KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, AFGHANISTAN – While its combat mission in Afghanistan will end in 12 months and military success in Afghanistan is not yet in sight, the senior general overseeing Canada’s war against the Taliban said the "legacy" that his troops will leave is that "we held the ground here for 5 1/2 years."
"There was no way that Afghan forces could have held Kandahar City without us," Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard told reporters Tuesday at the end of a five-day visit with front-line troops and with top NATO commanders in Kabul.
Canada was left to fight almost alone in 2006 on what NATO and the Taliban considered to be vital terrain after American attention was diverted by George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, and most other allies chose to sit out the growing hostilities in the south. Since 2002, 147 Canadians have died in Afghanistan – all but a handful of those deaths in Kandahar.
Canada still runs the war in Kandahar, directing a large number of American forces, but "everybody knows," that the Canadian footprint is to narrow considerably in the near future, Lessard said, referring to a number of published reports about this recently by Canwest News Service and the Wall Street Journal.
A brigade of the U.S. army’s 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky., is to take over leadership responsibility from Canada for Zhari and Arghandab in the very near future. Kandahar City, where U.S. military policemen are to remain under Canadian command this summer, is about to become home to a much larger U.S. MP force that will eventually report to a brigade of the 4th Infantry Division coming from Texas.
Yet another U.S. army brigade will also soon be arriving in Kandahar. A new Afghan army brigade and additional Afghan police are being sent to the Taliban’s spiritual homeland.
About 1,000 U.S. combat engineers have already joined the fight as part of what is being called "Force Package II," according to Lt.-Col. Simon Bernard, who is responsible for future battle plans for Kandahar.
This influx, which is to add about 9,000 troops in Kandahar, will increase troop density two or threefold in key districts and even more so in and near Kandahar City. All these moves will inevitably diminish Canadian influence in the province.
However, Canada will remain responsible for Panjwaii and for a squadron of American troops from the 10th Mountain Division that began operating in Dand and Daman districts in late April.
"The next major step for TFK (Task Force Kandahar) is to responsibly hand off battle space to those new brigades coming in and the AO (area of operations) gets divided up and rightly so to U.S. brigades," Brig.-Gen. Jon Vance, Canada’s task force commander, said in an interview. "The details of the counter-insurgency fight can be managed like that. (It’s) all good news from my perspective."
In an interview last month, U.S. Marine Col. David Bellon, director of operations in the south for the International Security Assistance Force, praised Canada for what it had done in Kandahar.
"Their brigade did what four brigades plus are going to be doing and their hands were full," said the Iraq veteran. "We are very aware that Canada has had more casualties here than any other country. It is ground that has been paid for and there is no intention to lose it."
The Petawawa, Ont.-based 1 Royal Canadian Regiment battle group that arrived in Kandahar in March is now operating in eastern Panjwaii. A move westwards into Taliban hotbeds is anticipated at some point in the next few months, but Canada must consolidate its hold on the territory it has already seized from insurgents, according to the battle group commander, Lt.-Col. Conrad Mialkowski.
"It’s going to be a very tough summer," Lessard said, adding that "enemy activity is already significant" and growing in Panjwaii, Zhari and Arghandab, which are all crucial way stops for insurgents headed to Kandahar City. "There are definitely more insurgents."
Despite temperatures that were already in the 40s Celsius and soon will be in the 50s and even the 60s, Lessard said it was essential that Canadian troops continued to run patrols to keep the enemy off balance.
Watching soldiers return from such missions, as he had in Panjwaii a few days ago, was "a humbling experience," the 38-year Van Doo infantry veteran said. "Insurgents and ISAF have the same goal – to be close to the population . . . We have to be more vigilant and keep our link with the population."
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