CBC: Dozens of Taliban killed in Afghan Battle

[vonGarvin]

From their site, put here according to the first act of faith of the Emporer Talus of Rigel VII (or whatever that free-dealings act is all about)

Dozens of Taliban killed in Afghan battle
Last Updated Sun, 20 Aug 2006 10:19:50 EDT
CBC News
Canadian troops under NATO and Afghan soldiers killed dozens of Taliban in southern Afghanistan, as they fought for hours to safeguard the main highway between Kabul and Kandahar, local officials say.

The conflict started late Saturday and continued into early Sunday in the Panjwayi district, a Taliban stronghold about 30 kilometres west of Kandahar City.

The death toll could not be independently verified and unconfirmed reports from a Taliban spokesman said only 10 insurgents had died in the firefight.

However, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and local officials indicated that 72 Taliban had died. ISAF officials said most of the Taliban bodies were not claimed and remained on the ground for hours after the battle ended.

The NATO force, which in southern Afghanistan is primarily composed of Canadian, British and Dutch troops, said in a statement that it had launched both a land and air offensive in the region overnight designed "to extend security along southern Afghanistan's Highway 1 corridor."

Canadian Forces Maj. Scott Lundy said there were no casualties among ISAF, which took over security responsibilities in Afghanistan earlier this summer from the U.S.-led coalition.

However, four Afghan policemen were reported dead in the clashes.

Bodies, weapons found in orchards

Many of the militants who were killed were found in orchards alongside their weapons, a local official said.

It wasn't immediately clear who initiated the fighting, although sources indicated Taliban fighters struck a bazaar in Panjwaii, prompting Afghan and ISAF soldiers to respond.

Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, the district chief, said the insurgents were killed when they launched an attack.

NATO leads a force of about 19,000 troops from 37 countries in Afghanistan, including more than 2,200 Canadians, while the United States has about 22,000 soldiers there.

However, five years after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban government on accusations that it was harbouring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Taliban power seems to have resurged amid some of the bloodiest months yet seen.

Among the violence, four Canadian soldiers died and 10 others were injured earlier in August in the Panjwayi district in three separate attacks blamed on Taliban forces.


Keep up the good work, fellas.
Media: this is nice, but what about the PRT and their efforts over there?  Oh, I get it.  "If it bleeds, it leads".  Well, what about bleeding hearts?

 

[GAP]

RCR seems to holding their own for so early in the deployment...excellent 

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

I'm just glad that whoever is in charge of "managing the message" has finally started highlighting that we're killing bad guys, because the initial focus solely on our losses (as if killing bad guys was somehow "Un-Canadian) left the media to portray a very one-sided conflict.


Matthew. 

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

GAP that's RCR with a significant contribution of Patrica's.
Either way, well done.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

My gut feeling after listening/reading to the news on this is our int. boys/girls scored huge..........just a feeling.

 

[ladybugmabj]

I think the "higher ups" wanted to show that hey, we can get this stuff done, and NOT lose anyone!  Thank God!  DH is over there. Hopefully this is how things will be reported in the media for the the rest of our time. I doubt, but I can hope, right!


Pro Patria

 

[GAP]

GAP that's RCR with a significant contribution of Patrica's.
Either way, well done.

I know that, but it's RCR's Roto (always with complements from others), just as the last one was PPCLI's
 
Cheers

 

[Infanteer]

Is it me, or are we chasing a body count in the media?

 

[a_majoor]

Media concentration on the "death watch" and now "body counts" indicates a rather primitive view of the conflict on their part, and certainly plays into 4GW operations by the enemy. I don't know how to counter this aside from soldier's blogs in theater (which has issues of its own), but if the other two "D's" of the three D approach are not getting equal or greater exposure in the media, then we are in long term difficulty. "We" certainly need to avoid saying things like "Light at the end of the tunnel", "Breaking the back of the insurgency" or other declarations of victory which can boomerang against us when they take the last few people and mount a suicide operation or other "spectacular" for the media.

Just like the North Vietnamese were perfectly willing to sacrifice the bulk of the "Popular Front" (Viet Cong) to create the impression of great power and ability against the South Veitnamese government and the United States, the Taliban, AQ or perhaps the Iranians could be willing to prepare a large "surge" in operations to create the impression of  Taliban power and control. Reading the article, you can see that impression is being created already, and constantly repeated as a mantra by the MSM.

 

[paracowboy]

Is it me, or are we chasing a body count in the media?

and this surprises you? Carrion-feeders flock to corpses.

 

[GAP]

Initially in Iraq (not now though), and for the most part still, in Afghanistan the US media has not been fed the numbers like they did in Viet Nam. Whole policy was based on numbers, and, pardon the pun, that was dead wrong.

The media, as has been stated, are vultures, and they love the dead. They are trying to focus on the scorecard, and it seems lately NATO and the US are giving in.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Good nose, Bruce (check highlights)...

Dozens of Taleban fighters killed 
BBC News online, 20 Aug 06, 17:25 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5268090.stm?ls

Dozens of Taleban fighters have been killed in clashes with Nato-led troops and Afghan security forces in southern Afghanistan, local officials say.

About 70 militants were killed in battles in an area south-west of Kandahar city, local police said.

However a purported Taleban spokesman said only 12 fighters were killed.

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest period since the fall of the Taleban in 2001. Much of the fighting has been concentrated in the south.

On Sunday, a British soldier was killed in the north of the volatile Helmand province.

This came a day after four US soldiers and an Afghan soldier were killed in clashes in the south and east.

'Good intelligence'

International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) spokesman Major Scott Lundy said Sunday's clashes happened as part of operations to ensure the Kabul to Kandahar highway was kept secure.

We know the Taleban is operating in that area, but we dealt them a severe blow
Isaf's Major Scott Lundy 

"We had good intelligence which suggested that we should move into the Panjwayi area, and when we did move up, we encountered a significant number of Taleban," Maj Lundy said.

"There were a number of engagements throughout the evening last night, and into the morning that resulted in heavy losses for the Taleban." He said no Isaf casualties were suffered in the engagement, which included the use of air strikes and artillery.
He said he could not confirm the number of Taleban killed, but said the Afghan authorities had made their own assessment and he had "no reason to doubt" their figures.

"We know the Taleban is operating in that area, but we dealt them a severe blow, and we're continuing our operations."

'Air support'

Isaf, under the umbrella of Nato, recently took over responsibility for security in the southern provinces.

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Kabul says Nato-led forces have faced considerable resistance as they push out into towns that were previously Taleban strongholds.

Local officials said at least 100 Taleban fighters staged an attack in the Panjwayi area, about 35km (20 miles) from Kandahar late on Saturday.

Nato aircraft were called in to support Afghan police and army troops and Nato soldiers.


The bodies of the dead Taleban are reported to have been found in three locations, scattered through orchards alongside their weapons.

"So far, we've recovered the bodies of 72 Taliban," district governor Neyaz Mohammad Sarhadi said, quoted by AP news agency

But a man claiming to be a Taleban spokesman in Kandahar denied the scale of losses, saying 12 militants had been killed.

At least four members of the Afghan security forces were also reported to have been killed.

 

[Devlin]

Good work to all involved

 

[cameron]

Now, if that ain't an ass whuppin' I don't know what is ;D!  Keep up the good work guys and Godspeed.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Sounds like a check ride - sign of a well planned RIP.

 

[RL206]

Canadians hammer Taliban
Troops, artillery inflict heavy casualties on insurgents in battle near Kandahar
GRAEME SMITH

From Monday's Globe and Mail

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Canadian soldiers scored a major victory against Taliban insurgents on the weekend, pounding their opponents just hours after they took charge of security in one of Afghanistan's most volatile regions.

A heavy barrage from Canada's precision-guided artillery, apparently aimed using remote-controlled aircraft, helped Afghan and Canadian forces kill as many as 72 insurgents and protect a key district near Kandahar.

As many as seven Afghan soldiers died in the battle, but no Canadians were injured and no civilian casualties were reported. The burned and shredded bodies sprawled in the dust after the battle were wearing traditional clothing and ammunition belts, suggesting they were Taliban fighters.

It was an unusually clear-cut success in the notorious district of Panjwai, where previous battles have killed hundreds of Taliban fighters but also inflicted a deadly toll on local residents, Canadian soldiers and Afghan forces.

Even the Taliban fighters seemed surprised, acknowledging that they didn't expect to find their opponents waiting to ambush them from rocky outcrops about 30 kilometres southwest of Kandahar.

"It was night and we couldn't see them," said a young Taliban fighter who escaped the battlefield. "They were waiting for us."

The battle started less than three hours after the 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment formally replaced an outgoing rotation of Canadian troops on Saturday. In the days before the handover, however, events in Panjwai suggested that the troops' first day on the job might not be peaceful.

Hundreds of insurgents had been gathering in Panjwai's warren of lush farms and mud-walled compounds. Friday, insurgents forced their way inside the family estate of Haji Agha Lalai, a wealthy landowner and provincial council member who has been a key negotiator of amnesty deals for Taliban who want to surrender.

For the first time in 14 years, Mr. Lalai was forced to evacuate his land, moving 66 family members into two houses in Kandahar.

Taliban fighters captured and beat some locals who didn't leave, he said, and others were forced to prepare meals for the insurgents.

An estimated 6,000 people have fled the violence in Panjwai, and the few who remain sometimes help the Taliban voluntarily, giving them food, shelter and sons who want to fight. These locals quietly got word from Taliban on Friday that the insurgents planned to attack the Panjwai District Centre, a government office that houses the local governor and police chief. It would be an audacious feat for the insurgents, helping them to control a vital transit route between the opium fields of Helmand Province and the Pakistani border.

The Taliban's warning appears to have reached Afghan or Canadian forces, however, because they were well prepared on Saturday night, when insurgents started to advance north from the Lalai compound through dense grape fields.

"The posturing of our forces was very deliberate," said Lieutenant-Colonel Omer Lavoie, commander of the Canadian battle group. "The way we postured the forces was based on a high expectation of how we thought the enemy would react." He added: "The result speaks for itself."

The Taliban attacked first, by all accounts, at roughly 7 p.m., and claim they occupied a bazaar and a high school. The fighting continued perhaps eight or nine hours, with Afghan forces attacking from high ground near the village.

The insurgents finally abandoned their offensive early yesterday, as they heard an unmanned aerial vehicle droning overhead and felt the thud of Canadian M777 artillery landing in their ranks with eerie precision.

Assuming that the aircraft was guiding the Canadian attacks, the insurgents fled.

"Many of us died," said the Taliban fighter who fled the scene. "So we left, for now."

Lt.-Col. Lavoie said last night that his forces had regained control of the area, although local residents said the district remains crisscrossed with hidden lines dividing areas controlled by the Taliban from those held by the government. Mr. Lalai says his family still cannot return home.

"We have hope the government soldiers will take back this area, too," he said.

Kandahar's governor instructed police to wrap the remains of the dead Taliban fighters in white shrouds and return them to the insurgents, a gesture of proper Islamic practice by a government whose enemies accuse it of moral corruption.

Despite the success at Panjwai, foreign soldiers suffered a bloody weekend elsewhere in Afghanistan. Three U.S. soldiers were killed in the province of Kunar on Saturday, and another American died in Uruzgan. A British soldier died yesterday in Helmand.

But in Kandahar, Lt.-Col. Lavoie enjoyed a moment of pride.

"I planned that operation to a level of detail, not as if I was sending out a faceless, nameless soldier," he said. "I planned that operation to the same level of detail as if I was sending out my 17-year-old daughter or my brother."

Deadly ambush

1. On Friday, insurgents force their way inside the family estate of Haji Agha Lalai, a provincial council member south of Panjwai, with a plan of attacking the District

2. Canadian Forces alerted to the planned attack prepare a trap.

3. 3. At roughly 7 p.m. on Saturday, the Taliban fighters sweep north to attack the Panjwai District Centre.

4. Canadian artillery directed by an unmanned aerial vehicle fires a heavy barrage at the Taliban fighters caught in the open. Canadian and Afghan soldiers atop Badwan outcrop engage the Taliban.

5. Surviving Taliban flee.

SOURCE: GRAEME SMITH IN AFGHANISTAN

 

[1feral1]

Good on ya Lads!

No quarter drawn or given.

'Ta helll with the Taliban, but remember Kipling's poem about the Afghan Plains.

Go hard and come home safely.


Wes

 

[The Bread Guy]

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act - http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409

Canadian trap claims dozens of Taliban casualties
Donald MacArthur, National Post/Windsor Star, 21 Aug 06
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=bface8f4-63ee-473c-ba16-bfe893664116&k=67802

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Less than three hours after taking command of Canada's battle group in southern Afghanistan, Lt.-Col. Omer Lavoie sprang what amounted to a carefully laid trap on Taliban insurgents that left as many as 72 militants dead with Canadian troops suffering no casualties and Afghan forces only a handful.

It is one of the bloodiest days for the Taliban since its ouster in 2001 and by far the most devastating blow coalition and Afghan forces have struck against the insurgency since assuming command of the volatile south three weeks ago.

The lopsided nine-hour battle occurred near the same disputed ground where four Canadian soldiers were killed and 10 injured in fierce fighting little more than two weeks ago. It began about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Afghanistan's Independence Day, when insurgents picked a fight with Afghan security forces and were met and routed by a NATO aerial and artillery assault that left the broken bodies of dozens of insurgents in the streets and orchards of Panjwaii a Taliban hotbed coalition forces now claim to control.

"The posturing of our forces was very deliberate. The way we postured the forces was based on a high expectation of how we thought the enemy would react to the posture itself," said Lavoie, who crafted the plan while working beside Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, the battle group commander he replaced in the hours leading up to the fighting.

"They acted the way that we expected they would act and became decisively engaged and had insurmountable difficulties breaking contact with us."

NATO officials estimate the Taliban's strength in the south at about 1,000 fighters, which, if accurate, would mean nearly 10 per cent of its force was felled in the fighting that continued in "troughs and crests," according to Lavoie into the dark and early hours of Sunday morning.

"A 10 per cent casualty figure is an extremely big blow to your combat effectiveness," said Lavoie.

The Taliban is known to quickly replenish its diminished ranks by paying and arming impoverished male Afghans of fighting age.

Troops with the Royal Canadian Regiment, mostly from Petawawa, Ont., suffered no casualties in their first major test since arriving as part of a month-long relief-in-place operation but reports say anywhere from four to seven Afghan police officers and soldiers were killed. Thousands of civilians have been fleeing fighting in the Panjwaii area in recent months and there were no reports of civilian casualties.

Afghan officials said between 60 and 72 suspected insurgents were killed and NATO included those figures in an official statement which claimed the insurgents in the area had been "defeated." NATO has generally refused to provide estimates on insurgent casualties and provided no tally after the Aug. 3 battle in Panjwaii where four Canadian soldiers were killed.

Lavoie dismissed suggestions the weekend operation, a "deliberate" one, was a form of payback for those deaths and the deaths of other Canadian soldiers in Panjwaii in recent months.

"We don't keep a scorecard and you certainly don't win counter-insurgency operations through any sort of a body count or a tally," he said.

"It was to deny freedom of action and freedom of movement to insurgent forces in the area and demonstrate that the Afghan national security forces, and the Canadian forces and NATO forces supporting them, do have freedom of movement and control of the area."

In other fighting this weekend, four U.S. soldiers and an Afghan soldier were killed in separate Independence Day clashes and a British soldier was killed and three wounded Sunday in the southern province of Helmand.

Panjwaii has spiritual and emotional significance to the Taliban and is considered key ground for exerting control on Highway 1, a vital east-west artery, and on Kandahar, the economic centre of southern Afghanistan and the country's second-largest city.

Lavoie said the area is now under the control of NATO forces but whether his confidence is enough to convince the hundreds of families who fled their homes to return remains to be seen.

Although he stopped short of saying the battle plan was designed to draw out the insurgents who had been massing in Panjwaii in recent days, Lavoie said Canadian and Afghan forces anticipated the Taliban attack and stood ready to meet it fiercely without putting themselves at unnecessary risk.

"I don't like to use the word trap when we're talking counter-insurgency operations but certainly we were postured so that we would not become decisively engaged or commit all of our forces at one time so that we always had the ability to manoeuvre in the battle space," he said.

"We were able to engage the enemy through fire and manoeuvre without ever having to have ourselves backed into a corner."

The fact there were no Canadian casualties had nothing to do with "luck at all" and everything to do with the rigorous planning that preceded the operation, Lavoie said.

"I planned that operation to the level of detail, not as if I was sending out a faceless, nameless soldier. I planned that operation to the same level of detail as if I was sending out my 17-year-old daughter or my brother who is also in the army," he said. "The result speaks for itself."

 

[tomahawk6]

Great start for the rotation and Lt.-Col. Omer Lavoie. I noticed in a ctv article that the taliban have asked for the remains of their fighters and the TF returned 17 or 18 bodies as a good will gesture.

 

[vonGarvin]

Great start for the rotation and Lt.-Col. Omer Lavoie. I noticed in a ctv article that the taliban have asked for the remains of their fighters and the TF returned 17 or 18 bodies as a good will gesture.

Ditto on the comment re: LCol Lavoie.  I remember him from WAY BACK when he was a 2Lt.  Hopefully the good will gesture goes a lot further than just good will.  Treating your enemy with respect is one way to sow the seeds for peace.