Canadian troops to form 'ring of stability'

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Over the coming months, hundreds of Canadian soldiers will start bedding down in Taliban-infested towns and breaking bread with Afghan soldiers on the outskirts of Kandahar city as the troops implement the counterinsurgency tactics of NATO's commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal.

In fact, Canadian troops have been employing their own counterinsurgency tactics for some time. But the effort will accelerate as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shrinks Canada's theatre of operations to focus on securing Kandahar city, and U.S. troops flood the country under the surge announced by U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

With U.S. battalions making up the northern rim, Canadian troops will deploy south of Kandahar to create a "ring of stability" around the city, said Brigadier-General Daniel Ménard, the Canadian commander in Afghanistan. It is a change in strategy that will see the troops shift their attention from the countryside to suburban areas of Kandahar and nearby towns controlled by the insurgents.

"Kandahar city, being the centre of mass of the population, is by far my priority number one," said Brig.-Gen. Ménard. "But it is also a centrepiece right now of Gen. McChrystal's plan. We are in the middle of all of this, at the forefront of all those activities."

Those activities include getting the troops out of fortified compounds and into platoon houses - lightly strengthened residences in town centres that encourage the troops to mingle with the population they're intended to protect. At the same time, the new strategy will leave Canadian troops more vulnerable to attack.

The Canadians will also find themselves swapping places with Afghan National Army soldiers in a program called embedded partnering.

The adjustment in Canada's Afghan mission comes at the behest of Gen. McChrystal, who visited Kandahar Airfield, headquarters of Canada's Task Force Kandahar, yesterday for an informal kick off of his Afghanistan strategy.

"Starting today we move forward in a new way," Gen. McChrystal told a group of military brass. "Counterinsurgency starts with protecting the people. At the end of the day, the people are what we are here for."

While he didn't cite Canadian efforts directly as exemplars of his counterinsurgency ideals, he did offer a few examples from the field: a Marine company that helped a farmer plow his field, and a town in which intelligence tips are up 80 per cent.

With 30,000 new troops on the way, Gen. McChrystal struck a confident note during the speech, though he did not say exactly where the troops will be deployed or when. And he set that confidence against some sobering statistics: Violence in Afghanistan is up 60 per cent since January and 300 per cent since 2007.

"As many of you have heard, this will go on for quite a while," he said. "But it will be decided, in my view, in the next one to two years."

Gen. McChrystal emphasized that southern Afghanistan is the key to ousting the insurgent presence in the country. And in the south, no target is more coveted than Kandahar city, a Canadian responsibility since 2006, which many analysts believe holds the key to the entire Afghan war.

Earlier in the day, Brig.-Gen. Ménard confirmed previously reported details of Canada's new operating terrain. The troops will forgo the sparsely populated regions of western Panjwai and western Zhari and instead concentrate on the southern approaches to Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and home to between 800,000 and 1.3 million people.

Canada is also taking responsibility for a small but restive chunk of Arghandab, a rich agrarian district north of the city. Canadian troops will not be moving into the area, contrary to some reports. Instead U.S. troops under Canadian command will provide the manpower.

"I feel extremely privileged that the Americans have offered those troops to a Canadian to command," Brig.-Gen. Ménard said. "It is the trust they are giving me in order to be responsible for their sons and daughters."

The arrival of U.S. forces under Canadian command will push the size of Task Force Kandahar to more than 3,400 troops, 2,800 of which are Canadian. Overall, the change in focus could increase Canadian chances of coming under fire by 20 per cent, Brig.-Gen. Ménard said.

Over two days of speeches at West Point and Kandahar, many Kandaharis have been huddling around televisions and radios to hear how the international community plans to pacify and rebuild their floundering country. Opinions have been mixed.

"For eight years we have been hearing so many promises of stability and security," said Gul Muhammad, a 41-year-old farmer. "They are sending more tanks and guns - these things are for destroying, not for constructing a country."

The power was out in his region of the city yesterday, so Abdul Hakim, a 46-year-old landowner, had to put new batteries in his radio to hear Mr. Obama's speech.

"A surge of troops to Kandahar will not solve the problem," he said. "I need electricity in my house and roads I can drive, that will be a start. Until then, Kandahar will remain broken."