The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread September 2010

[GAP]

Articles found September 17, 2010

Afghans ask to cast their ballots despite worsening security situation

By: Dene Moore, The Canadian Press Posted: 16/09/2010
Article Link

The last time Afghans went to the polls, Taliban insurgents threatened to cut the fingers off anyone who bore the telltale ink stain that identified those who cast a ballot.

In the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province, they followed through.

At least two men had their fingers amputated in the violent Taliban stronghold that is now the focus of Canada's soldiers in Afghanistan, and the one prediction that coalition forces will make for Saturday's follow-up vote is that insurgents will do whatever they can to keep people from the polls.

"If it is like it was last year, it will be a very violent day," said Maj.-Gen. Nick Carter, who heads up Regional Command South for the International Security Assistance Force, the formal name of NATO's military coalition in Afghanistan.

Taliban threats were posted on mosque walls throughout the district last year and insurgents undertook a campaign of assassinations. The sound of bombs intermittently echoed through the city the night before the vote.

Carter said he couldn't predict what would happen Saturday, but suggested that a day that's "slightly less violent than the one we had last year" is about the best anyone can hope for.

Afghans will be voting Saturday for the Wolesi Jirga, their lower house of parliament, in the midst of the worst security situation since the Taliban was overthrown almost a decade ago.

"This time the security situation is much worse than before," Abdul Wasi Alkozai, Kandahar regional director of the Afghan Independent Election Commission, which will preside over the balloting without international oversight for only the second time since its inception.

Nowhere will the challenge be greater than in Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban and the focus of a renewed international effort to finally turn the tide after nearly 10 years of war.
More on link

Canada's Afghan provincial governor ineffective, say critics
  Article Link
By Brian Hutchinson, Postmedia News September 16, 2010

Two years into his appointment as Kandahar provincial governor, an Afghan-Canadian citizen has yet to achieve local credibility and is proving an ineffective coalition ally, various sources say.

One high-ranking Canadian military officer ventures that "some secret agenda" could explain Tooryalai Wesa's refusal to remove from office a controversial tribal leader in the dangerous Kandahar district of Panjwaii.

Wesa's intransigence may compromise a looming anti-Taliban offensive in the insurgency's heartland, suggested the officer, who did not want his name used.

Wesa is an agronomist by training who left his native Kandahar nearly two decades ago and lived in Coquitlam, B.C., before being appointed to the governorship in 2008 by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The two men are close friends and share tribal roots in Panjwaii, which is a key area of operation for Canadian troops.

Despite his local heritage, Wesa is seen as an outsider by many Kandaharis, thanks to his years spent in the West. Afghan and western observers say he lacks charisma and has failed to connect with the populace.
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Special Forces Night Raids Backfire: Blowback in Kandahar
Contributed by blackandred on Thu, 2010/09/16
Article Link

During a round of media interviews last month, Gen. David Petraeus released totals for the alleged results of nearly 3,000 "night raids" by Special Operations Forces (SOF) units over the 90 days from May through July: 365 "insurgent leaders" killed or captured, 1,355 Taliban "rank and file" fighters captured, and 1,031 killed.

Those figures were widely reported as highlighting the "successes" of SOF raids in at least hurting the Taliban.

But a direct correlation between the stepped up night raids in Kandahar province and a sharp fall-off in the proportion of IEDs being turned in by the local population indicates that the raids backfired badly, bolstering the Taliban's hold on the population in Kandahar province.

Night raids, which are viewed as a violation of the sanctity of the home and generate large numbers of civilian casualties, are the single biggest factor in generating popular anger at U.S. and NATO forces, as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal conceded in his directive on the issue last March.

Nevertheless, McChrystal had increased the level of SOF raids from the 100 to 125 a month during the command of his predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, to 500 a month during 2009. And the figures released by Petraeus revealed that McChrystal had doubled the number of raids on homes again to 1,000 a month before he was relieved of duty in June.

The step up in night raids has been overwhelmingly concentrated on districts in and around Kandahar City. It began in April as a prelude to what was then being billed as the "make or break" campaign of the war.

The response of the civilian population in those districts can be discerned from data on the Taliban roadside bombs and the proportion turned in by the population. Increasing the ratio of total IEDs planted found as a result of tips from the population has been cited as a key indicator of winning the trust of the local population by Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, head of the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).

But JIEDDO's monthly statistics on IED's turned in by local residents as a percentage of total IEDs planted tell a very different story.
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Foreign Affairs official said finding Afghan detainee abuse was 'a surprise'
  Article Link
By Juliet O'Neill, Postmedia News September 16, 2010

Foreign Affairs official John Davison told a public hearing Thursday it was "a bit of a surprise" when he and a colleague found evidence of abuse by the Afghan intelligence service of a Canadian-captured detainee in the fall of 2007.

Davison told the Military Police Complaints Commission that he believed members of the National Directorate of Security were "sincerely" doing their best to live up to a May 2007 Canada-Afghanistan prisoner transfer agreement.

Now a Canadian diplomat based in Ankara, Turkey, Davison was the senior Foreign Affairs official at the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar from August 2007 to June 2008.

One of his main duties was to ensure monitoring of detainees who had been captured by Canadian Armed Forces and transferred to a facility run by the NDS.
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[GAP]

Scattered attacks, spotty turnout in Afghan elections
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/scattered-attacks-spotty-turnout-in-afghan-elections/article1713206/
Heidi Vogt

Kabul — The Associated Press Published on Saturday, Sep. 18, 2010 8:49AM EDT Last updated on Saturday, Sep. 18, 2010 10:00PM EDT

Despite Taliban rocket strikes and bombings, Afghans voted for a new parliament, the first election since a fraud-marred presidential ballot last year cast doubt on the legitimacy of the embattled government.

As officials tally votes over the next few days, the real test begins: Afghans will have to decide whether to accept the results as legitimate despite a modest turnout and early evidence of fraud.

The Taliban had pledged to disrupt the vote and launched attacks starting with a rocket fired into the capital before dawn Saturday. The insurgent group followed with a series of morning rocket strikes that hit major cities just as people were going to the polls — or weighing whether to risk it.

At least 11 civilians and three police officers were killed, accoring to the Interior Ministry. The governor of Kandahar province survived a bombing as he drove between voting sites. In all, there were 33 bomb explosions and 63 rocket attacks, said Interior Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi. He said 27 Taliban were killed Saturday.

Yet there appeared to be less violence than during the last election, when more than 30 civilians were killed and a group of insurgents attacked Kabul. Afghan security officials dismissed the attacks as “insignificant” and said they did not hamper voting, adding that 92 per cent of polling stations were open Saturday.

“There are no reports of major incidents,” Afghan election commission chairman Fazel Ahmad Manawi told reporters.

Wounded soldiers to get better benefits
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/863057--wounded-soldiers-to-get-better-benefits
Bruce Campion-Smith and Allan Woods Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA—The federal government will boost the help it provides the most seriously wounded and junior rank soldiers injured in Afghanistan, the Star has learned.

The move comes after the Conservatives, who boast about their support for the military, faced sharp criticism they were short-changing Canada’s newest generation of veterans returning from Afghanistan with grievous injuries.

The government hopes to rebut that criticism starting Sunday, when Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn and Defence Minister Peter MacKay hold a news conference to announce measures to bolster financial support for some of the wounded soldiers.

“It’s for the most seriously injured and those who are most susceptible to the economic challenges they may face,” a government source said Friday.

Those measures are expected to include a bigger allowance to financially assist privates as they recover from their wounds. Because their injuries can limit future promotions, privates risk getting stuck at that rank and pay scale, earning a maximum of about $46,000.

“There have been a lot of privates hurt in Afghanistan,” one source said.

The announcement is also expected to address complaints that the revamped benefits package for injured soldiers—unveiled in the 2006 Veterans Charter—leaves the mostly seriously hurt worse off financially than under the previous system.

In a related move, the military is also tinkering with its programs meant to assist disabled soldiers with the challenges and costs of adapting to life at home.

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 19

U.S.-led troops make a push into rural Kandahar
Washington Post, Sept. 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803744.html

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - U.S. and Afghan troops flowed into rural areas west of this city in the past week in a new push that NATO commanders said would clear out Taliban fighters and allow Afghan security forces to take control of the spaces left behind.

The major thrust into the farming districts of Zhari and Panjwayi represented an escalation in the military's slow-moving operation to secure the surrounding province, Kandahar, and other parts of the Afghan south.

...in a sign of the concern, senior White House officials have begun asking for more data about the war.

"There has been a real sense in the last month that U.S. policy has been somewhat dysfunctional," said a senior defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There is a lively debate among the military guys about whether we are moving in the right direction."

In an interview, the top U.S. military official in southern Afghanistan said the operation, with about 20,000 coalition forces now in place, has boosted security in Kandahar city and government influence in some areas outside it. The Kandahar effort has unfolded gradually, after a rapid offensive into neighboring Helmand province that military officials have said was not well thought out...

A "security ring" of checkpoints and walls around Kandahar has led to increased commerce and movement, he said, and the continuing arrival of U.S. military police is helping build the capability of Afghan police. In the Argandhab Valley, a key entry point into Kandahar city, summer clearing operations and an increase in security forces helped Afghan officials take control of about 85 percent of the territory, up from about 50 percent, Hodges said.

But it is unclear whether military achievements in the south and elsewhere are being outpaced by the gains of the Taliban, whose leader recently declared that his movement was winning. The number of assassinations in the city of Kandahar rose in August, Hodges said, although he could not cite a figure. Insurgents have begun to spread throughout northern areas where their presence was previously marginal. Nationwide, militant attacks have doubled since last summer.

The military push into the Zhari and Panjwayi districts comes after the arrival of .several thousand U.S. and Afghan troops in an area where there was previously one U.S. battalion [emphasis added] Military officials say the battle for the greenbelt, mostly south of Highway 1, is likely to be the most vicious in the province...

Previous NATO efforts to capture the district have failed, but military officials say they now have the manpower to hold it. Special operations forces are capturing Taliban leaders, British engineers are destroying homemade bombs, and troops are setting up checkpoints along the highway and other routes into the city, Hodges said. The idea is to detain as many insurgents as possible, not chase them out, he said...

"Either they're all just going to drop their AK's and melt away, or they're going to fight. And we anticipate that they're going to fight [emphasis added]," Hodges said...

 

All together now: Afghanistan is not Switzerland
Foreign Policy, "AfPak Channel", by Thomas Ruttig, Sept. 17
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/17/all_together_now_afghanistan_is_not_switzerland

...
Did ever anyone say that Afghanistan should or would become Switzerland? Afghans definitely didn't.

Afghans I had spoken to during my stay in the last Taliban years, wanted their country to become ‘a country like all others' again and to elect their leaders themselves. I am not talking about the ‘small circle of urban intellectuals' (the usual counter-arguments when you say something like this). No, I heard it from tailors, bakers and other people in the Kabul bazaar. And if you look carefully into the 2001 Bonn agreement on Afghanistan, the document on which the post-2001 political process is based, it becomes obvious that the maltreated country was supposed to become Afghanistan again.

Since after almost 25 years of war not much was left, Afghans' institutional memory, most of the 1964 constitution, the first with some democratic features in the country's history, was re-installed. Why not, even if it smacked a bit of nostalgia? It included the traditional institution of the Loya Jirga and a parliamentary system with a two houses as it had existed for two decades until it was scrapped after Sardar Daud's coup d'etat. New was after 2001 that the right to form political parties was implemented for the first time...

Switzerland is a confederation, and Afghanistan a unitary state. Most people here say they want a central government. And it should stay like this because this is one of the few ideas on which most Afghans agree. (Yes, there is a minority of federalists, but this is mainly warlord-federalism.) Afghans also do not want their country split into two, as a former U.S. national security advisor just proposed. With all respect, this can only come from people who really don't know Afghanistan. The last time I saw almost all Afghans united was when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, sometime in the late 1980s, proposed a confederation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everyone, communist and mujahed, still entangled in an extremely bloody fight, were up in anger.

But why then is this Switzerland mantra so popular nowadays?

This is because the West (which has replaced the much broader international community that started the Bonn process) is mentally on its way out of Afghanistan already emphasis added].

...The transfer and withdrawal decision has only to do with ‘our,' i.e. mainly the U.S., agenda, not with realities in Afghanistan changing for the better which would allow such a transfer. This hasty withdrawal is very dangerous. Herati MP Ahmad Behzad warns when talking to us: "Many people proclaim themselves opposed to the presence of foreign troops, but in reality most of them see the necessity for those troops to stay. Otherwise, there are high probabilities of a new civil war raging." Or Bawar Hotak, head of the Afghanistan Body Builders Association who also runs as a candidate: "If the foreign forces were absent even for two days, these people [who fought each other earlier] would start again fighting each other."..

I cannot resist using the punchline a friend as recently used -- and I apologize for its unauthorized use:

'Afghanistan also is not Switzerland because it doesn't ban minarets.'
***

*Here a short genealogy of the Switzerland comparison:

It seems as if NATO spokesman James Appathurai used the phrase for the first time in February 2006, a little bit unmotivated, in an answer to a question about an reassessment of security risks in Afghanistan after violent demonstrations when a Norwegian newspaper reprinted the controversial Muhammad caricatures:

‘Afghanistan is not Switzerland, so of course we have to take into account the security environment.'..

Voters brave Taliban attacks
Despite intimidation and fraud claims, parliamentary election draws praise
Ottawa Citizen, Sept. 19, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Voters+brave+Taliban+attacks/3546137/story.html#ixzz0zzGe9ZtU

The bombing of a Canadian-Afghan governor's convoy was among the most dramatic outbursts of violence Saturday as Afghans voted to choose a new parliament -- one critics hope will stand up to President Hamid Karzai, whose regime has been plagued with charges of corruption.

Millions of Afghans took part in what appeared to be a more peaceful election than the country witnessed a year ago, but outbreaks of violence and accusations of ballot fraud showed the challenges that remain for democracy in the war-torn nation.

As many as 11 Afghans, including six members of the security forces, died during voting day violence. About 500 of the 5,861 polls that were to have opened Saturday did not do so, presumably because of Taliban intimidation.

Nonetheless, some called the day another positive step for the country.

"This is a good day for Afghanistan," said engineering student Mosawer Jamshidy, who voted for the first time...

Kandahar's Afghan-Canadian governor, Tooryalai Wesa, was travelling in the Dand district, almost a suburb of Kandahar City, when his convoy struck a homemade landmine.

Nobody in Wesa's party was injured and the governor, a former university professor in British Columbia, continued his trip to visit three polling stations in the war-plagued southern province.

A U.S. army infantry battalion operates there under the command of Canadian Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner.

Although Canadian combat troops were on high alert to roll out and assist, Afghan authorities did not request any help...

Attacks by the Taliban were not nearly as frequent or as deadly as NATO's tally of about 400 attacks that scarred last summer's presidential elections...

Much of the violence that had been promised by the Taliban never really materialized. Scattered election-related violence was reported, particularly in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, which are at the heart of the insurgency...

Afghan turnout low amid violence
Washington Post, Sept. 19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803813.html

KABUL - Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, viewed as a bellwether of Afghans' mood after months of Taliban intimidation and disclosures of official corruption, revealed a disenchanted electorate - and a buoyant insurgency - on Saturday.

By day's end, Afghan officials had declared a semi-victory, pointing out that the number of violent incidents (309) and civilian deaths (11) had been held below their own expectations. Yet voter turnout plummeted compared with last year's presidential election. And chief U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura concluded that voters and poll workers alike had engaged in "widespread irregularities" at the ballot box.

"It was a rough day from a security point of view," de Mistura said. "The Afghan security forces did their best and made a major effort, but there were major incidents."

Insurgents launched rocket attacks, detonated bombs and engaged in gun battles with Afghan police and soldiers. "The enemy threw everything at us," Afghan Interior Minister Bismillah Khan said.

More than 3.6 million people cast ballots to elect 249 members of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the Afghan parliament, according to the Independent Election Commission. That represented 27 percent of the country's estimated 13.5 million registered voters, though officials said about 700 of the 5,355 polling centers that opened Saturday had yet to report their tallies.

In the presidential election last year, more than 5.5 million votes were cast, albeit in a contest characterized by widespread reports of fraud. Saturday's elections were viewed as a major test of the ability of Afghan and international forces to prevent violence and fraud and restore the public's faith in the democratic process.

Asked why turnout might have declined this year, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak suggested that "one possibility is that the propaganda of the enemy affected the psyche of the people."..

An unprecedented force of 400,000 police officers and soldiers, supplied by both the Afghan government and NATO coalition, was involved in the security preparations. Guards set up extra checkpoints, and voters were frisked at polling stations.

Still, insurgent groups carried out attacks in 17 of the country's 34 provinces, Afghan security officials said. Of those, insurgents mounted 63 attacks using heavy guns, launched more than a dozen rockets and set off 33 improvised explosive devices, according to the Interior Ministry. One suicide bombing was reported. The attacks killed three police officers, in addition to the 11 civilians, and wounded 45 civilians and 13 officers, the ministry reported.

In 2009, 479 violent attacks killed 31 civilians, 18 Afghan police and eight Afghan soldiers, according to a U.N. report...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 19, 2010

US military in Afghanistan uncovers sadistic death squad in ranks
By Ben Farmer in Kabul  19 Sep 2010
Article Link

A group of American soldiers are facing murder charges for a five-month killing spree in which they randomly targeted Afghan civilians for sport, a US military investigation has reported.

In at least one attack, a soldier threw a grenade to pretend they were being ambushed as a pretext to then shoot dead an innocent villager.

The soldiers also dismembered and photographed bodies and kept bones and skulls as trophies in some of the most grisly accusations against US troops since the invasion in 2001
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Afghan poll workers' bodies found
Election workers counting ballots in Kabul Election workers were amongst those most at risk
Article Link
  19 September 2010 Last updated at 07:19 ET

The bodies of three members of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) kidnapped in Balkh province during voting on Saturday have been found.

Taliban militants had vowed to disrupt the vote for the lower houses of parliament.

The discovery of the bodies means at least 17 people were killed on election day in about 445 violent incidents.

It comes as a monitoring group raised serious concerns about electoral fraud.
Ink problems

The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan said it had found "extensive irregularities" and urged the IEC "to ensure the integrity of the rest of the electoral process".
More on link


Canadian-Afghan governor’s convoy bombed during Afghan vote
Article Link
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News September 18, 2010

The bombing of a Canadian-Afghan governor’s convoy was among the most dramatic outbursts of violence Saturday as Afghans voted to choose a new parliament — one critics hope will stand up to President Hamid Karzai, whose regime has been plagued with charges of corruption.

Millions of Afghans took part in what appeared to be a more peaceful election than the country witnessed a year ago, but outbreaks of violence and accusations of ballot fraud showed the challenges that remain for democracy in the war-torn nation.

As many as 11 Afghans, including six members of the security forces, died during voting day violence. About 500 of the 5,861 polls that were to have opened Saturday did not do so, presumably because of Taliban intimidation.

Nonetheless, some cast the day as another positive step for the country.

“This is a good day for Afghanistan,” said engineering student Mosawer Jamshidy, who voted for the first time.
More on link

'Serious concern' over fraud at Afghan elections
Article Link
  By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writers Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writers  – Sun Sep 19, 12:59 pm ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – The main Afghan election observer group said Sunday it had serious concerns about the legitimacy of this weekend's parliamentary vote because of reported fraud, even as President Hamid Karzai commended the balloting as a solid success.

The conflicting statements underscored the difficulty of determining the credibility of the vote also hit by militant attacks that hurt the turnout. Afghan officials started gathering and tallying results Sunday in a process that could take weeks if not months to complete.

The country's international backers offered praise for those who voted Saturday despite bomb and rocket attacks, and voiced hoped for a democratic result. A repeat of the pervasive fraud that tainted a presidential election a year ago would only erode further the standing of Karzai administration — both at home and abroad — as it struggles against a Taliban insurgency.

While the first vote counts are due to be made public in a few days time, full preliminary results are not expected until early October, and then there will be weeks of fraud investigations before winners are officially announced for the 249 parliamentary seats, which were contested by about 2,500 candidates.

The election commission has said it hopes to release final results by the end of October. But there are likely to be a host of fraud complaints in each province — which could drag the process on even beyond that target date. The resolution of last year's vote took months.
More on link

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 20, 2010

Hamid Karzai abandons plans to visit Kandahar after disappointing election
Article Link

Dene Moore and A.R. Khan

Kandahar, Afghanistan — The Canadian Press Published on Sunday, Sep. 19, 2010 12:24PM EDT Last updated on Sunday, Sep. 19, 2010 7:00PM EDT

Afghan President Hamid Karzai abandoned plans to meet with elders during a rare visit to his home province of Kandahar on Sunday, the day after a disappointing parliamentary election that saw millions of Afghans forego their right to cast ballots.

Mr. Karzai was expected at a shura meeting with local elders and pro-government forces in the Arghandab district on the outskirts of Kandahar city — an area that has seen fierce fighting in recent months as a renewed international coalition flush with U.S. troops has tried to wrest control from Taliban insurgents.

But three rockets exploded at the site, followed by a brief firefight, and Mr. Karzai did not appear as announced.

It's the kind of violence that has become a daily fixture in the province where Canadian soldiers have battled insurgents for four years — the kind largely blamed for the low number of voters who showed up at polls Saturday.

At least 11 civilians and three police officers were killed in Afghanistan on election day, according to the Interior Ministry, and the bodies of three kidnapped election workers were found Sunday in Balkh province.
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CSIS interrogated Afghan detainees, insists none mistreated
Article Link

The Canadian Press

Date: Sunday Sep. 19, 2010 3:33 PM PT

OTTAWA — Newly obtained documents show Canada's spy service admits interrogating up to 50 Afghan prisoners captured by the Canadian Forces.

But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents insists they were never mistreated.

The CSIS involvement in interviewing suspected Taliban fighters alongside military intelligence officers was revealed by The Canadian Press last March.

But details of the agency's role and actions have remained largely cloaked in secrecy.

Briefing notes prepared for CSIS director Dick Fadden take pains to emphasize the conduct of agents has been above reproach.

University of Ottawa law professor Errol Mendes wonders whether spies travelled along with soldiers in combat, saying that may exceed the legislated mandate of CSIS.

The documents, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, were drawn up to brief Fadden for a June interview with the CBC, but the broadcaster did not ask him about CSIS's role in Afghanistan.
end

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 21, 2010

Canada's two female generals star in low-key medal ceremony
  Article Link
By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News September 21, 2010

In a unique ceremony Monday, one of Canada's only two serving female generals presented an Afghan campaign star with bar to Canada's only other female general.

The Canadian Forces former surgeon-general, Brig.-Gen. Hilary Jaeger, who is NATO's top doctor in Afghanistan, received the maroon, green and white medal from Brig.-Gen. Chris Whitecross, an air force engineer who is deputy to the deputy chief of staff for strategic communications with NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

"It was a rare opportunity and privilege to be here," Jaeger said of her tour of duty, which ends soon. "What exists here is a health system that is trying to learn to walk and the international community is trying to help them."

Monday's low-key ceremony included the presentation by Jaeger of medals to six other Canadian soldiers. It took place complete with a mini-military parade atop several sea containers that serve as Canada House at the crowded ISAF headquarters.

Speaking of the high quality of health care provided to ISAF's 140,000 soldiers at scores of hospitals and clinics that she has been responsible for over the past year, Jaeger said: "If you are with ISAF, this is the best place in the world to be a trauma patient. Your chance of survival at an ISAF trauma centre is actually higher than it is at trauma centres in Canada and the United States."
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Defence analyst urges Canada to commit military training force to Afghanistan

  Article Link
By Juliet O'Neill, Postmedia News September 20, 2010

It should be an "easy one" for the Conservative government to commit to a military training force in Afghanistan after the Canadian combat mission ends in 2011, if not sooner, defence expert Elinor Sloan said Monday.

Sloan said the NATO military alliance has been struggling to assemble enough trainers to cover the current period, let alone 18 months from now. A Canadian training commitment is being pushed by the Opposition Liberals and recommended by the Senate defence committee, she added.

Sloan said the Conservative government may appear hesitant about a training mission now because the 300 to 400 experts required "are very valuable people" to the Canadian military for training at home or for future deployments in missions outside Canada and Afghanistan.

However, the former Defence Department analyst, who teaches international relations at Ottawa's Carleton University, said she is betting such a commitment will be made. "The sooner the better," Sloan said in an interview.

She offered her view in an article published by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute on Monday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said repeatedly all 2,800 troops will be withdrawn as planned under a 2008 parliamentary motion between July and December of 2011, leaving a diplomatic and development mission in place.
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Veterans Affairs needs mucking out
Article Link
Last Updated: September 21, 2010

Veterans Ombudsman Pat Stogran, a former army colonel, dug in like a true warrior in the trenches in his fight for realistic financial support for the hundreds of Canadian soldiers severely wounded in far-off missions like Afghanistan.

While his blunt talk and pull-no-punches assault on Veterans Affairs may have cost him his re-appointment, he would no doubt accept losing that battle in order to win his war.

But he is not done yet, and we stand behind him when he says Veterans Affairs -- meaning the faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats behind the scenes -- have to be "mucked out."

These are strong words, yes, but they reflect the manure Stogran has had to wade through during his tenure as ombudsman, only to then be dismissed by bureaucrats so entrenched in old ways that they "deny, deny, deny" rather than look at the validity of his claims.

This, slammed Stogran, is an "insurance company approach to business."

We could not agree more.

If Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn, and Defence Minister Peter MacKay, wish to truly continue the good behind their recent announcements regarding proposed changes to support payments for our injured war vets, we suggest they grab a shovel and head over to the head office of Veterans Affairs and let the mucking out begin.

As Stogran put it, "All along, I have not been pointing my finger at elected officials. My concern is the bureaucracy cheating veterans.

"If the government is truly sincere in making sure that things work out for the veterans, they would give the ombudsman -- myself or my successor -- the mandate to muck out the system."
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[GAP]

Articles found September 22, 2010

Choppers in Afghanistan – thrilling, spilling but (relatively) safe
Article Link
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent

Some people call them warhorses, others say they’re counterintuitive death traps. And when there’s a fatal incident – like Tuesday’s U.S. helicopter crash that killed at least nine American troops in a remote province of southern Afghanistan – the focus quickly turns to the part Herculean, part fragile war machines in which the crash happened.

I’m often asked what the scariest part of covering the war in Afghanistan is and I always immediately reply that it’s the choppers. For me, it doesn’t matter that during the past decade I’ve probably flown a thousand times in Afghanistan alone. There is no such thing as a routine flight and every takeoff feels like my first.

Highs and lows
Can there be more exhilaration than catapulting from 100 to 12,000 feet in what feels like nano-seconds, inside a tiny Kiowa attack helicopter on a mission through mountainous Eastern Afghanistan? (You feel as if you’re inside that Cinerama classic “Seven Wonders of the World” – a 1950s Lowell Thomas mega flick, for those too young to remember).

And for sheer pain, try jumping off the rear of a Black Hawk Chinook, hovering about four feet above Earth, just as the chopper jerks backward. Instead of hitting the ground, I hit the steel tail of the chopper…tailbone first. This was supposed to be the launch of a complex drug bust in Nangarhar province. But, screaming in silence, I forgot the whole infiltration plan. Luckily the Taliban had fled just before we landed.

In fact, many of my highs and lows covering the war in Afghanistan have happened on or near choppers.

The most frustrating moment? Sitting for three days on a firebase in Kandahar and missing a story because, during combat operations, journalists are at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to getting a seat.
More on link

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 23

A shocker for Canadians in Bob Woodward’s book
Globe and Mail online, Sept. 23, by Norman Spector
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/spector-vision/a-shocker-for-canadians-in-bob-woodwards-book/article1719862/

…we can expect pressure to leave some troops in Afghanistan to increase significantly between now and the NATO meeting in November. But, for Canadians, there’s also, according to the New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/books/23book.html?_r=1&ref=arts
a real shocker in the Woodward book – one that should be factored into the debate on Afghanistan as well as other national debates:

“A 2009 President’s Daily Brief and another highly restricted report, Mr. Woodward writes, ‘said that at least 20 al-Qaeda converts with American, Canadian or European passports were being trained in Pakistani safe havens to return to their homelands to commit high-profile acts of terrorism.’

‘They included half a dozen from the United Kingdom, several Canadians, some Germans and three Americans,’ the book continues. ‘None of their names was known’.”

NATO official to press feds for post-2011 help training Afghans
Postmedia News, Sept. 22, by Matthew Fisher (usual copyright disclaimer)
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/NATO+official+press+Ottawa+post+2011+help+training+Afghans/3563855/story.html#ixzz10MPWgObA

KABUL — NATO’s ambassador to Afghanistan is flying 11,000 kilometres to Ottawa late next week to try to convince the Harper government that the alliance badly needs military trainers to school Afghan security forces and that Canada is ideally suited to provide them after its combat mission in Kandahar ends on July 1, 2011.

“I will speak to Canada about the overall progress of the campaign and where we think the shortfalls are and where we need additional resources and rebalancing,” Mark Sedwill said in an interview Wednesday at NATO’s fortress-like headquarters in the Afghan capital.

“Any decision that Canada makes now or in the future to continue to provide input on the military or civilian side would be tremendously welcome and not only because of the political importance of Canada.

“Canada has a first-rate army and with the experience of combat on the ground in Kandahar that army has been tested and tempered in the most difficult circumstances. Canada’s skills in training, as in every other area of military competence are first rate.”

The visit to Parliament Hill by Sedwill, who has served in the region for many years as a senior British diplomat, is part of a concentrated, multi-pronged strategy by NATO and its biggest players to persuade Prime Minister Stephen Harper of the crucial importance they attach to Canada maintaining some kind of military role in Afghanistan, which is slated to drop from nearly 3,000 troops to zero next year.

In a clear sign of the high importance that NATO and the U.S. attach to recruiting more trainers from across the alliance, U.S. President Barack Obama and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen considered ways to tackle the training shortfalls when they met last week in Washington [interview with Mr Rasmussen here
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129717432  ]…

While NATO was acutely aware of the political “sensitivity” in Ottawa of what Sedwill referred to as this “delicate issue,” he said that “I don’t regard the door closed with Canada or any other country.”..

A resolution passed by Parliament early in 2008 stated that Canada’s military mission in Kandahar must end next summer. However, the motion left open the possibility that troops could be deployed elsewhere in Afghanistan after that date. The House’s defence committee has called for a debate this fall on Canada’s military role after the Kandahar mission closes.

The Liberal party formally decided several months ago that it backed Canadian troops staying on in a training role here after next year. Many Conservatives are known to be of a like mind as the Liberals, but until now the prime minister has insisted that all the troops must come home.

NATO would not make a specific demand for troops when he visits Canada’s capital, Sedwill said. But it is an open secret that NATO would like Ottawa to contribute at least several hundred military trainers to teach in Afghan army and police academies.

Such an assignment would not involve the far more dangerous work of mentoring Afghan forces in the field [emphasis added]. It would also cost a tiny fraction of the current combat mission…

…the number of Canadian casualties has dipped sharply this year [emphasis added] as its task force’s area of operations has shrunk to two, still very dangerous districts to the west of Kandahar City, after a huge influx of U.S. troops into the south of the country.

Afghanistan security 'deteriorating:' Feds
Postmedia News, Sept. 22
http://www.canada.com/news/SOMNIA/3564521/story.html

OTTAWA — Afghanistan’s security situation is “deteriorating,” with a rise in insurgent violence and intimidation of civilians, according to a new report on the war by the Harper government [report available here
http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/news-nouvelles/2010/2010_09_22.aspx?lang=eng ].

The latest quarterly report by the government, which covers the period from April 1 to June 30, also notes the assassination of several Afghan officials and an “early escalation of the fighting season.”

“This quarter was marked by a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, with increasing insurgent violence and intimidation targeting civilians, the assassination of several officials from Afghan government institutions and civil society, and an early escalation of the fighting season,” states the report, referring to the security situation as “increasingly volatile.”..

Despite the increasing violence, the report notes that Canada has made progress on a number of fronts. For example, the report notes that Afghan National Army forces have doubled in the dangerous Zhari district of Kandahar province, although the ANA’s overall capacity remained “unchanged,” according to the report.

Among other signs of progress, workers cleared 52,000 cubic metres of silt as part of the refurbishment of the Dahla Dam in Kandahar province, one of Canada’s “signature” reconstruction projects.

Three schools were refurbished with the help of Canadian Forces, bringing the number of refurbished schools to 19. More than 390,000 children in Kandahar received vaccinations for polio through a Canadian program…

Paramilitary force is key for CIA
Washington Post, Sept. 23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/22/AR2010092206141.html

On an Afghan ridge 7,800 feet above sea level, about four miles from Pakistan, stands a mud-brick fortress nicknamed the Alamo. It is officially dubbed Firebase Lilley, and it is a nerve center in the covert war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The CIA has relied on Lilley, part of a constellation of agency bases across Afghanistan, as a hub to train and deploy a well-armed 3,000-member Afghan paramilitary force collectively known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. In addition to being used for surveillance, raids and combat operations in Afghanistan, the teams are crucial to the United States' secret war in Pakistan, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The existence of the teams is disclosed in "Obama's Wars," a forthcoming book by longtime Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward. But, more broadly, interviews with sources familiar with the CIA's operations, as well as a review of the database of 76,000 classified U.S. military field reports posted last month by the Web site WikiLeaks, reveal an agency that has a significantly larger covert paramilitary presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan than previously known.

The operations are particularly sensitive in Pakistan, a refuge for senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders where U.S. units are officially prohibited from conducting missions.

The WikiLeaks reports, which cover the escalation of the Afghan insurgency from 2004 until the end of 2009, include many descriptions of the activities of the "OGA" and "Afghan OGA" forces. OGA, which stands for "other government agency," is generally used as a reference to the CIA.

In clipped and coded language, the field logs provide glimpses into the kinds of operations undertaken by the CIA and its Afghan paramilitary units along the Pakistani border. In addition to accounts of snatch-and-grab operations targeting insurgent leaders, the logs contain casualtyreports from battles with the Taliban, summaries of electronic intercepts of enemy communications and hints of the heavy firepower at the CIA's disposal...

A U.S. official familiar with the operations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the teams as "one of the best Afghan fighting forces," adding that they have made "major contributions to stability and security."

The official said that the teams' primary mission is to improve security in Afghanistan and that they do not engage in "lethal action" when crossing into Pakistan. Their cross-border missions are "designed exclusively for intelligence collection [emphasis added]," the official said...

The agency's paramilitary wing, known as the Special Activities Division, has been active in Afghanistan since the U.S.-backed effort to oust the Taliban government began in 2001. But current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the CIA almost immediately began assembling an elite Afghan commando force that has expanded in scale and mission over the past nine years...

Over the past eight years, however, new units have been created in other locations, including Kandahar [emphasis added]. Their missions vary from sensitive intelligence-gathering operations to carefully orchestrated takedowns of Taliban targets...

The CIA has been running operations for several years from its eastern Afghan bases, which generally are shared with U.S. Special Operations forces and other military units. U.S. officials said that the CIA and the military frequently use different names for the same base and that the agency code names do not necessarily correspond with those used in the WikiLeaks records...

Mark
Ottawa

   

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 23, 2010

Two Afghan journalists seized by ISAF
Article Link

New York, September 22, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the detention of two Afghan journalists seized by International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in early-morning raids at their homes this week.

Rahmatullah Nekzad, a freelancer who contributes to Al-Jazeera and The Associated Press,was arrested just after midnight Monday in Ghazni, according to local and international media reports. Mohammed Nader,a staff correspondent for Al-Jazeera, was arrested about 4 a.m. Wednesday in Kandahar. Another person was taken with Nader, but that individual's identity was not immediately clear.

In an e-mailed statement to CPJ, ISAF media affairs officer Lt. Cdr. Katie Kendrick said broadly that "Afghan and coalition forces had intelligence information linking the men to Taliban propaganda networks."

Samer Allawi, Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Kandahar, told CPJ that ISAF would not disclose specific details of the arrests, including the two journalists' current whereabouts. He noted that, like many journalists, the two men have contact with all parties in the conflict, including the Taliban.
More on link

Afghan insurgents packing more objects into bombs
Updated 14h 39m ago By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Doctors at the NATO hospital here were shocked by what they saw on the brain image of an Afghan soldier flown in following a roadside bomb explosion.

A 3-inch-long, threaded steel bolt was buried deep inside the man's head.

"I thought, this poor guy is doomed," recalls Navy Cmdr. Steven Cobery, 44, a U.S. military neurosurgeon in Afghanistan.

Insurgents are creating more destructive roadside bombs this year by packing them with nails, screws, bolts, metal coils, ball bearings and other materials, according to doctors treating wounded U.S. and coalition troops here.

The number of casualties suffering multiple wounds from these objects has increased from about a dozen in March to around 100 each month this summer, according to Navy Capt. Michael Mullins, spokesman for the NATO hospital operated by the U.S. Navy outside Kandahar.

The casualties include not only U.S. soldiers and Marines, but also coalition and Afghan troops and Afghan civilians hurt by roadside bombs, Mullins says. About half of the casualties are American servicemembers, he says.

Cobery says he has seen several instances of household objects used in bombs. An Afghan soldier lost his left eye to shrapnel made of leather from the tongue of a shoe, he says.

"I've taken (centimeter-wide) ball bearings out of someone's spine," he says. "It's crazy."

The wounds complicate treatment and can cause excessive bleeding and infection, says Canadian Air Force Maj. Cathy Mountford, an emergency room doctor who has worked at the NATO hospital for five months.
More on link

Culture clash: Canadian soldiers learning about life in Afghanistan
By: Dene Moore, The Canadian Press Posted: 22/09/2010
Article Link

The Pashtun people of southern Afghanistan have a saying: "He is not a Pathan who does not give a blow for a pinch."

"Nang" and "badal" — honour and revenge, respectively — trump even the holy book of the Qur'an for many Pashtuns, and so it is with caution that Canada sends its troops to live among them as part of its widening counter-insurgency strategy in Kandahar province.

It's widely understood that, as the proverb suggests, a Pashtun (or Pathan) man will respond aggressively to even the most minor slight, extracting revenge to defend the honour of himself and his family. Those considered friends and guests are protected and respected with the same zeal.

"Respect and honour is very important to them," said Capt. Paul Stokes, a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment battle group currently in Kandahar.

Canadian soldiers bound for Afghanistan are taught about the different tribal and family affiliations that have affected the tides of war in the region for generations. They're warned of the sometimes primitive living conditions and taught a few words of Pashto. Some even carry well-thumbed phrasebooks.

But nothing can entirely prepare them for the experience of living among the locals, Stokes said. "You can teach it in class, but you don't appreciate it until you see the differences and experience it."
More on link

Women don't have to die
  Article Link
By Kate Heartfield, The Ottawa Citizen September 23, 2010 Comments (1)

The United States government's DipNote blog asked, last week, "What concrete steps can we take to help overcome these obstacles and meet the MDGs?"

One commenter, "Flavius in Virginia," answered, "The first thing you can do is extend your deadline a thousand years, because we've been trying to do these things for at least five millennia and we still aren't even close. Millennium Development Goals! Who comes up with this stuff, anyway?"

I quote this anonymous online comment only because it's so succinctly representative of a common attitude, one that is sometimes expressed with more erudition but is always based on errors of fact. Actually, Flavius, we just started trying to do this stuff, and we've made astonishing progress.

For as long as humans have existed, procreation has exacted a terrible price -- for one half of humanity, anyway. We women simply had to accept the strong possibility that giving birth would kill us, probably in a painful and lingering way. We'd bleed to death or get infections. There was nothing we could do about it, short of celibacy.

There was also an excellent chance we would watch at least one baby die. In sorrow we brought forth children.
More on link

 

[old medic]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/23/pakistan-scientist-86-years-shooting


Pakistan neuroscientist given 86 years for shooting at US agents

Aafia Siddiqui grabbed gun from American captors who she says falsely imprisoned her as an al-Qaida agent in Afghanistan

Aafia Siddiqui, a US-trained Pakistani neuroscientist who was named as one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, was today sentenced to 86 years in prison by a New York court, in a case that has prompted outrage in Pakistan.

Siddiqui, 38, was convicted of attempted murder this year after shooting at US soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan in 2008 as she tried to escape from custody. Siddiqui claimed she had been abducted by US agents and held incommunicado in Afghanistan for five years. The case has drawn appeals from the Pakistani government for her release, and divided legal opinion.

Protesters took to the streets across Pakistan after the sentence, lighting fires and chanting anti-American slogans. The Jamaat-e-Islami religious party announced a national strike after weekly prayers. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif said he was "saddened"‚ by the sentence; his brother Shahbaz, the chief minister of Punjab province, called the sentence a "crime against humanity".

Siddiqui's family in Karachi accused the US justice system of bias against Muslims. "This is the beginning of the greatest travesty of justice," said her sister Fowzia, who has campaigned for the past two years. "My sister is going to come back. This is not her downfall. This is her victory."

Although the FBI accused Siddiqui of supporting al-Qaida, she was not charged with terrorism. But prosecutors alleged that when she was arrested in Afghanistan two years ago she was found with instructions on how to assemble bombs and a list of New York city landmarks.

Prosecutors said that as US agents were about to interrogate her, she grabbed an assault rifle and opened fire, shouting "death to Americans". The Americans were uninjured, but Siddiqui was shot and brought to New York for trial after she recovered.

Before the sentencing, Siddiqui repeated her claim that she had been abducted and held at a "secret prison" for several years. She said she only wanted peace in the world. "I do not want any bloodshed. I do not want any misunderstanding. I really want to make peace and end the wars."

The defence had argued that her seizing the gun and opening fire was a spontaneous "freak-out", that had more to do with mental illness than al-Qaida.

"Mentally ill and caught in the crossfire of a war that is no longer fought on conventional battlegrounds, Dr Siddiqui's self destructive behaviour got her shot once in the abdomen, charged with attempted murder and convicted of the same," the defence said.

During the trial she made rambling denunciations of the US and Israel. She was ejected from court several times.

Prosecutors asked for life, on the grounds that she was an al-Qaida supporter and a danger to the US. "Her conduct was not senseless or thoughtless. It was deliberate and premeditated. Siddiqui should be punished accordingly."

The judge, Richard Berman, said "significant incarceration" was appropriate.

Siddiqui urged her supporters to remain calm. "Don't get angry," she said. "Forgive Judge Berman."

Siddiqui trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University in the early 1990s. US authorities claim she returned to Pakistan in 2003 after marrying an al-Qaida operative related to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

Her disappearance for five years has never been adequately explained, but there is a widespread belief in Pakistan that the Pakistan government handed her over to the US in 2003, and that she was tortured and interrogated.

Mindful of public opinion, Pakistan's government paid $2m for a US defence team and the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, and publicly appealed to Washington to release Siddiqui or have her repatriated to a Pakistani prison.

 

[old medic]

How the CIA ran a secret army of 3,000 assassins
By Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Thursday, 23 September 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-the-cia-ran-a-secret-army-of-3000-assassins-2087039.html

The US Central Intelligence Agency is running and paying for a secret 3,000-strong army of Afghan paramilitaries whose main aim is assassinating Taliban and al-Qa'ida operatives not just in Afghanistan but across the border in neighbouring Pakistan's tribal areas, according to Bob Woodward's explosive book.

Although the CIA has long been known to run clandestine militias in Afghanistan, including one from a base it rents from the Afghan president Hamid Karzai's half-brother in the southern province of Kandahar, the sheer number of militiamen directly under its control have never been publicly revealed.

Woodward's book, Obama's Wars, describes these forces as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qa'ida and Afghan Taliban havens there. Two US newspapers published the claims after receiving copies of the manuscript.

The secret army is split into "Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams", and is thought to be responsible for the deaths of many Pakistani Taliban fighters who have crossed the border into Afghanistan to fight Nato and Afghan government forces there.

There are ever-increasing numbers of "kill-or-capture" missions undertaken by US Special Forces against Afghan Taliban and foreign fighters, who hope to drive rank-and-file Taliban towards the Afghan government's peace process by eliminating their leaders. The suspicion is that the secret army is working in close tandem with them.

Although no comment has been forthcoming, it is understood that the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, approves of the mission, which bears similarities to the covert assassination campaign against al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which was partially credited with stemming the tide of violence after the country imploded between 2004 and 2007.

The details of the clandestine army have surprised no one in Kabul, the Afghan capital, although the fact that the information is now public is unprecedented. There have been multiple reports of the CIA running its own militias in southern Afghanistan.

The operation also has powerful echoes of clandestine operations of the 1990s, when the CIA recruited and ran a militia inside the Afghan border with the sole purpose of killing Osama bin Laden. The order then that a specially recruited Afghan militia was "to capture him alive" – the result of protracted legal wrangles about when, how and if Osama bin Laden could be killed – doomed efforts to assassinate him before 9/11.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Afghan elections and progress
Conference of Defence Associations’ media round-up, Sept. 24
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1285354510/0#0

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Voice of Panjwaii: Canadians hope to win Afghan hearts over the airwaves
Article Link
By: Dene Moore, The Canadian Press Posted: 24/09/2010

In a room barely bigger than a closet in a remote Canadian military base in the Panjwaii district, a young disc jockey holds a cellphone up to the microphone in front of him.

The caller is reciting poetry, and Panjwaii is listening.

This is the Voice of Panjwaii, one of five very small, local radio stations broadcasting from Canadian military bases throughout Kandahar province as part of NATO's psychological war against the Taliban insurgency.

"Recently we started doing music requests," said Lt. Aaron Lesarge, the soldier who is — for all intents and purposes — the station manager.

"We do have a few people who call in every day to ask for the same songs."

Kandahar province has an estimated 90 per cent illiteracy rate and residents have limited, if any, access to electricity, let alone televisions or the Internet. Locals rely on radio for their information and Kandahar has 15 stations, up from just one or two a few years ago.

Voice of Panjwaii has been on air since June, broadcasting news, government announcements, weather and other programs throughout the district southwest of Kandahar city where Canadians have been concentrating their efforts in Afghanistan.

Local elders and mullahs come to the station to speak, as well as the district governor. There are quiz shows and the station has its own most-requested list of traditional Afghan songs, but by far the most popular program is the call-in show.

Voice of Panjwaii is receiving 40 to 50 phone calls a day from listeners.

About 80 per cent of Panjwaii residents have radios, said Lesarge. Canadian soldiers have handed out an estimated 30,000 units over the past two year in the province.

It's all part of the quiet, psychological war going on to win the hearts and minds of Afghans.

"The biggest battle in a place like this is simply informing people what's going on," said navy Lt. Mark Shepherd of Information Operations for Task Force Kandahar. "There's a big language barrier and there's a big cultural battle here."
More on link

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 26, 2010

Military has a 'don't ask, won't tell' media policy on wounded, documents
Article Link
By: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press Posted: 26/09/2010

National Defence has a "Don't ask, won't tell" policy on Canadian soldiers wounded in Kandahar.

The department will release statistics on how many are injured, but only if the department is specifically asked about the information, say federal documents.

The army stopped reporting battlefield injuries to journalists on the ground late last year as part of a stepped up campaign to confuse the Taliban on what kind of damage it inflicted on the battle group.

As a result, the public didn't hear about the injuries suffered by two soldiers until after they had died in hospital from their wounds earlier this year.

New Democrat defence critic Jack Harris said the policy of waiting to be asked about the wounded flies in the face of the federal government's pledge of accountability and gives the public a skewed view of the war.

"It's a very sad thing when you find out at the end of the year that our soldiers are essentially reduced to statistics on an ask-only basis," Harris said. "This is not accountability. When harm is being done to our troops, that's important to know."

The federal government says it's responded to the "public's right to know," while maintaining operational security, by releasing the figures on an annual basis.

But a series of emails between policy officials and public affairs staff at National Defence last spring, obtained by The Canadian Press under access to information laws, show that even when compiled annually and stripped of specific incident details, the government is reluctant to disclose the numbers.

"This information will be used reactively for media queries and statistics will be provided via e-mail to interested reporters," wrote Christopher Williams, a ministerial liaison in the department's public affairs branch on March 24, 2010.
More on link

4 kidnapped in Afghanistan: Police
By REUTERS
Article Link

A British woman and three of her Afghan colleagues have been kidnapped by armed men in a remote part of Afghanistan, an Afghan police chief said on Sunday.

The police chief for Kunar province, a rugged region bordering Pakistan, said they were seized while visiting an unspecified project in the area.

Khalilullah Ziayee described the abductors as armed men, saying a search was launched to find the group. The motive behind the kidnapping was not immediately clear, he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban earlier said he was unaware of the incident. In a brief statement Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed it was urgently investigating reports a British citizen had gone missing in the country.

Kunar is an area held by the Taliban known for a series of foreign kidnappings in recent years.

The insurgents are holding two French journalists they seized last December to the northeast of Kabul.
More on link

Pakistan minister quits after accusing army of killings
  26 September 2010 Last updated at 04:42 ET
Article Link

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani meeting army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani, 12 Sept 2010 The army has played a major role in Pakistani politics

The Pakistani minister for defence production has resigned after criticising the military.

Abdul Qayum Jatoi had told journalists on Saturday that the Pakistani army was provided with funds to defend the country, not to get involved in political assassinations.

His comments were played repeatedly on Pakistani television channels.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani summoned him to explain his remarks and a short time later, Mr Jatoi resigned.
More on link

Promises of new life in Canada not coming to pass for many Afghan interpreters
Article Link
By: Dene Moore, The Canadian Press Posted: 26/09/2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Canadian soldiers had just arrived in Kandahar province in 2006 when a local interpreter — everyone knew him simply as Max — took some shrapnel to his left eye from a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade.

The attack came during Operation Medusa, one of the bloodiest of the war. The driver sitting in front of Max was killed in the blast; the two soldiers riding with him were also injured.

Max, who cannot be identified because he continues to help Canadian troops bridge the language cap with local villagers, was evacuated to the base at Kandahar Airfield, where he underwent emergency surgery, with at least one follow-up operation.

His left eye still bears the scars of that battle.

And yet Max has twice been turned down in his efforts to immigrate to Canada under a new fast-track program for Afghans who face "extraordinary personal risk" because of their work with the mission in Kandahar.

"The first time, they said I was missing one piece of paper," Max said in an interview. The second time, they said he did not qualify.

"They denied me. I don't know why."

When he first made the announcement in the spring of 2009, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney predicted "a few hundred" applicants would qualify by the time the combat mission — and the program — ended in 2011.
More on link

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 27

NATO launches airstrikes into Pakistan
AP, Sept. 27
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD9IG5SB00

KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO helicopters in eastern Afghanistan launched rare major airstrikes into Pakistan, reportedly killing more than 50 militants, officials said Monday, while international forces began a key combat phase to drive out Taliban fighters around the southern city of Kandahar.

The airstrikes across the border came after the insurgents attacked a small Afghan security outpost near the border, and NATO justified the strikes based on “the right of self-defense,” a spokesman said. Pakistan is sensitive about attacks on its territory, but U.S. officials have said they have an agreement that allows aircraft to cross a few miles into Pakistani airspace if they are in hot pursuit of a target…

The strike killed 49 militants, said U.S. Maj. Michael Johnson, another ISAF spokesman…

International and Afghan forces in the south, meanwhile, were moving into two or three areas around Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan at once to pressure the Taliban “so they don’t get the chance to run away,” Shah Mohammad Ahmadi, chief of Arghandab district northwest of the city, said Monday…

A top NATO officer said Sunday that the alliance a few days ago had launched a “kinetic,” or combat, phase of “Operation Dragon Strike,” a joint military push with Afghan forces around Kandahar intended to rid the area of insurgents and interrupt their ability to move freely and stage attacks…

“Afghanistan and coalition forces are destroying Taliban positions so they will have nowhere to hide,”..

American and Afghan Troops Begin Combat for Kandahar
NY Times, Sept. 26
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/world/asia/27afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — American and Afghan troops began active combat last week in an offensive to drive the Taliban out of their strongholds surrounding the city of Kandahar, military officials said Sunday.

In the last several days, soldiers shifted from guarding aid workers and sipping tea with village elders to actively hunting down Taliban fighters in marijuana fields and pomegranate orchards laced with booby traps.

Sixteen Americans have died in the push so far, including two killed by a roadside bomb on Sunday.

The combat phase began five or six days ago in the Arghandab, Zhari and Panjwai Districts, Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said, defining the current phase for the first time…

This is the first large-scale combat operation involving multiple objectives in Kandahar Province, where a military offensive was originally expected to begin in June. That offensive was downgraded to more of a joint civil-military effort after the military encountered problems containing the Taliban in the much smaller city of Marja and because Afghan leaders feared high civilian casualties.

During the last week of August, at the instigation of Afghan authorities, American troops supported a major push into the Mehlajat area on the southwest edge of Kandahar City, driving the Taliban from that area with few casualties on either side.

At the time, military officials said that was the beginning of what would be an increase in active combat around Kandahar…

Last Tuesday, a United States Army platoon left Forward Operating Base Wilson early in the morning and within 10 minutes, Taliban insurgents had opened fire with small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Although helicopter gunships were soon overhead to support the ground forces, the insurgents continued to fire on the patrol throughout the day as the troops made their way through vineyards and fields of marijuana plants 10 feet high.

None of the Americans were wounded or killed on that patrol.

Journalists from The New York Times, during a weeklong stay there, observed that every time soldiers left their bases, they were either shot at or hit with bombs, often hidden or booby-trapped.

Frequently, the Taliban did not — as they normally would — stop shooting once air support arrived [emphasis added]…

Along with the military buildup has come a similar effort to increase the presence of State Department employees, along with aid contractors paid by the Americans, who would serve as stabilization teams in those areas.

Although some 300 American civilian staff members have arrived in Kandahar Province, at the district levels there are only a few, mainly because of security concerns.

In Arghandab, where the civilian effort is deemed to have been the most successful, the district team consists of two Americans in addition to contractors and local employees…

`Positive change' in security in Kandahar, Canadian officer says.
Postmedia News, Sept. 24, by Matthew Fisher
http://www.canada.com/Positive+change+security+Kandahar+Canadian+officer+says/3574493/story.html

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - Canada's last task force to wage war in Kandahar before Ottawa brings the combat troops home next summer "sees a lot of signs on the ground" that security is improving.

After "a challenging summer, the commander's assessment is that there is a positive change," said Lt.-Col Doug Claggett, chief of staff for Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, whose task force took over on Sept. 9.

"We have seen a decrease in the number of events, both of insurgents and IEDs . . . We are finding more than actually happen."

The government's quarterly report on Afghanistan, released Wednesday in Ottawa, noted that April 1 to June 30 "was marked by a deteriorating security situation, with increasing insurgent violence and intimidation targeting civilians," as well as an early escalation of the fighting season.

Part of the recent decline in IED strikes could be attributed to the doubling of Afghan army forces in the district, where most of Canada's combat forces are now concentrated, as well as to a huge influx of U.S. troops into the province, Claggett said...

Particularly encouraging to Canada's battle group, which has almost all of its combat forces deployed in Panjwaii District, west of Kandahar City, was the fact "there were no attacks on polling stations in our (area of responsibility)" during parliamentary elections last Saturday...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Further to third story immediately above, audio from CFRA Ottawa:
http://www.cfra.com/interviews/default.asp

…
Monday, September 27, 2010
Afghan Security Improving
Madely in the Morning – 8:40am — Steve Madely is joined by Matthew Fisher, PostMedia News Middle East and South Asia bureau chief in Afghanistan.
mp3 (click here to download)
http://www.cfra.com/chum_audio/Matthew_Fisher_Sept27.mp3
…

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 28

AfPak droning on
Unambiguously Ambidextrous, Sept. 28 [not time to do each individually here, MC]
http://unambig.com/afpak-droning-on/

Your UAV fix for today, and other things:

    Drones Target Terror Plot
    CIA Strikes Intensify in Pakistan Amid Heightened Threats in Europe [see also "shocker" below]

    C.I.A. Steps Up Drone Attacks in Pakistan to Thwart Taliban

    Pakistani government condemns NATO airstrikes

    Petraeus Says Taliban Have Reached Out to Karzai...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 28, 2010

Pakistan criticizes NATO airstrikes
Last Updated: Monday, September 27, 2010
Article Link

Pakistan is criticizing NATO for launching a pair of deadly airstrikes on its territory, saying the cross-border strikes were a violation of its sovereignty.

As many as 50 militants were killed in the airstrikes, which were launched over the weekend after a group of insurgents attacked an Afghan security post in Khost province.

U.S. officials have said they have an agreement that allows aircraft to cross a few kilometres into Pakistani airspace if they are in hot pursuit of a target, but Pakistan denied Monday that such an agreement exists.

U.S. Capt. Ryan Donald, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said ISAF "maintains the right to self-defence, and that's why they crossed the Pakistan border."

Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Ministry, however, said in a statement that the mandate of foreign troops in Afghanistan ends at the Afghan border, and the strikes were a violation of its sovereignty.
More on link

Soldiers expected to report suspicions of Afghan detainee abuse, hearing told
  Article Link
By Juliet O'Neill, Postmedia News September 27, 2010

Canadian soldiers were expected to report on and intervene in cases of possible abuse of Afghan detainees but there were no written orders to do so, Lt.-Col. Brian Irwin testified at a public hearing Monday.

"The expectation would certainly not have been that we would have handed over any detainee with the belief that they were going to be abused or mistreated," Irwin told the Military Police Complaints Commission.

Irwin was chief of staff of Task Force Afghanistan for eight months in 2006-07 and later a commander at CEFCOM, which oversees Canada's military operations abroad.

The hearings are into complaints by Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association that Canadian military police wrongly failed to investigate the transfer by Canadian Forces of detainees to Afghan authorities on grounds they faced a risk of torture.

The complaint period covers May 3, 2007, to June 12, 2008.
More on link

Troops begin search in Kandahar as coalition offensive under way
Article Link
Sep 27, 2010

Hundreds of Afghan and NATO forces on Monday began sweeping the southern city of Kandahar for Taliban insurgents and weapons caches, as combat operations were under way in surrounding districts.

Afghan police and soldiers backed by US and Canadian troops were searching homes and vehicles across the Taliban stronghold in an operation designed to drive the militants out of their spiritual home, the province's police chief Fazel Ahmad Sherzad said.

The search came as thousands of Afghan and NATO forces took part in the first large-scale combined offensive around the city.

The operation was originally planned for June, but was repeatedly delayed because of resistance from Afghan leaders, who were concerned about the possibility of civilian casualties.

In recent weeks joint forces have killed or arrested several Taliban leaders in and around Kandahar in a bid to soften the insurgent defences ahead of the operation.

The combat phase, dubbed Operation Dragon Strike, began on Saturday as troops moved into three districts around the city, a NATO spokesman said Sunday.

'We expect hard fighting,' German General Josef Blotz said. 'Afghan and coalition forces are destroying Taliban fighting positions so they will not have anywhere left to hide.'
More on link

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND SEPT. 29

Afghanistan president questions NATO mission in teary speech
Hamid Karzai also condemns violence committed by the Taliban. His emotional display is apparently prompted by the assassination of a deputy governor in Ghazni province.
LA Times, Sept. 29
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-assassination-20100929,0,4701395.story

Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan —
President Hamid Karzai broke into tears Tuesday while delivering a speech in which he questioned the efficacy of the NATO military mission in Afghanistan and condemning an epidemic of violence gripping his country.

In the same speech, the Afghan leader called on Taliban "compatriots" to lay down their arms. The government Tuesday named a nearly 70-member council to make peace overtures to the insurgency, whose leaders have rebuffed Karzai's appeals to come to the bargaining table.

The presidential outburst was apparently prompted by the assassination of a deputy governor in Ghazni province, south of Kabul, which has become a hotbed of insurgent activity. A suicide blast aimed at the convoy of the deputy governor, Kazim Allayar, killed him and at least six other people, Afghan officials said.

...emotional displays are not considered all that unusual in Afghan public life. Karzai has cried in public before when denouncing civilian casualties caused by Western troops, and the incident did not cause a particular stir.

Once a darling of the West, the Afghan leader has been under heavy pressure from the Obama administration and other NATO partners to clean up corruption in his government. Two of the president's brothers, Mahmoud Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, have come under scrutiny over their financial dealings...

The president's eyes welled and his voice cracked when he expressed fears that young Afghans might choose to emigrate rather than live amid spiraling violence. He wept outright as he spoke of his son Mirwais, a preschooler born in 2007.

"I do not want Mirwais, my son, to be a foreigner.... I want Mirwais to be Afghan, to grow up in this land, to go to school here," Karzai said. "I want Afghan teachers to teach him. I want him to grow up and become a doctor and serve his people, and be buried here."

Addressing the Taliban directly, he said: "Do not destroy your country for the benefit of others. Do not kill your people for the benefit of others.... Any firing of a bullet is a shot in the heart of this country."

The president spoke a day after U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of Western forces in Afghanistan, told reporters that the Karzai government has had contacts with the Taliban leadership. It was the most explicit assertion to date by such a senior American official that high-level contacts were taking place...

Bob Woodward's book portrays a great divide over Afghanistan
Washington Post, Sept. 29 (editorial)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092805200.html

SUPPORTERS OF President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan can only be disheartened by the portrait of his administration provided in Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars." By Mr. Woodward's account, many of the president's senior White House advisers believe that the modified counterinsurgency strategy he adopted last year is doomed to fail -- and some suspect the president shares their views.

The administration's lengthy deliberations about whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan last fall produced a sharp debate between Mr. Obama's White House and the military commanders responsible for Afghanistan -- and the rift appears to endure.

...Mr. Woodward's reporting raises a question we have asked in the past: Why does the president continue to employ aides -- including an ambassador in Kabul -- who do not support his policy and are frequently at odds with those trying to implement it?

What's most disturbing in Mr. Woodward's book is the evidence it offers that Mr. Obama's own commitment to his plan is weak. The president is described as preoccupied with finding "an exit strategy" that will reduce the U.S. military involvement as quickly as possible. "This needs to be a plan about how we are going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Mr. Woodward quotes him as saying in one meeting. 

Mr. Obama repeatedly cites the cost of the war and the need to shift resources to domestic priorities -- though spending on Afghanistan is well below 1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. He is portrayed as citing purely political reasons for setting the deadline of July 2011 for beginning a withdrawal: "I can't lose all the Democratic Party," he is quoted as telling one senator...

Perhaps the most damning assessment of the president comes from Gen. Lute, who Mr. Woodward says concluded that "Obama had to do this 18-month surge just to demonstrate, in effect, that it couldn't be done . . . the president had treated the military as another political constituency that had to be accommodated." For the sake of the Americans fighting in Afghanistan, and the families of the 360 service members who have died there this year, we hope that is not the case.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[old medic]

Militant plot to attack British, French, German cities thwarted, report says

Rueters
29 Sept 2010
copy at: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-al-qaeda-attacks-20100930,0,5039460.story

Britain's Sky News says the simultaneous attacks were being planned by militants in Pakistan believed to be linked to Al Qaeda. It says an increase in U.S. drone attacks is tied to the plan.

LONDON —
Intelligence agencies have disrupted plans for multiple attacks on European cities by a group thought to be linked to Al Qaeda, Britain's Sky News said on Tuesday.

Militants based in Pakistan were planning simultaneous strikes in London, as well as cities in France and Germany, the channel's foreign affairs editor, Tim Marshall, said.

Asked about the Sky News report, U.S. security officials said they could not confirm that a plot had been disrupted. But they said they believed that the threat of a plot or plots was continuing.

U.S. counter-terrorism agencies are poring over intelligence reports suggesting a major attack plot is in the works against unspecified targets in Western Europe or possibly the United States, they said.

Four U.S. security officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that initial intelligence reports about the threat first surfaced roughly two weeks ago, around the time of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Marshall said an increase in drone attacks in Pakistan in the past few weeks was linked to attempts by Western powers to disrupt the plot, which was at an "advanced but not imminent stage."

British security sources declined to comment on the Sky News report.

Britain in January raised its international terrorism threat level to "severe" -- the second-highest level of alert in the five-tier system.

The head of Britain's MI5 Security Service, Jonathan Evans, said on Sept. 16 there remained "a serious risk of a lethal attack taking place."

The Eiffel Tower and the surrounding Champ de Mars park were briefly evacuated Tuesday because of a bomb alert, the fourth such alert in the Paris region in as many weeks, but a search turned up nothing, police said.

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said Sept. 20 that France faced a real terrorism threat due to a backlash from Al Qaeda militants in North Africa, with fears growing of an attack from home-grown cells within French borders.

Citing unidentified intelligence sources, Sky said the planned attacks would have been similar to the commando-style raids carried out in Mumbai by Pakistan-based gunmen in 2008.

The heavily armed militants launched an assault on various targets in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal hotel and the city's main train station.

The United States appeared to have widened drone aircraft attacks against Al Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan and might have killed a senior leader of the group, Pakistani and U.S. officials said Tuesday.

U.S. officials declined to comment on specific plots in Europe or elsewhere but acknowledged that targeted drone strikes in Pakistan were meant to disrupt militant networks planning attacks.

The U.S. national security officials said that most of the threat reporting suggested that the targets of whatever plots were underway were in Europe. One of the officials said, however, that there was particular concern that U.S. interests in Europe might be targeted.

Two officials also said that they could not rule out the possibility that some of the threat reporting could relate to attack plots underway which might be directed at targets inside the United States. One of these officials added that the intelligence reporting was tangled and could mean that more than one plot has been set in motion.

U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper declined to comment directly on any European plot but stressed that Al Qaeda remained committed to attacking Europe and the United States.

"We are not going to comment on specific intelligence, as doing so threatens to undermine intelligence operations that are critical to protecting the U.S. and our allies," Clapper said in a statement.