Kandahar, Afghanistan — Just hours after two Canadian soldiers were killed and eight others wounded military convoys were once again rolling in and out of the giant dust bowl that is the Kandahar Air Field base.
Corporals Francisco Gomez and Jason Patrick Warren died last evening in a double-barrelled suicide bombing attack on the western outskirts of Kandahar City just as an enormous convoy of vehicles was returning home to the base after an astonishing 16 days of almost daily combat with the Taliban and insurgents.
"A Canadian success story within a tragedy," is the sorrowful label Canadian Brigadier-General Dave Fraser, who heads the eight-nation Coalition operation in southern Afghanistan, attached to the cruel end of the largest military operation in this country in four years.
In more than two weeks in the field moving over 400 kilometres of the most volatile parts of this complicated and tribal country, the Canadians were in more than 35 major firefights that inflicted at least 100 Taliban casualties, destroyed nine ammunition caches, seized opium paste and heroin worth as much as $15-million, dismantled two significant bomb-making factories, discovered and blew up six Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, along the route and established an Afghan government presence in six districts in the remote heartland of Taliban strength.
Corporal Jason Patrick Warren, left, and Corporal Francisco Gomez died in the attacks.
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Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope, the fierce commanding officer of the Canadian battle group, which had as many as 600 soldiers leading the Coalition hunt for the Taliban in two provinces, called it "bittersweet" that "in the final hours" of such an historic operation, "for two of them, their lives ended."
He said he had difficulty reconciling the notion of describing the weeks-long push as successful until it came to him last night that Cpls. Gomez and Warren "would want us, would want me, to talk about this operation for the sake of their comrades and to put into context what they were doing," and that he was confident "that's the context in which they would like their sacrifice to be remembered. I have no doubt."
He said he hoped "that consoles their families to some extent."
But the deaths "will not threaten our resolve," he said. "We remain strong and our soldiers are back on operations today."
Lt.-Col. Hope said that "for the first time I am aware of in Canadian history," soldiers were able to maintain a 230-kilometre-long supply line for five days and singled out for praise a cadre of "extremely hard-working and heroic maintainers, suppliers and transport soldiers," who made sure "we never wanted for supplies."
The 44-year-old Cpl. Gomez of the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infanty, whose home unit is Lord Strathcona's Horse of Edmonton, and Cpl. Warren, a 29-year-old from the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Montreal, were both attached to Lt.-Col. Hope's headquarters staff.
"I knew them well," he said, as he does all the staff who daily "surround me." He praised both soldiers as "very professional, very mature."
The 18th and 19th Canadian soldiers killed on duty in Afghanistan since 2002, the two were part of the tail end of the returning convoy, which travels the dangerous and congested streets of the city and environs in carefully separated "packets" so as not to paralyze traffic.
Lt.-Col. Hope learned of their deaths as his own vehicle was heading back to the relative safety of the big base.
The first blast — a suicide car bomber who drove into the Bison armored vehicle driven by Cpl. Gomez — was followed an hour later by a second, this one a bomber moving on foot who blew himself up in a crowd of Afghans just a little further along on Highway 1 six kilometres west of Kandahar City.
All the wounded Canadians, who were not identified, are in good condition with non-life-threatening injuries. Five were released from hospital at Kandahar Air Field last night, with two held for observation and only one flown to the U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, for further treatment unavailable here.
All the Canadians were injured in the first blast, with the bloody devastation of the second borne by locals who had simply gathered, as do curious onlookers the world over at times of tragedy, by the side of the highway as the convoy began once again moving through the area.
Varying local reports say eight Afghans were killed and as many as 29 wounded, many seriously. Local ambulances raced to the chaotic scene and the lone city hospital was overwhelmed with casualties.
Two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters had only recently cleared the area, ferrying the Canadian wounded to the base, when the walking bomber exploded his device.
Contrary to local reports last night that soldiers had fired at villagers, Lt.-Col. Hope said all of those involved in the incident already had been interviewed and that he was confident none had fired. Brig.-Gen. Fraser described the Canadian after-attack operation as "textbook" perfect.
The attacks — the largest number of casualties inflicted in a single day by insurgents since Canada first sent troops to this country in early 2002 and the first double-ended one -- has left Canadians at the main coalition base reeling.
Most of the Canadian battle group, unbowed after sometimes ferocious combat, were quietly savouring what they believed was a safe and triumphant return. Unknown to most of them, at virtually the same time, about 20 km away from the base, the first suicider was driving his vehicle into the Bison.
All the soldiers are but two or three weeks away from the end of their six-month tour here.
Doctors at the base hospital report that the body armour and ballistic glasses worn by the wounded were dented and scratched and that this protective equipment and the armour of the Bison undoubtedly spared them more grievous injuries.
The soldiers of Alpha Company, 1PPCLI, were the last to come back to base from a mission which changed on the fly and at its peak involved two thirds of the 800-strong combat group.
Several times, the group with its formidable Light Armoured Vehicles, or LAVs, was slated to return to base, but each time, they were diverted to other tasks, often in support of beleaguered British troops.
"It's like we had a force field protecting us," one jubilant soldier told reporters as A Company arrived last night without having taken a single casualty.
But the bubble of relief and exhilaration burst soon after the convoy began pulling into the vehicle compound on the sprawling base, though only Lt.-Col. Hope and the senior leadership yet knew the grim news.
It was about an hour later, as the happy soldiers were heading off to the showers, that word began to spread to those who had just travelled safely over the same stretch of road, notorious for IEDs, that some of their comrades were not so lucky.
There is an IED strike of one sort or another — and bombs have been hidden in food carts, donkeys, on bicycles and motorcycles — almost every day or day and a half in southern Afghanistan.
Last month, Coalition explosives' expert British Major Jim Blackburn said in a recent briefing, there were 40 IEDs in what the military calls "RC South", the four southernmost Afghanistan provinces.
What they have in common, he said bluntly, is "murderous intent".
And while bombers wearing suicide vests are not a phenomenon native to this country, there were seven times as many, or 35 attacks, last year as in the first four years of Coalition operations since the U.S. invasion in late 2001.
Most are believed to have been carried out by foreign fighters coming into Afghanistan from across the border with Pakistan.
As medical staff rushed to the small but sophisticated Canadian-led combat hospital and helicopters began arriving with casualties, a tangible pall replaced the earlier mood of excitement.
Both Brig.-Gen. Fraser and Lt.-Col. Hope quickly arrived at the base hospital where a vehicle lot sign reads, with a particular Canadian touch, "Parking in designated areas only — eh".
A ramp ceremony for Cpls. Gomez and Warren may be held as early as Monday morning.
cblatchford@globeandmail.ca
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