Articles found September 8, 2008
Afghanistan toll will mount unless new strategy is found
By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target Mon. Sep 8 - 5:40 AM
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THE TALIBAN attack in Kandahar last Wednesday that killed three Canadian soldiers and wounded another five is a shocking example of how brazen the insurgents have become in southern Afghanistan.
This attack was not just another roadside bomb but rather a bold ambush by as many as 40 Taliban fighters. It is also believed that the insurgents used a powerful anti-tank weapon, possibly an 82-millimetre recoilless rifle, to penetrate the Canadian light armoured vehicle.
Since the fall of 2006, after the Taliban suffered enormous casualties during NATO’s Operation Medusa, the insurgents have been capable of mounting only pinprick attacks using suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices. Although such tactics continue to kill our soldiers, NATO commanders insisted that the Taliban’s fighting capability had been greatly diminished.
The latest fatalities, including the death of an infantryman in Panjwaii district on Sunday, bring the Canadian death toll in Afghanistan to 97 soldiers and one diplomat, with at least 750 injured.
As we approach the seventh anniversary of the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan, even the most wilfully blind can no longer deny that the security situation is spiralling out of control.
Large-scale terrorist attacks have rocked Kabul several times this year, and 10 French soldiers were killed in an ambush just outside the Afghan capital last month. In July, a battalion-sized force of insurgents practically overran an American outpost in southern Afghanistan. That bloody battle left nine U.S. soldiers dead and 15 wounded.
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A big, red show of support for Canadian troops in Afghanistan
September 08, 2008 Greg Mercer RECORD STAFF NEW HAMBURG
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This time next week, Private Brad Dickin will be leaving for a place very different than this green soccer field.
So he considered it a send-off, of sorts, as he stood in his crisp beige uniform among a sea of people in red.
Dickin, 23, was one of two soldiers who joined a crowd of hundreds of civilians yesterday hoping to send a message of support to Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
As a helicopter flew overhead, the crowd formed the shape of a giant ribbon and unfurled a banner. They sang the national anthem and waved as a photographer hundreds of metres above snapped away, documenting their gathering for the soldiers overseas.
"I feel bad being here, doing this, when I've got friends over there," said Dickin, who is leaving Monday for a six-month-tour of duty in Afghanistan with 2,500 soldiers from CFB Petawawa.
"But this means a lot to me . . . the worse it gets over there, it's great to see people still support us."
Dickin spoke on a day the military confirmed the death of the 97th Canadian soldier since the Afghan mission began in 2002 -- Sgt. Scott Shipway, who was killed when his armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb outside Kandahar.
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U.S. Strikes Taliban Stronghold in Pakistan
By Shaiq Hussain Special to The Washington Post Monday, September 8, 2008; 9:53 AM
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ISLAMABAD, Sept. 8 -- At least 20 people were killed and 25 others injured Monday after several missiles fired by unmanned U.S. Predator drones hit a religious school and the house of a powerful Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan, near the border of Afghanistan, according to witnesses and a Pakistani security official.
The missile strike occurred around 10:30 a.m. in the small village of Dande Darpa Khel in the tribal area of North Waziristan. Bashirullah, a resident of the village who like many ethnic Pashtuns only uses one name, said two Predator drones fired six missiles at a religious seminary school run by top Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. The intense, rapid-fire bombing raid also destroyed Haqqani's nearby home and several other houses, Bashirullah said.
A Pakistani security official in North Waziristan confirmed local villagers' accounts of the attack, saying that the Taliban commander's supporters immediately cordoned off the area around the bombsite and barred anyone from entering. He said that Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin -- a leading Taliban fighter -- were not in any of the targeted buildings when the missiles struck.
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Would-be suicide bomber arrested in Pakistan
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A 16-year-old boy wearing a suicide bomber jacket and carrying a hand grenade was arrested Monday in an army cantonment area in Pakistan's troubled northwest, police said.
Senior police officer Akhtar Ali Shah said the youth was taken into custody Monday morning about 30 miles east of Peshawar, site of a suicide bombing Saturday that killed 35 people.
"Swift action by the police yielded the arrest of the boy, who was brought into the cantonment area by accomplices who are being traced," Shah said.
He said the boy was being interrogated by a joint team of senior investigators from the police and security agencies. He would not speculate on the possible target but said the army's supply corps is located in the area.
In recent weeks, the Pakistani Taliban have said they were to blame for a string of suicide bombings in revenge for military offensives in the northwest region that borders Afghanistan. One attack killed nearly 70 people at a major weapons factory.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide attack on a police checkpoint on the edge of Peshawar, killing seven police officers and 28 other people. He speculated the driver of the explosives-packed pickup truck feared being discovered at the checkpoint and decided to detonate.
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Infantry could help SAS in Afghanistan
Samantha Maiden, Online political editor | September 08, 2008
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DEFENCE Minister Joel Fitzgibbon will consider sending Australian infantry into combat roles in Afghanistan to ease the burden on the elite SAS unit.
In the wake of a warning in The Australian today from NATO's new top commander in Afghanistan that the international coalition is "struggling to win" and about 15,000 more troops are needed, Mr Fitzgibbon said he would not be increasing troop numbers in the region.
However, he would not rule out using infantry in combat roles, for the first time since the Vietnam War.
"It is true that our Special Operations Task group - that is, our special forces people - have had to sustain rotations for a long, long time now," he told ABC Radio today.
"We'll constantly look at how we can take the pressure off our special forces by constantly reviewing and potentially reconfiguring our commitment."
Mr Fitzgibbon said the unrest on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border continued to be a problem.
"We've got to deal with those north-west border regions which are becoming a breeding ground for al-Qa'ida and other insurgent groups, who can too easily make their way across the border into Afghanistan to do their bad work," he said.
"So there are a number of variables and how we deal with each of those variables will determine how long we're there."
General David McKiernan told The Australian's Patrick Walters that he believes the Taliban-led insurgency will never win, with the vast majority of Afghans not wanting a return to a government led by extremists
"That said, however, we are struggling to win,” he said.
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Conservative MP Laurie Hawn thinks Taliban may target Canadian soldiers to impact election
By KEVIN CRUSH, SUN MEDIA
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Canadian soldiers could be targeted by the Taliban as a political ploy, Conservative MP Laurie Hawn said, as news broke that the 97th soldier has been killed in Afghanistan.
“The Taliban know we’re having an election and they’re not just targeting Canadian soldiers, they’re targeting the Canadian public opinion. That’s just the way they operate,” said Hawn, a former fighter pilot and MP for Edmonton-Centre.
Just hours after Prime Minister Stephen Harper pulled the plug on parliament and called an election, news filtered out of Afghanistan that Sgt. Prescott Shipway, a soldier based out of Shilo, Man., had been killed when his armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Panjwaii district.
The timing could have been coincidental but Hawn believes the Taliban know the election has been called and they could step up attacks.
“The Taliban are very sensitive politically. They know what’s going on and they think they can disrupt things by being more active.”
Looking at polls, the war has been an issue with Canadians but it hasn’t been considered one of the voting public’s top issues.
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Berlin pays $20,000 for Afghan deaths
Published Date: September 07, 2008
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BERLIN: Germany paid 20,000 dollars in compensation to relatives of a woman and two children shot dead last week at a checkpoint manned by its soldiers in northern Afghanistan, a report said yesterday. The weekly Der Spiegel, in the report to appear in its next edition out Monday, said two payments had been made by German army officers, initially of 5,000 dollars, with the remainder being handed over on Friday.
A tribal chief in Kundu who received the cash remarked that "the problem with the Germans" was now settled, Der Spiegel added. A German military spokesman in Potsdam, near Berlin contacted by AFP refused to comment yesterday. On Wednesday defense ministry spokesman Christian Dienst said the payment of compensation and an apology for the previous Thursday's incident had prevented the family launching a "vendetta" against German soldiers in revenge.
The measures led to a significant calming of the situation among the Pashtun clan concerned and leads to an improvement in security for German soldiers on the ground," he said. He refused to say how much money had been paid. Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung also made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday to pay his respects to the relatives.
German and NATO forces said that the three were killed after both German and Afghan troops opened fire on a vehicle that had failed to stop at a checkpoint even after warning shots had been fired. It was one of a recent string of incidents that analysts say are damaging the reputation of the almost 70,000 international troops as well as the Afghan government, which need the backing of the local population if they want to beat a Taleban-led insurgency.
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'Beggar' suicide blast, other attacks kill 21 in Afghanistan
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HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — A Taliban suicide bomber dressed as a beggar blew up an Afghan government building Saturday, killing six people, as two NATO soldiers and a dozen other people died in more unrest, officials said.
The disguised bomber gunned down a security guard and then detonated explosives at the government offices, with two state prosecutors among his victims, Nimroz provincial governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad said.
The blast brought down the single-storey building in the town of Zaranj on the southwestern border with Iran, the governor told AFP.
"We have recovered so far six bodies," he said. The dead were provincial attorney Anwar Shah Khan, his 20-year-old son, his deputy and three civilians, Azad said.
"The whole building has collapsed. There might be more casualties," he added.
A spokesman for the rebel Taliban movement said the bomber was a member of the militia, which has dramatically stepped up attacks this year.
There has been a wave of suicide blasts in Afghanistan in the past three years, most of them claimed by Taliban extremists who are waging an insurgency against the US-backed government in Kabul.
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