convoy was blown up in western Afghanistan.

He said: "To the families of our soldiers who died a heroic death I want to confirm that there's a political plan for Afghanistan, that their loved ones have not been sent to certain defeat in an impossible mission."

"That's with a timing that has yet to be decided: summer 2011 for the start of a gradual drawdown of troops, with the intention of completing it by 2014," he told an Italian newspaper ....

More here.