Canadian engineers mentor nationals to rebuild Afghan bridge destroyed by TB

[McG]

Canadians repair Kandahar bridge
The Calgary Sun
12 Mar 2010

Canadian soldiers are repairing a key bridge on the road between Kandahar city and Pakistan after it was badly damaged by a suicide bomber's blast earlier this month.

The March 1 attack on a convoy of NATO-led troops killed four Afghan civilians and one foreign soldier. The attacker struck the convoy on a bridge spanning the Tarnak river, which is several kilometres away from Kandahar Airfield where Canadian and other coalition troops are based.

For the past two days, Canadian troops have been putting metal replacement pieces over the blown-up sections of the bridge.

"What the plan is, as we're speaking, is to over-gap that was damaged or partially destroyed by the vehicle-borne IED," said Warrant Officer Eric Rousseau.

The bridge itself is 250 to 300 metres long.

The Canadians are replacing a 42-metre section damaged by the blast.

Earlier in the week, Afghan and Canadian soldiers assembled pieces of the bridge within the relative safe confines of Kandahar Airfield.

Those pieces were then trucked out to the bridge site.

Although Afghan soldiers were involved in the initial stage of bridge building, Canadian and Afghan journalists who visited the bridge site Thursday saw only Canadian troops doing the repair work.

The military expects to finish repairing the bridge in the next few days.

Allies rebuild Afghan bridge; Canadian engineers mentor nationals
Matthew Fisher
Montreal Gazette
12 Mar 2010

Canadian, U.S. and Afghan military engineers repaired a bomb-damaged bridge yesterday that the Taliban had attacked because it is southern Afghanistan's lifeline to Pakistan.

"This is an important route for Afghans, the Afghan army and NATO because so many people use it and that is why it has to be quickly fixed," said Lt. Muhammad Fahem, who commands a team of Afghan army engineers mentored by Canadians.

Part of the original bridge, which is located only a few kilometres from Kandahar Airfield, was destroyed on March 1 by a suicide bomber who aimed his car at a passing U.S. convoy. A U.S. soldier and four Afghans were killed in the explosion.

Afghan engineers and their mentors pieced together a 42-metre, metal "overbridge" this week at Kandahar Airfield and then moved parts of the Meccano-like structure a few kilometres to the blast site.

With the main route closed by the explosion, a huge traffic jam of Afghan cars and seriously overloaded trucks as well as armoured NATO convoys has spent the past few days inching gingerly across a mostly dry riverbed near the damaged bridge.

The attack by the Taliban had "caused a lot of issues for local national traffic between Kandahar City and Pakistan," Warrant Officer Eric Rousseau said.

If well maintained, the temporary span being erected this week would probably last many years. However, Veitch guessed that it will not be up that long before a "permanent solution" is found.

"Without the Canadians, we cannot run our military," said Pte. Nasayeed Jan, who helped assemble the temporary bridge together at Kandahar Airfield. "Before the Canadians came to help us, we did not know how to build such bridges and now we will be able to build them wherever they are needed all over Afghanistan."

 

[MaDB0Y_021]

Is it me or there is some kind of contradictory with one article saying that the Afghan Eng works with the Cdn Eng and the other saying that only Cdn Eng rebuilt that part of the bridge?

Anyway, CONGRATS to our Cbt Eng!!

 

[Squirly480]

LOL, how crazy i've been looking for this article, i was part of the crew that helped build that bridge, what a hectic time it was trying to work with Kaffers, they were all freaked out and worried the whole time and the rest of us who had been outside the wire were just like whatever just another day, LOL. I wonder if the bridge is still up? or if the locals had scavenged some parts. but the local ANA did help alot but mostly with security and traffic control, they did help alot with the dry training just so they knew what we were doing. they were very good workers.