Canadian and U.S. troops defended a cluster of mud-walled farms and houses in Panjwai District in September, 2006.
Graeme Smith/The Globe and Mail
Retrospective
The Globe's Graeme Smith on Afghanistan, 2005-2011
Published
Last updated
Award-winning reporter has made 17 trips to the war-ravaged Asian nation. Take a look back at some of his many memorable stories.
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The promise of 2005
Graeme Smith of The Globe and Mail
"My first visit to Kandahar was a carefree road trip down a freshly paved highway, in the days before bombings blew holes in the blacktop and Taliban started kidnapping people along the way," The Globe's Graeme Smith wrote Saturday.
"I leaned out the window of my sedan and took snapshots. Those were better times, in 2005, before road travel became suicidal.
"The Canadians still talked about peace and democracy, about defeating the insurgency in two or three years. A battle group was preparing to surge into the south. It expected a warm welcome: Human Rights Watch claimed that locals were clamouring for the 'benefits of international security assistance.' Experts called this a post-conflict mission, as if the worst of the fighting was over."
It's a vastly different world today, Mr. Smith notes, with Canada having ended its combat mission in Kandahar last week.
"Peace and democracy seem like half-forgotten dreams. Whatever has been achieved over the past five years is sometimes called 'fragile progress,' but that delicate phrase does not capture the sense of looming disaster many locals feel, a fear that the foreigners built a system that will soon collapse."
Mr. Smith has won two National Newspaper Awards, an Emmy and various other distinctions for his reporting during 17 trips to Afghanistan over the past six years. The following slides recapture some of his most memorable stories.
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Canadians brace for surge of violence at election time
Sgt. Jack Durnford of the Royal Canadian Dragoons prepares his team for a night patrol around Kabul, almost exactly 24 hours before a similar patrol was attacked yesterday with an improvised explosive device. 2005— Graeme Smith / The Globe and Mail
"Two Canadian soldiers were injured by an explosion while on patrol around Kabul last night as warlords and religious radicals target foreign troops and other symbols of authority in the days before Afghanistan's historic parliamentary elections," Mr. Smith wrote in his first story from Kandahar in 2005.
"Security forces have been bracing for a surge of violence around Sunday's hotly contested vote, which will elect the country's first legislature since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 . . .
"Thinking about these potential threats is what keeps Sergeant Jack Durnford awake while his reconnaissance team conducts night patrols around the city. It's monotonous work, driving the bumpy, rutted routes around Kabul, showing a military presence in hopes of maintaining calm. But Sgt. Durnford has lost two friends since the Canadian forces arrived here in 2001, and his eyes rarely stop scanning the darkened roads.
"A couple of weeks ago, Sgt. Durnford's team noticed two bodies lying beside the road and a crowd gathered. It seemed like a traffic accident, he said, until he examined the scene with binoculars and noticed the empty bullet casings on the ground. Somebody threw the bodies into the back of a Toyota sedan and drove away, he said; he later learned that he'd witnessed the aftermath of the summary execution of a Taliban leader and his nephew.
" 'My main concern is the day of the election'," Sgt. Durnford said. " 'We'll probably see more of this play out'."
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Inspiring tale of triumph over Taliban not all it seems
It's been said that truth is the first casualty of war.
Mr. Smith noted that early in his coverage.
"The official story of Operation Medusa has been repeated many times in recent days, after NATO declared success with its biggest offensive to date in Afghanistan," Mr. Smith wrote in the fall of 2006
"In speeches from Kabul to Washington, military commanders described the two-week campaign as a simple, clear-cut triumph: The Taliban entrenched themselves in a swath of terrain, terrorizing local villagers; Canadian soldiers led a massive assault, killing more than 1,000 Taliban and routing others; and now villagers are welcoming the return of government rule. Military officials say the operation may have destroyed up to one third of the insurgency's hardcore ranks.
"It's an inspiring tale, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization calls on members for more troops and struggles to gain support for the war.
"But interviews with tribal elders, farmers and senior officials in the city of Kandahar suggest a version of events that is more complicated, and less reassuring."
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A country where blood is everything
Handout photo of Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry, killed during a suicide bomb attack near Kandahar, Afghanistan, Jan. 15, 2006.— Michael Kovrig
No war is ever as simple as it sounds on the surface, especially in Afghanistan where ethnic, tribal and clan allegiances run deep.
"When an explosion shook the city of Kandahar in the early afternoon of Jan. 15, Afghan police hurried to the scene to find Canadian troops pulling comrades out of ruined military vehicles. The suicide blast injured three soldiers and killed Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry, the 59-year-old political director of the local reconstruction team," Mr. Smith wrote in late 2006.
"As a helicopter roared away with the injured, criminal investigators from the Afghan National Police kept their eyes on the ground, picking their way through the twisted metal and charred flesh. They wrote down identification numbers from the engine block and chassis of the bomber's minivan, a silver Toyota Town Ace. They also noted the license plate number, 312.
"The last known owner of plate 312, a man named Pir Mohammed, was arrested as the main suspect in Mr. Berry's death. Police say they grew more suspicious after they raided his home, finding a cache of weapons, documents in Arabic, and a photo of a reputed Taliban leader.
"But after less than two days in custody, Mr. Mohammed walked out the front door of the investigators' office and disappeared. Why?
"The explanation sounds all too familiar to those versed in Afghanistan's tribal politics. Mr. Mohammed had friends in high places, powerful men who gave him freedom before police were satisfied they had properly investigated him."
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'The Canadians try to kill everybody'
"The two men sat cross-legged on a carpet in a room filled with birdsong and sunshine," Mr. Smith wrote in an exclusive report from a lawless Pakistan border area where support for the Taliban runs high."Their hands were soft, their words polite, but their story served as a chilling warning for Canadian soldiers trying to bring peace to Afghanistan's troubled south.
"In a rare meeting marked by unusually straight talk, the men described how they manipulate Afghan tribes, turn local officials against their own government and channel the frustrations of ordinary people to drive foreigners away from their ancient lands.
"They spoke from personal experience. The two, relaxing at a private home in a secret location in the infamously lawless Pakistani province of Baluchistan, are foot soldiers in the Taliban insurgency. . .
"There is a big difference between Canada and the United States," one said, tapping his fingertips together in a pensive gesture.
"If we attack the Canadians, they call for aircraft and bomb everything in the area. The U.S. only tried to kill the Taliban. The Canadians try to kill everybody."
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From Canadian custody into cruel hands
Shackled by the feet, many inmates arrive at Sarpoza prison suffering from injuries sustained in custody of the NDS, the Afghan secret police. (2006 Photo)
"Afghans detained by Canadian soldiers and sent to Kandahar's notorious jails say they were beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and subjected to electric shocks during interrogation," Mr. Smith wrote in his report which touched off the long-running detainee abuse controversy in Canada.
"In 30 face-to-face interviews with men recently captured in Kandahar province, a Globe and Mail investigation has uncovered a litany of gruesome stories and a clear pattern of abuse by the Afghan authorities who work closely with Canadian troops, despite Canada's assurances that the rights of detainees are protected."
Those were the opening paragraphs of Mr. Smith's first report on the abuse of Afghan detainees _ an issue which resonates to this day and was a factor in the campaign for the May 2 federal election.
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'Taliban ambush: Get us out of here!'
A British soldier fires on Taliban positions in Sangin district of Helmand province, May 11, 2007.
"Shots cracked over barricades in the dark, and the night filled with sounds of men shouting and running. The defenders of a small outpost in the town of Sangin slammed mortars into firing tubes, sending up flares that cast a ghostly light over the confused scene," Mr. Smith wrote in one of his first-hand accounts of being in a battle.
"The smoky phosphorescence revealed British and Afghan soldiers watching nervously over the walls, toward an empty graveyard that Taliban fighters had used as cover to sneak up on a guard post. It was only a probing attack, intended to gauge the strength of the government forces now desperately holding a town on the front lines of this year's fight against the insurgents.
"But the attack seemed to fray the nerves of the British troops, who had narrowly escaped an ambush a few hours earlier. As the flares winked out and darkness returned, a soldier walked up to a journalist and tried to give him a handgun.
"The offer was declined, but the soldier insisted. “ 'You might need it',” he said, holding out the weapon, its black polish gleaming under his headlamp. “ ' We don't know what will happen tonight'.”
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Talking to the Taliban
TALIBAN’S GOOD QUALITIES “The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other.” Rev. Stephen Venner, the bishop for the British armed forces, strives to love thine enemy
"Understanding the insurgents is a basic part of reporting on the Afghan war, but it's a remarkably difficult task," Mr. Smith wrote in the introduction to his Emmy Award-winning multimedia package, Talking to the Taliban
"I've had several meetings with individual Taliban since I started covering Afghanistan, but personal contacts with the insurgents are growing more dangerous because they have started kidnapping journalists.
"So we decided to try an unscientific survey.
"I’ve been working with a researcher in Kandahar since September of 2006, meeting with him regularly for long sessions of tea and talk. He’s a close friend of The Globe and Mail translators in the city. I often send him on fact-finding trips to places that would be off-limits for anybody without strong connections to the insurgency, and over many months he has learned basic journalism skills. This project involved tasks at which he’s already proven reliable: Find a specific person, point a camera at them, ask questions from a list and, most challengingly, listen to the answers and formulate further questions."
The result was a portrait of average Taliban fighters in the Kandahar region. The 42 video interviews offered a unique glimpse at Canada's front-line opponents.
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Inside the Taliban jailbreak
Inside the national-security wing of the Sarpoza prison, on the west side of Kandahar city. This wing contains 162 prisoners, most accused of involvement with the Taliban. Convicted murders and kidnappers also share these cells. Canadian officials say they're trying to improve conditions at the prison, which is little better than medieval.— Graeme Smith for The Globe and Mail
Corruption, poor intelligence and weak Afghan forces allowed 800 prisoners to escape a Kandahar prison with little serious resistance from Canadian troops in 2008.
"The prison cells that once held Taliban sit almost empty, with little remaining except rubbish: plates of rice ready for meals never eaten, and sandals discarded by fugitives who ran away in bare feet," Mr. Smith wrote.
"Some of the debris inside Sarpoza prison offer hints about what happened amid the chaos last month when the Taliban accomplished one of the largest jailbreaks in modern history, freeing at least 800 prisoners and rampaging into Kandahar without facing any serious resistance from Canadian troops or the other forces assigned to protect the city.
"A chunk of metal the size of a picnic table sits 125 metres away from the site where a truck bomb hit the gate, testifying to the force of the explosion. In a room where prison officials believe the inmates planned their escape, bullet casings on the floor suggest the prisoners had smuggled at least one handgun into the cells.
"With those scattered bits of evidence, and a dozen interviews with witnesses, a picture emerges of the way security collapsed in the largest city in southern Afghanistan on the evening of Friday, June 13. Details of the attack show not only why the city defences fell apart; they also illustrate how the notorious problems of the Afghan mission - corruption, poor intelligence, a distrustful population, weak Afghan security forces, a lack of foreign troops - made the ingredients of a disaster.
"The Canadian military has not escaped blame . . .
- When the smoke cleared in the Arghandab valley
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Top Canadian soldier concedes violence is rising
Prime Minister Stephen Harper walks with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Walter Natynczyk, while touring the Dahla Dam in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on May 7, 2009.— REUTERS
"Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff has acknowledged that the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse and more troops are required in the face of mounting Taliban attacks aimed at derailing next year's Afghan election," Mr.Smith wrote three years ago.
"General Walter Natynczyk faced criticism last week when he dismissed the growing violence in the Kandahar region as 'insignificant' during a tour of the country, in spite of claims to the contrary by observers and other NATO countries.
"But he's now offering a far more sombre analysis, stepping back from his previously upbeat picture of security in the country.
" 'We have two contrasting pictures here. On the one hand, what I got from the people in Kabul is a worsening security situation across the country. That is really clear,' Gen. Natynczyk said in an interview on CTV's Question Period. Specifically, he said, the situation is getting worse in Kabul, in eastern Afghanistan where U.S. forces have the lead and in southern Afghanistan where Canadian troops are based.
" 'On the other hand, when I was in Kandahar from the soldiers' perspective, what they see are localized fragile signs of success. Very, very localized'," he said.
- Afghan violence expected to subside in 2010
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Afghan officials in drug trade cut deals across enemy lines
Afghans sit by their poppy field in Musa Qala, Helmand province.— Omar Sobhani REUTERS
"In the shadow of the craggy mountains overlooking the road between Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, a specially trained unit of police conducted a nearly perfect ambush of a drug dealer," Mr. Smith wrote in early 2009.
"Officers surrounded Sayyed Jan's vehicle so quickly that his two bodyguards never had a chance to fire their weapons, and he was caught moving at least 183 kilograms of pure heroin.
"But the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan realized they had a problem when they discovered that Mr. Jan's powerful friends included their own boss. The drug dealer was carrying a signed letter of protection from General Mohammed Daud Daud, the deputy minister of interior responsible for counternarcotics, widely considered Afghanistan's most powerful anti-drug czar . . .
"Some international officials still say the corruption is limited to isolated bureaucrats who supplement their meagre salaries with graft. But a growing number of informed observers now agree with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent description of Afghanistan as a 'narco-state,' saying they are concerned about networks of corrupt officials taking over parts of government – in effect, running branches of the state for illegal gain."
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Sarpoza jailbreak a nightmare for Canadians
Prisoners look out from their cells in the maximum security wing at Sarpoza prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on July 25, 2010.— THE CANADIAN PRESS
"Two uncomfortable lessons could be drawn from the latest Taliban jailbreak in Kandahar," Mr. Smith wrote in April.
"Either the locals were scared to talk about it, or they supported the insurgent plot.
"Neither option reflects well on NATO strategy in Afghanistan.
"How could a team of insurgents camp out in southern Afghanistan's most heavily guarded city, spend months tunnelling and hauling away tons of earth, and attract no notice? Canada spent millions of dollars upgrading the prison and training its staff; Canadian intelligence agents and commandoes are stationed only three kilometres away, at a camp shared with their U.S. and British counterparts. Why didn't anybody tip them off?
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Wedded to the warloards: NATO's unholy Afghan alliance
Mourners gather at the coffin of General Daud Daud, who was killed in a suicide bombing at a provincial governor's office, in Taloqan, capital of Takhar province.— Gul Rahim/AFP/Getty Images
"A strongman dies and another rises," Mr. Smith wrote "The bloody politics of Afghanistan travelled full circle with the death of General Daud Daud in the north and the promotion of Brigadier-General Abdul Razik in the south. The fall of one mirrored the rise of the other, marking the loss of an older generation of warlords and the birth of a new class of often brutal allies to whom NATO intends to start transferring power this summer.
"The success of that transition depends on characters who might be too unpleasant to deal with under other circumstances. Having failed to establish a working government in many parts of Afghanistan, NATO is increasingly dependent on so-called strongmen, commanders whose power comes not only from their affiliation with Kabul but from militias, tribes and, often, the narcotics trade.
"The two generals, Daud and Razik, exemplify that strategy. Though from different ethnic groups – Gen. Daud was a northern Tajik while Gen. Razik is a southern Pashtun – much united them. Each gained fearsome authority in his respective territory. Both have been accused of – and denied – drug dealing and heavy-handed tactics. Staunch enemies of the Taliban, both were embraced by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies."
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A grim sort of progress on human rights
Abdul Qadar Noorzai, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar, says torture continues in Afghan custody despite years of controversy over conditions in local jails. Still, he says, the attention has shamed the Afghan security forces into being secretive about their brutality.— Graeme Smith/The Globe and Mail
"From the first day that Canada’s battle group rolled into southern Afghanistan until the final farewells this summer, Abdul Qadar Noorzai has served as a gentle, grandfatherly witness to the worst abuses on all sides of the conflict," Mr. Smith wrote on June 23, 2011.
"The long-serving director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar stood at the epicentre of Canada’s controversy over detainees, initially as a whistleblower and then as a quiet partner for a Canadian government scrambling to find a solution to the problem.
"After the scandal erupted in 2007, Canada became the AIHRC’s biggest donor and promised to work closely with the agency to prevent detainees from being abused in custody.
"It hasn’t been an easy task for Mr. Noorzai and his team. His researchers were killed and intimidated, and security concerns still prevent them visiting all but six of the province’s 17 districts. Despite public assurances to the contrary, Mr. Noorzai’s investigators have not enjoyed unfettered access to local detention centres to check on prisoners. He is not permitted to talk about specific results of his monitoring, but agreed to speak in general terms about human rights in Kandahar."
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The end of an era
Brig.-Gen Dean Milner center, Commander of Canadian Forces Kandahar slaute along with others for Afghan and Canadian anthem during a transfer of command authority ceremony in Kandahar airbase in Afghanistan, Thursday, July 7, 2011.— AP
Mr. Smith writes in his concluding Focus story that the current Afghan government officials in Kandahar, including police chief, Brigadier-General Abdul Razik, who is a favourite with the U.S. military because of his can-do attitude, unsurprisingly do not predict another Vietnam.
"He spoke with confidence about filling the streets with plainclothes agents, so the Taliban would fear every beggar and taxi driver. It's a strategy from the Soviet days, when the KGB taught its tricks to the local intelligence service.
"But the police chief seemed to despise the more important communist strategy: trading land and cash for peace. His own relative, Esmat Muslim, was among the anti-Soviet commanders, or mujahedeen, lured to the government side in the late 1980s, but he now believes such agreements won't work because the new generation of fighters lacks patriotism.
" 'The mujahedeen loved their country, just wanted the Russians to leave',” Gen. Razik said. 'Now, the insurgents want other things.'
"The Taliban disagree, saying their biggest aim is troop withdrawals, but Gen. Razik is correct that the Taliban want “other things” that do not sit well with the government: a new constitution, a new president. A researcher I've worked with for years in Kandahar travelled west of the city on my behalf, meeting two mid-level insurgent leaders and phoning back so that I could chat with them.
"They were full of triumphant rhetoric about the Canadian pullout and the coming U.S. withdrawals.
"Somewhat chillingly, they were the only people I spoke with in Kandahar who predicted that violence would decrease after the foreign troops leave. They expected to sweep back into power as they did from 1994 to 1996."
