Canada handoff of Afghan battle zones marks ‘new era’
Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service
http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/www.nationalpost.com/0809-afghanistan.jpg Matthew Fisher/Canwest News Service
ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan -- Canada transferred responsibility for the northern approaches to Kandahar City to the United States on Sunday in a move designed to allow the Canadian battle group to concentrate on fighting the Taliban in the provincial capital and three notoriously turbulent, heavily populated outlying districts.
As Kandahar's governor, the province's top Afghan general and several dozen wizened Pashtun elders listened intently, Brig-Gen. Jon Vance of Task Force Kandahar introduced Col. Harry Tunnell IV, commander of the U.S. army's 5th Stryker Brigade.
"Today is the start of a new era in Arghandab and Shawali Kot," Vance said. "I would ask that you welcome him as you welcomed the Canadian soldiers to be guests in your country. He needs your support as he faces difficult challenges."
Canada, is effectively handing over half of its battle space in Kandahar to incoming U.S. forces this month in the east, north and far west of the province.
It has only had 2,000 thinly stretched combat troops to cover an area nearly the size of New Brunswick since the former Liberal government moved them south from Kabul in early 2006.
Canada has lost 127 soldiers in Afghanistan.
"Where we have had forces deployed in very small numbers, conducting very important operations, we can bring them back into our main effort," Vance said in a recent interview with Canwest News Service.
"Where we normally had a company-sized element, they will put in a battalion-sized element and enablers. It is an order of magnitude of difference in capability in those areas, and we get to concentrate our force."
The Stryker brigade, which Vance described Sunday as perhaps "the most advanced in the world" is part of a huge influx of U.S. forces that was ordered to the south of the country by U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this year to try to turn around a war that many observers say is at a stalemate.
On the outside, the eight-wheeled Stryker armoured vehicles resemble the LAV 3s that Canada operates in Afghanistan, but the U.S. vehicles are more heavily armoured and have added capabilities.
The arrival of Tunnell and his Fort Lewis, Wash., brigade's fast and manoeuverable Stryker armoured vehicles will suddenly triple the number of combat forces in Kandahar to about 6,000.
"There are new forces in Kandahar to prevent the insurgency from becoming stronger," Gov. Tooryalai Wesa explained to the elegantly turbaned, heavily bearded elders, whose craggy faces betrayed little emotion throughout the 45-minute shura, or consultation.
"Historically Arghandab is one of the most important districts politically and militarily. If it is insecure, that has an effect on Kandahar City."
"This is a very proud moment for me," said Brig.-Gen. Bashir Khan. "I welcome my new friends and ask the elders to be good partners."
The general, who commands five Afghan battalions, said: "The enemy has tried every year to capture Arghandab District and thereafter Kandahar City," but thanks to the efforts of his troops and the Canadians those efforts have failed.
Outside the Arghandab District headquarters after the meeting ended, Wesa, an Afghan-Canadian professor from the University of British Columbia who was named as governor last December, predicted that the security situation in the birthplace and spiritual home of the Taliban would now "change."
"If we attacked them before in one area, they would move to another and then, when we attacked them there, they'd move to a third place. Now, with many more forces, they will have nowhere to run. They will surrender or they will leave."
Tunnell was quick to point out that Canada will continue to have the lead in construction and development in the province, however military responsibilities would now be split between the two countries.
"The first order of business is to get up and running and meet our coalition partners, the Canadians and the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces)," the colonel said.
The Strykers are equipped with a system that allows team leaders to display and update maps and determine - with the help of satellites, surveillance aircraft and other resources - where the enemy is.
"We are a fully networked infantry force with the ability to capture and analyze data," Tunnell said, adding the intention was to share this information with the Canadians.
The commander of the Stryker battalion assigned to the fertile Arghandab River Valley and neighbouring Shawali Kot, where a Canadian-funded irrigation dam is located, went out last week with soldiers from a reconnaissance squadron of the Quebec-based 12 Royal Armoured Regiment, which is handing over responsibility for the area to this troops.
"They have a real depth of knowledge of the area and they were sharing it with us," said Lt.-Col. Jonathan Neumann. "We do a lot of reliefs-in-place. It is one thing to swap terrain but it is quite another to swap knowledge."
The Stryker Brigade was to have been going to Iraq until its orders were changed several months ago. Problems operating in Afghanistan were not anticipated, Neumann said, because the rugged, arid terrain resembled where his troops prepared for the mission in California's Mojave Desert.