Skip to main content
the afghan mission

Canadian troops on patrol in Afghanistan.Josh Wingrove

Standing on the roof of this mud compound and armed with only a bent seven-iron, Corporal James Riley is dealing with the changing nature of the Afghanistan mission, writ small.

He has finished the "stick" part of his day, a patrol through the harrowing, bomb-laden dirt roads that connect the nearby villages of the volatile Panjwaii district of Kandahar province. Now, on this typically hot and sunny Afghan winter afternoon, Cpl. Riley has moved on to his "carrot" strategy: One by one, he clubs golf balls into the rolling fields. Children scream with excitement and run to fetch them.

One returned ball is worth two candies - in theory. In reality, he has to barter with the kids. This is, after all, a war for hearts and minds.

A few months ago, this place was nobody's idea of a driving range. About 15 kilometres southwest of bustling Kandahar City, the villages of Haji Baba and Nakhonay, a few minutes' walk apart, are staggeringly poor. Life moves slowly in this area of perhaps a few thousand people. The roads are lined with solid mud walls, wide enough for a small car or a donkey pulling a cart but not for armoured vehicles.

Occasional breaks in the barriers make for a labyrinth of peering eyes and possible threats. Everything is covered in dust or mud. The small homes and shops have few windows. This is a place closed to outsiders.

The compound where Canadian soldiers now live was home to insurgents and drug traffickers, who used the villages as bases - "Taliban central," says Major Wayne Niven, the head of Canada's Delta Company, which has embedded three platoons around these communities. Canada swept in and took over four months ago.

Now, the compound is held by Captain James O'Neill, the hard-nosed but informal commander of Delta's 11 Platoon, and officially called Combat Outpost Shkarre (a Dari word meaning "to hunt"). However, an older name has stuck, inspired by the Afghan graveyard across the road and, perhaps, the bloody toll Canada has paid here.

Welcome to Camp Tombstone.





It's all part of the Key Village Approach, introduced last year by Canadian Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance as a way to stabilize this country. Nakhonay was one of the first places to benefit. Once in their compounds, each platoon stays put, fast-tracking development, wooing locals and warding off the Taliban. It's what has Cpl. Riley alternating gun and golf club.

It's a far cry from Canada's past here, when large bases and quick-moving units were the rule. But eight years on, with the country's 2011 withdrawal date fast approaching, it has come down to this: After gradual improvements, season after season, in the uphill battle with the Taliban in and around Kandahar City, security fell off again in the past year. The province is as dangerous as ever. Now, 85 per cent of Canada's 2,800 troops are scattered through villages, in groups of a few dozen or less, trying to make a lasting difference.

With the lives of 140 Canadian soldiers lost, hundreds more wounded and billions of dollars already spent, it's here, at these platoon houses, that Canada will stake its legacy. Gen. Vance's successor, Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard, has boasted that a major summer battle will be fought out of these small outposts.

He speaks often of the "ring of stability" - the point where coalition influence wavers or stops. He won't name its exact boundaries, but around here, it's clear that any stability ends about where Cpl. Riley's tee shots land.

CHAPTER 2. A CAMP IS BORN - AND TRANSFORMS ITSELF FROM RAT HOLE TO 'GUCCI'

Tombstone is the antithesis of Kandahar Air Field, Canada's sprawling home of operations, loaded with conveniences such as TV, Tim Hortons and a TGI Fridays restaurant. When Canadian networks cut to images of soldiers watching, for instance, an Olympic hockey game, they're filming from the safety of the base. The Tombstone guys missed every Olympic event.

Among the platoon, you'll find just about any kind of expertise. They are a family, living and working together in this small space for a seven-month tour. They build their own camp, fix their own radios, cook their own food. Capt. O'Neill gives the haircuts.

The compound was austere when the soldiers arrived. Since then, they have built showers, a barbecue, a firing range and a gym (with weights "borrowed" from other units) and set up wireless Internet. The dry rations now sit on shelves, largely untouched - dinner tonight includes a fresh salad with tomatoes, raisins, apples and carrots; rice with mushrooms; pork chops (two per soldier) with Cajun spices; and frozen cheesecake for dessert.

"For the first month and a half, we were living like rats," says Private Jeff Schneider, 22. "Now, it's Gucci as fuck." That's how they describe luxury out here.

The local towns are the hubs of a farming region. Grape fields abound - soldiers worry for the summer when they will be in bloom, providing cover to anyone looking for a place to hide.

Down the streets of Nakhonay, children peer out of houses. There are a handful of shops, typically with door frames less than six feet high and one small display case each. The bleats, barks and moos of animals ring in the air. The only sign of modern technology are speaker systems that blare out prayers each day. At night, the village is still, and on a clear evening a view of the stars stretches across the horizon.

Every day, the platoon mounts a patrol, with times, lengths and paths ever varied.

"No matter what, you always have a goal. But you want to keep it as direct as possible, so guys don't feel they're just putting on the kilometres," says the patrol leader, Sergeant Paul Rachynski, 28, who is already on his third tour in Afghanistan and was last year awarded the Military Medal of Valour.









Just after noon one day, the sergeant leads a foot patrol out of the gates of Tombstone, single file. They wave at the children and men who sit and look on, under the watch of a nearby guard tower. The day's objective is based on a tip from a local - which Sgt. Rachynski says is "about as reliable as a rumour" - that Taliban insurgents have hidden weapons and bomb-making material in the wadis (drainage ditches) to the north.

After reaching the wadis, the infantry inches forward, taking cover behind the mud walls, which Capt. O'Neill has said are "surprisingly resilient" - able to stop gunfire. Engineers scan with metal detectors. Snipers watch the horizon.

Three men from Delta Company, one from each platoon, have died in blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) since their rotation began in October - the only infantry killed in the entire Canadian battle group this rotation. Cpl. Hunter Robinz, 24, arrived recently to replace Sgt. John Faught, who was killed in a January bombing on the road out of Nakhonay. As the new guy, he's nicknamed "Baskin Robinz."

Around 1:45 p.m., the patrol is interrupted by an explosion on the horizon, perhaps a kilometre away. Peering over the walls, they see a plume of black smoke to the southwest.

"What was that, Sergeant?" Cpl. Robinz asks Sgt. Rachynski.

"A large explosion," the sergeant says, matter-of-factly but with a grin.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Cpl. Robinz replies drily. They later learn that a nearby Canadian tank group set off the blast on purpose. That's how you get rid of smaller-scale IEDs.

"Really, how sane do you have to be to do this job?" Cpl. Robinz asks.

In the end, they find no weapons in the wadis.

CHAPTER 3. THE STRATEGY - CANADA'S COMING OUT OF ITS 'CASTLE'

Four years ago, Canada's battle group was all but alone in volatile Kandahar and couldn't have spared the troops to maintain dozens of combat outposts. Some soldiers say that for years, Canada was simply "putting out fires"; Major Niven, the Delta commander, says it was more like "throwing water on a grease fire a lot of the time," offering no long-term security.

"A lot of people say our strategy was flawed from the beginning," he adds. "Well, no. ... It was simply the fact that there was not enough forces in the country."

Taliban fighters would hide during any Canadian attack, then pick up where they left off later. "They knew we would never stay," Major Niven says. "The fact that we've stayed, and have done so for four months now, has forced them to change their tactics."

Of course, they may still be lying low, waiting for soldiers to leave, as they still eventually will. But the surge in U.S. troop levels under President Barack Obama's administration has given the forces room to experiment.

Sitting in his office, Gen. Ménard lays out his case: "When you live with the population, it's the same principle as the medieval era: Nobody approached the castles because they were scared of the castles, even if there were good kings." A big base, he says, is a castle. To reach the people, you have to get out past the moat.

Once locals start to trust soldiers, he says, it pays dividends, including a spike in the numbers of Afghans who report the locations of IEDs. He saw that for himself on a visit to Tombstone last month. "We, I believe, have just cracked a nut in Nakhonay - one of the most difficult areas we have."







The general has one supporter in Tooryalai Wesa, the Afghan-Canadian governor of Kandahar province, who maintains a home in Coquitlam, B.C. "I think it's better, because of the size of our villages," he says. "I think Gen. Ménard has a good plan."

Commanders have said the summer attack will be on the scale of February's Operation Moshtarak in nearby Helmand province, one of the war's largest offensives. Canadians will be at the "tip of the spear" of the Kandahar effort.

Full operations are expected to kick off in May, with so-called shaping exercises (preparing for a major effort) flaring up beforehand. Urban areas will be the prime targets, Gen. Ménard says, but they'll be able to take lessons from Operation Hydra, which brought Nakhonay into the ring of stability.

Capt. O'Neill, 33, is a commander with the kind of military "street cred" to help ease troops into new regimes. He joined the Canadian Forces in 1996 and served in Bosnia and Kosovo (neither of which, he says, taught him many lessons applicable to the cat-and-mouse games of Afghanistan).

He commissioned out of the ranks three years ago, but inside the base, he keeps it casual - during an interview, he's wearing running shoes, shorts and an athletic T-shirt that says, "Undeniable."

A Hamilton, Ont., native now based in Edmonton, he has a common-law wife who is also in the military, loves Johnny Cash and speaks to troops with the posture and tone of a hockey coach. He goes on three patrols a week to make sure he's in touch. And he has felt Delta Company's tragedies personally - he was friends with Lieutenant Andrew Nuttall, the late head of the Balpeen platoon to the southwest, and Sgt. Faught was one of his section leaders.

"The only time I'll be happy, feel that I'm safe," he admits, "is when I'm in Cyprus having a couple beers."

CHAPTER 4. HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE INSURGENTS

Nakhonay and Haji Baba are estimated to be more than 95-per-cent ethnic Noorzai, a restive and extremely pro-Taliban tribe. The Canadians are sure that Taliban remain in the town. The trick is finding them.

"You need to separate the insurgents from the population. And nobody has, on their forehead, written, 'Taliban,' " Gen. Ménard says.

So the soldiers here have to look with caution on every man they meet. For an Afghan, a mistimed cellphone call, combined with gesturing toward a Canadian patrol, can lead to a quick arrest, on suspicion of conspiracy to set off a bomb.

Many of the village elders have histories as insurgents, but Capt. O'Neill so far lacks a "smoking gun" to arrest them. Meanwhile, he has to work with them.

Soldiers strive for "positive identification," or PID, before opening fire or making an arrest - either through interrogation, interviews in the community or, most commonly, first-hand witness by a soldier. A false arrest, particularly for those handed over to Afghan officials, who've been accused of torturing detainees, could be catastrophic - and not just here, but back home in Canada, as the Harper government has learned at its peril.



"PID is essential," Capt. O'Neill says. "You're fighting someone who blends in with the population, that can pick up a gun, shoot at you, throw it down in a wadi and run into the village. And everybody looks the same - you know, everybody's wearing the man jammies and the hats."

To build mutual faith and help to divide friend from foe, soldiers have been clearing bombs along the roads and late last year started work-for-hire projects that put money in local people's pockets. In Nakhonay, trust can be bought.

"As long as the Canadians support us, then we are happy," one bearded man says when a patrol walks by. "Then we'll like them."

But the progress of the first few months was fragile. "Then, the infamous 'night letters' happened again," Capt. O'Neill says with a sigh. The Taliban are notorious for posting threats overnight on the doors of suspected collaborators. "All work stops."

It continued that way until late January. "It's like the DMZ between North Korea and South Korea," the captain recalls. "We were just staring at each other."

In desperation, the Canadians shifted from friendly occupier to bad cop. They started "X-spraying" the locals - squirting a solution on their hands to reveal traces of explosives. The technique is far from sure-fire: The preferred bomb fuel of Taliban fighters is ammonium nitrate, which doubles as a popular fertilizer - it was recently banned, but is still widely available. At best, X-spraying catches IED makers red-handed. At worst, it could lead to detaining a farmer in a largely illiterate country because he used the wrong fertilizer. That's bad cop for you.

Still, the soldiers are confident they nabbed the right guys, and it has helped to get the town back on track.

So have financial incentives: Capt. O'Neill pays 37,500 Afghanis (approximately $775) to any local who reports an active IED, and 10,000 Afghanis (about $200) for more minor tips, such as those that lead to weapons caches.

"It's a ton of money for them," he says. "In the past two weeks, we've had nine or 10 IEDs turned in by the locals. So, they're pretty much saying, 'Enough of the Taliban, we're sick of the fighting. We're sick of everything. We want to start building.'"

He admits that people could just plant an IED (which can cost as little as $20), call it in and earn a profit. "We may be putting money back in the Taliban's pockets. But the way I look at it is, I get it [the IED]out of the ground, I get it away from me. Now they have to try and put it back in the ground again. And I'm just hoping that we'll find them and we'll kill them before they do it."

CHAPTER 5. NIGHT COURT, STARRING JUDGE JAMES O'NEILL

Each arrest, however, has the potential to derail progress. "When I take somebody, it's the only issue with the villagers," Capt. O'Neill says. "I won't be able to get anything else done."

To involve locals in the process, Capt. O'Neill has started moonlighting as Judge O'Neill. He has developed "this court-system kind of thing" that closely resembles the tribal shuras (gatherings) that are popular peace-making exercises here.

Though he has "tried" only one case so far, the procedure is defined: He meets with the elders of the village, as well as an elder male of the arrested person's family. He presents his case and listens to theirs, including protests of the accused's innocence.

Capt. O'Neill then makes his own decision about whether to continue the process by sending the man to Kandahar Air Field. But the captain says the mini-court helps to appease the local community.

"I had to come up with a system that's going to work," he says. (The first time, he stuck by his "guilty" verdict.)

In all these matters, Capt. O'Neill has full control - he decides where to patrol, whom to arrest and where to spend money on development, without having to check further up the chain of command. He is the local face, hand and pocketbook of Canada.

"If your commander - say, Major Niven - was the one making the decisions all the time, the Afghans wouldn't want to talk to me any more," he says. "They'd always want to see him, and he can't be here 24/7. So, he realizes that, and he lets us do our thing."

Major Niven thinks the approach works. "You have to assume some risk to be close to the population, build that trust, build that rapport."

Today, children run through the streets of the villages, and Capt. O'Neill knows just about everyone. If this progress in Nakhonay is sustained, it will prove the new strategy's merit. Yet Canada hasn't altered the length of its tours since it shifted from "putting out fires" - so what happens in May, when Capt. O'Neill and his platoon leave?

"This is going to be the challenging portion, because they're used to me, they're used to my personality," he says. "They're used to dealing with my guys. … It definitely makes things difficult only being here for six or seven months. You're just getting into your own."

And that's just a preview of the displacement coming next year, with the departure of the whole Canadian battle group.

The outpost strategy has other failings. Dozens of bases require more soldiers for around-the-clock guard duty than a smattering of large compounds, leaving fewer soldiers to patrol.

"It's riskier. It's tougher to defend a lot of small locations than it is one big location," says a former top Canadian commander, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's not only their defensibility - it's the ability to reinforce and send reserves to their assistance. You've got to cover more ground."

Gen. Ménard's game plan boils down, as many military terms do, to one cumbersome acronym - DSCHBE ("DISH-buh"): Define an area to go after; Shape (prepare) it by arresting known insurgents and destroying their command centres; Clear (the full-Monty attack);  Hold (stay in the area and consolidate gains); Build (with development aid); and Enable (hand it off to the Afghans).

The general says Nakhonay is still in the Clear phase, but he believes it will "absolutely" be in a Hold phase by summer. That leaves Canadian troops 12 months to Build and Enable - a short time frame in an area that has been insurgent-run for decades.

CHAPTER 6. THE HOME-GROWN PLATOON, NOT QUITE READY FOR PRIME TIME

One face of the final stage of Canada's exit strategy is sitting on the other side of Tombstone, away from the golf clubs and card games. Sgt. Abdul Wodod, 26, sits barefoot and cross-legged on his cot, with DVD and TV remotes on his pillow.

A quiet soldier who joined the fledgling Afghan National Army (ANA) seven years ago, he offers tea from a metal pot with a carved red rose on its lid and explains the role of his platoon, which works alongside the much larger Canadian one.

"Our first goal is to look for the Talib," he says, on message. "That's why we're here. They are our enemies, and our country's enemies."

From there, however, Sgt. Wodod breaks with the Canadians: His platoon, all from Afghanistan's north, don't see a Taliban threat here. "I don't think there's any Talib in this Haji Baba area."

The ANA is very much a work in progress. One Canadian commander quips with frustration that it's like "working with 10-year-olds" who have to be given straightforward directions. The Canadians provide supplies and mentoring, mapping out all patrols and fixing ANA equipment when it breaks down.

"I can't go over there and discuss a seven-day plan with them, because all they care about is the next day. So it makes it harder for me to plan," Capt. O'Neill says. Sgt. Wodod has been pressuring him to put a volleyball court in the compound. "We could sit here probably the entire tour and they would not come over here one time and ask us to go on patrol.

"For me, I have a hard time understanding. It's their country. If they want it to get better, then you'd think they'd want to be out all the time doing whatever they can."

Major Niven admits the ANA won't be "100 per cent sufficient" by the time Canada leaves. He says Canada "definitely" will need to be replaced by some other coalition country to preserve the work of the platoon houses here, and keep Nakhonay from Taliban hands.

Mr. Wesa, the governor, believes the Americans, with their vastly improved troop levels, will take over. "I'm not sure if there will be a gap."

The retired Canadian commander certainly hopes there isn't: "There needs to be a transfer plan of some kind."

Otherwise, Sgt. Wodod says the ANA will "have no other choice" but to try to continue alone, under the general direction of the coalition.

Capt. O'Neill says he doesn't spend too much time worrying about endgames. "It is what it is. Taliban have been around here for, you know, decades, you know what I mean? They're not going anywhere. If we pulled out of Afghanistan today, it'd probably take a couple days before the Taliban took this place back over again," he says. "That's just the reality of it."

CHAPTER 7. A NARROW ESCAPE, A HOPEFUL SIGN AND A HARD BARGAIN

With two months left, the soldiers of 11 Platoon continue to patrol and work on development projects: They're trying to build a well for Nakhonay, and last month, ground was broken on a highway project - a major step for trade and security, because IEDs can't easily be placed on a paved road.

"That's been the No. 1 thing the villagers wanted from the beginning," Capt. O'Neill says.

It's these stories that soldiers don't feel are told to the broader Canadian public.

"I think what they're missing is the progress, however slow and painful," says Cpl. Steve Suke, 26.

Pte. Kyler Wilson, 22, shakes his head. "They just see the dead soldiers coming back."

Sgt. Rachynski's patrol visits another platoon house called Balpeen, a place most Canadian trucks cannot reach. It has few of the luxuries that Tombstone does.

They can't patrol today because some soldiers are out getting supplies and the remaining men are needed to guard the compound. The ANA, ever helpful, play volleyball nearby.

As the soldiers walk back through Nakhonay, children swarm the streets, asking for money, candy, pens and paper. But the troops are wary of stopping in any one place for long. The drivers of the few passing vehicles, all beaten-up old Toyotas, know the drill: They stop until the entire Canadian line has gone by.

Soldiers are always told to watch where they walk - compact earth is a good thing, but loose soil could mean something has been planted there. Here, large holes punctuate the road, left by Canadians digging up explosives.

That night, around the poker table, word spreads: The patrol came perilously close to another tragedy - it walked right over an IED, which fortunately did not go off. Its location was reported by a local, shortly after the patrol was back in Tombstone.

Capt. O'Neill suspects that the bomb was operated by a command wire and no insurgent could get to it in time. The informant has earned his 37,500 Afghanis, but hasn't yet picked it up - all local help, it seems, need not be bought.

"With the realties of Afghanistan, everything can be going well for five or six months, and then one day can be the most tragic day in your life," Capt. O'Neill says.

"It's not 'just another patrol.' You can't call it that. ... Anything can happen."

Outside, Cpl. Riley, the golfer, continues to barter.

The children clamour for more candy, raising the price for a ball from two chocolates to a fistful. They flash all the balls they have hoarded, hidden in their robes.

"These kids are gettin' stingy," says Cpl. Riley. "I'm done."

Cpl. Robinz, on guard in the tower, laughs. "They'll barter for a handful of candy, and then you'll get a ball back, and then he'll pull out another one," he says, clutching his rifle. "It's like, are you kidding me?"

The kids should think twice. The next guys might not bring any golf clubs.

Interact with The Globe