KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- A crack U.S. unit from the 82nd Airborne Division has been placed under Canadian command in order to "create a ring of stability" around Kandahar City before "the fighting season" kicks off again next May.
The 2nd battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division is to be deployed in the Taliban-infested district of Arghandab by Christmas, Canadian Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard confirmed Wednesday.
However, the move into one of the most volatile parts of Afghanistan, which has been widely tipped for weeks, will come at a price. Brig.-Gen. Menard predicted that it would "easily lead to a 20% increase of [troops in contact] and indirect fire."
The number of U.S. forces has nearly doubled to about 2,000 in what Menard said will be "a super brigade" of about 4,600 troops. The size of the Canadian brigade may rise somewhat later next year as additional forces arrive from the U.S. as part of President Obama's surge.
The 1st battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, based in Zhari, and a strengthened 97th Military Police battalion in Kandahar City are already under Canadian command.
"I feel extremely privileged that the Americans have offered those troops to a Canadian to command," Brig.-Gen. Menard said. "It is the trust they are giving me in order to be responsible for their sons and daughters. I will be as careful about their interests as I am for Canadians troops.
"I will, for sure, provide them with the greatest leadership that is available and we will certainly resource them in order to achieve the mission."
The move into Arghandab is connected to President Barack Obama's larger war strategy, which was backed by his decision Tuesday to send 30,000 additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan, pushing the number of American troops here above 100,000. But it may also be part of a larger U.S. strategy to convince Canada it should maintain its combat forces in Kandahar beyond a July, 2011 parliamentary deadline.
"This has been a long war and it is not over," Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of all alliance forces in Afghanistan, told a gathering of several hundred senior officers including Menard and his staff at Kandahar Airfield on Wednesday.
The four-star general, who is to be in Ottawa soon for high-level talks, cited statistics indicating that violence across Afghanistan had increased by 300% since 2007. Nevertheless, he was relentlessly upbeat.
"I have exceptional confidence right now," he said. "It will all be decided in the next two years.
"The south will be the main effort. I believe that by next summer the uplift will result in significant progress."
Canadian troops had responsibility for Arghandab for more than three years before handing it over to a U.S. army Stryker battalion in July, but they were never been able to operate there in large numbers because they had so many other tasks. The Stryker battalion is now being shifted to new duties securing the two principal highways across the province.
"Arghandab is a very difficult piece of ground," Menard said of a highly volatile sliver of agriculturally rich land that is really an outer suburb of Kandahar City. "West and east of the [Arghandab] river there are two different groups of people and two different sets of problems."
The Americans, known as the Red Devils, headed to Arghandab are already on their second tour in Afghanistan, arriving three months ago from Fort Bragg, N.C. Before getting their new battle orders, they had been scattered across Afghanistan training police.
As part of the new laydown in Kandahar, where many experts predict the war will be won or lost, by the end of the year, Canada will give up western parts of Zhari and Panjwaii -- where many of their troops have been killed since 2006 -- to a second Stryker battalion. But the Canadians will retain control of most of of those two districts, plus Dand District and Kandahar City.
As well as Arghandab, the Canadians are taking take charge of Daman District which lies between Kandahar Airfield and the city. Although they had often been called out to fight the Taliban in Daman, until Wednesday the area had officially been the responsibility of the Royal Air Force Regiment.
Since the first surge of U.S. troops in the spring, Brig.-Gen. Menard acknowledged that Canada's area of operations had shrunk considerably. One of the results was that Canada no longer had to make "911 calls" into areas where it never had enough forces to operate constantly.
Although these latest moves will, when taken together, slightly decrease the Canadian area of operations, Brig.-Gen. Menard noted that troops under his command would be responsible for terrain where "85% of the population of Kandahar lives."
Securing the provincial capital "is by far my priority No. 1," the Van Doo officer said, adding that "the mission is at a very critical point right now . . ."
"Having all these additional resources means we will be in a better position to hold the ground, to build and mentor and stabilize the area."
source: www.military-world.net
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