Canadians, Afghans battle insurgents in early morning skirmish

[3rd Herd]

The Usual;

Canadians, Afghans battle insurgents in early morning skirmish
July 17, 2007 - 10:00 am

By: STEPHANIE LEVITZ

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - An early morning patrol by Canadian and Afghan forces led to a full-scale firefight Tuesday, leaving an undetermined number of Taliban dead and wounded, the Canadian military said.

Troops were patrolling in a village called Makuan, 12 kilometres west of Kandahar City and south of Highway 1, a main artery running through Kandahar province. Operation Galaxy was intended as a clearance patrol - a military manoeuvre designed to chase insurgents from the village.

But the Taliban fought back, firing on the coalition troops from fields along a river bank just after 5 a.m., hitting them with small arms fire and what the Canadians believed were rounds from a recoilless rifle.

"That 82-mm is a formidable weapon," said Capt. Martell Thompson, a Canadian public affairs officer in Kandahar.

In their last skirmish with insurgents, soldiers also found a recoilless rifle in a weapons cache discovered in a small village. The weapon is similar to a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and is capable of inflicting damage on armoured vehicles.

Canadians returned fire from their light armoured vehicles before calling in air support from F-15 fighter jets.

The insurgents kept up their assault as Canadians moved east along the Arghandab River.

"It's very typical of (the Taliban) methods," Thompson said. "Fire and fall back."

Further air strikes hit Taliban positions at 7:15 a.m.

An abandoned trove of AK-47 weapons and other items were found after the operation wrapped up around mid-morning.

The Canadian military said a number of rebels were killed or wounded, but did not specify how many.

There was no indication of any Canadian or Afghan casualties in the firefight. However, military officials were not immediately available to confirm that.

The fighting comes as the current rotation of Canadian troops in Afghanistan nears the end of its tour.

Despite the hectic nature of a troop handover, military officials have said the tempo of operations in the field will not change.

Canadian soldiers have been repeatedly engaged by insurgent forces over the last few weeks, especially in the volatile Zhari district where efforts continue to flush the Taliban away from key police checkpoints along Highway 1.

The first wave of replacements, about 50 soldiers mostly from the Valcartier, Que., based 22nd Regiment known as the Van Doos, began arriving early Tuesday.

The current rotation will leave Afghanistan beginning next week, having seen 22 soldiers killed during their six-month tour on the ground - deaths that polls suggest the Canadian public is finding increasingly unacceptable.

Support for the mission is especially low in Quebec, where vocal antiwar protests marred many of the send-off festivities prior to the soldiers' deployment.

The new arrivals are not the first soldiers to serve in Quebec. A small company of 156 have been working at the provincial reconstruction team base since November. And members of the Van Doos were among the first Canadians to arrive in Afghanistan at the start of the war.

The new rotation of troops assumes official command of the 2,500-member mission in August. Since the Canadians arrived in 2002, approximately 14,900 troops have been to the region.

A total of 66 Canadian soldiers and one Canadian diplomat have been killed
http://www.news1130.com/news/international/article.jsp?content=w071754A

 

[Ontario]

Heard this on the news this morning, it also mentioned that nation wide support is 54%, but in Quebec its much lower.

 

[geo]

Ontario...
lower in Quebec - based on surveys for which I have grave misgivings.  But, if you talk to the politicians and people who have an agenda, then we're toast.

 

[MikeM]

Give 'em hell boys (and girls).

 

[3rd Herd]

Same story different writter:

Canadians clash with Taliban near Kandahar
GRAEME SMITH

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

July 18, 2007 at 2:44 AM EDT

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Canadian troops fought a battle just a few minutes drive from the edge of Kandahar city Tuesday, as the insurgents once again pushed dangerously close to the provincial capital.

The firefight did not kill or injure any Canadians or their allies, and it lasted only a few hours. Its location was significant, however, as the gunfire and air strikes tore across farmland only 12 kilometres west of the city limits, near the village of Makuan.

A few kilometres further away, crumbled mud walls still show the scars of Canada's biggest offensive in half a century, when troops cleared out hundreds of entrenched insurgents from the area last year.

The Canadians tried to define the boundary of their secured area by building a road, nicknamed Route Summit, along a north-south path roughly 15 kilometres from the city. Building and defending that line took most of the fall and winter.

This spring, the Canadians have tried to extend government influence beyond that boundary into more dangerous districts further away.

Elders who live near the city complained in recent weeks, however, that hundreds of Taliban members had infiltrated back, and were camping in the thick overgrowth south of Highway 1.

The Canadians were expecting to find insurgents when they pushed south of the highway Tuesday morning with Afghan security forces, said Captain Martell Thompson, spokesman for the battle group.

“Canadian troops conducted a clearance patrol in the early morning hours around the village of Makuan,” Capt. Thompson said. “Insurgents fired on [our] forces from fields along the riverbank, with small arms and, we believe, an 82-millimetre recoilless rifle.”

The recoilless rifle is one of the few weapons in the Taliban arsenal capable of punching a hole through an armoured vehicle.

“That 82-millimetre is a formidable weapon,” he said.

The fighting broke out at 5:12 a.m., he said, and the Canadians returned fire with their rifles and the booming 25-millimetre cannon atop their LAV-3 armoured vehicles.

Shortly afterward, at 5:30 a.m., F-15 fighter jets bombed suspected Taliban positions, the spokesman said.

Air strikes often scatter the Taliban, but in this case the insurgents attacked again as the Canadians moved east of Makuan. Once again the Canadians called for support, and air strikes hit suspected Taliban positions at 7:15 a.m.

The troops later discovered AK-47 rifles and other abandoned items that led them to believe Taliban fighters were injured in the bombing, Capt. Thompson said.

An unspecified number of suspected Taliban members were captured and killed, he added, but the figures cannot be released.

“Let's just say there are less bad guys running around today.”