Battle in Afghanistan leaves 47 dead

[Jersay]

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Canadian soldiers were patrolling villages southwest of Kandahar Saturday, looking for Taliban fighters who slipped away following a day-long battle.

Senior coalition officers said the troops were looking for insurgents who may have been wounded during a coalition air strike.

The battle began yesterday with the ambush of an Afghan police checkpoint just as a senior Afghan army commander was passing through the area.

Each side exchanged small arms fire until a Canadian Army rapid reaction force arrived.

Insurgents fired two rocket-propelled grenades at a Canadian armoured vehicle, but no one was hurt.

Taliban fighters, who had apparently been massing in the area for days, retreated to the village of Sansigar, which was hit by an air strike.

Kandahar Governor Assadullah Khalid claimed 41 insurgents were killed and 11 captured in Friday's fight.

Six Afghan police officers were killed, nine others were injured.

In addition, 13 civilians were wounded, including a woman and a young girl.

http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/News/NationalNewsArticle.htm?src=n041502A.xml

No Canadians were killed or wounded.

 

[FiveParadox]

Injuries, Deaths are Unacceptable

I hate that injuries and deaths need to be incurred during this intervention; while I am happy that nobody from the Canadian Forces was injured, I am simultaneously saddened by the deaths of anyone in this mission (including the Taliban insurgents, in terms of being human, not in terms of their [in my opinion] misled interpretation of their faith), but moreso for the civilians. It saddens me whenever civilians must be affected by the ravages of war, and I wish each of those thirteen civilians the speediest of recoveries.

 

[JonB2004]

RE: Battle in Afghanistan

Why are you sad that the Taliban insurgents are dead? They want us dead. I hope our troops kill as many of those bastards as they possibly can.

 

[Jersay]

As a humanitarian person from what I can read from Five's posts he doesn't like having people killed over any conflict. Even if they have bad relations or bad ideologies which can be respected.

However, I am glad that no Canadians were killed or injured but I only feel sorry for Afghan families who policeofficer family members are not coming home to them.

 

[FiveParadox]

Perhaps you should read into my entire post, JonB2004, before submitting a knee-jerk reaction. Note that I referred to their capacity as humans, period, as opposed to their capacity as insurgents. I don't like the loss of any life, in any conflict.

 

[JonB2004]

RE: Battle in Afghanistan

So what you are saying is that you want the Taliban insurgants to stay alive. Am I correct?

 

[FiveParadox]

JonB2004, stop trying to pick a fight. I'm saying that I value life.

I have nothing more to say to that end.

 

[Johnny Utah]

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Canadian soldiers were patrolling villages southwest of Kandahar Saturday, looking for Taliban fighters who slipped away following a day-long battle.

Senior coalition officers said the troops were looking for insurgents who may have been wounded during a coalition air strike.

The battle began yesterday with the ambush of an Afghan police checkpoint just as a senior Afghan army commander was passing through the area.

Each side exchanged small arms fire until a Canadian Army rapid reaction force arrived.

Insurgents fired two rocket-propelled grenades at a Canadian armoured vehicle, but no one was hurt.

Taliban fighters, who had apparently been massing in the area for days, retreated to the village of Sansigar, which was hit by an air strike.

Kandahar Governor Assadullah Khalid claimed 41 insurgents were killed and 11 captured in Friday's fight.

Six Afghan police officers were killed, nine others were injured.

In addition, 13 civilians were wounded, including a woman and a young girl.

http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/News/NationalNewsArticle.htm?src=n041502A.xml

No Canadians were killed or wounded.

41 Taliban Insurgents Killed, Good!
That may seem cold but when I saw the video of the Taliban executing women in open public, every member of the Taliban deserves to die.

It's sad 13 Civilians were killed, thankfully no Canadians were killed.

 

[Jersay]

Now most Taliban now adays sadly are only poor citizens from poor villages that are taken by hard-core Taliban soldiers and recruited into the Taliban insurgency.

 

[Mogz]

RE: Battle in Afghanistan

Now most Taliban now adays sadly are only poor citizens from poor villages that are taken by hard-core Taliban soldiers and recruited into the Taliban insurgency.

An enemy, is an enemy, is an enemy. You can paint them with any brush you so choose, but that doesn't change the fact they're the enemy. As long as they keep attacking heavily fortified FOBs and up-armored convoys, we'll keep piling up the bodies. C'est la vie.

 

[Jersay]

You can keep killing people that are Taliban agreed. But you have to get at the route at the causes so people begin to say, why should I join the Taliban which is why I like the development phase as well that the Canadian mission has. Because if that is not done and people don't start leaving the Taliban this will go on for 50 years.

 

[mabudon]

RE: Battle in Afghanistan

damn good point Jersay- we could succeed by doing the exact opposite of the US's actions in Iraq...

If our troops MUST be there, we should be doing things that we can be proud of, and killing desperate poor folks doesn't exactly make me wanna call my friends and share the good news...

If there's to be resolution to the situation there, the resolution MUST speak to the apparently disenfranchised population of that country and NOT to foreign investors.. sadly, the lack of transparency from our government and also the sketchy content of the sporadic, heavily edited "reports from the front" don't leave me with much hope

the loss of life is regrettable on both sides.. if I honestly knew exactly what we were trying to achieve, I would feel better but it seems like the best explanation I've seen (from the more passionate supporters of said mission) seems to be that the Taliban executed women and are all bastards deserving death... the case of the Christian convert guy pretty much puts the lie to all the feel-good liberation of women/freedom of religion talk that seem to be the default "explanation" offered to folks like me who are "just too dumb to understand"

here's hoping that if the nuclear war scheduled for sometime soon takes place, we can finally say "we have NO place over there, lets get the hell out" and have folks actually be able to look at it objectively and maybe even agree that NOTHING, not even the nicest of things, is worth perpetuating the bloodshed over there

 

[Mogz]

RE: Battle in Afghanistan

ou can keep killing people that are Taliban agreed. But you have to get at the route at the causes so people begin to say, why should I join the Taliban which is why I like the development phase as well that the Canadian mission has. Because if that is not done and people don't start leaving the Taliban this will go on for 50 years.

The point you're missing Jersay is that the vast majority of the militants we're engaging in Afghanistan are NOT AFGHANS. They're extremists from Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the like. The Taliban itself is small after the pounding they took in 2001/2002. Yes, Afghans do join the Taliban and Al-qaeda, but they're far and few between. The same can be said about Iraq, the public fails to realize that most of the insurgents in and around Iraq are NOT Iraqi's.

 

[Jersay]

The 41 the 14 who were killed just in the past three days were Afghani villagers. I haven't heard of any foreigners among them, they could have been but from what I heard they were Afghans, which still doesn't defeat the point.

Also, if you keep up reconstruction and get Afghan's away from the Taliban, then you shut off the flow of foreign militants from Pakistan, from Iran, from Uzbekistan from any other place and ensure they are small pockets and ensuring they don't get any reinforcements take out each and every single pocket one by one.

 

[EagleSmack]

It was no secret that after the fall of the Taliban a good portion of the Taliban were foreigners. The Northern Alliance allowed Afghan Taliban to go home and the foreigners... well they had different plans for them.

 

[Retired_Can_Soldier]

Now most Taliban now adays sadly are only poor citizens from poor villages that are taken by hard-core Taliban soldiers and recruited into the Taliban insurgency.

Come on Jersey! Give me a break! My son is over there as well as many of my comrades and I can assurre you that these aren't poor village folk recruited.

They are battled hardened killers. They are a tough adversary! Please don't be so naive.

Don't portray them as victims. They are not and I take great offense that you could say this.

M

 

[Lineman]

Re: RE: Battle in Afghanistan

.. sadly, the lack of transparency from our government and also the sketchy content of the sporadic, heavily edited "reports from the front" don't leave me with much hope

So tell me then, in your opinion, is anyone telling you the truth? Is every soldier, media outlet, goverment representative lying? Canadains have little to no economic interest in Afghanistan so what else but what is reported could our motivation be?

 

[Jersay]

Come on Jersey! Give me a break! My son is over there as well as many of my comrades and I can assurre you that these aren't poor village folk recruited.

They are battled hardened killers. They are a tough adversary! Please don't be so naive.

Don't portray them as victims. They are not and I take great offense that you could say this.

M

I agree, 90% are probably what you call Hardened killers, I wouldn't dispute that, however, there has been reports from America where the Taliban has gone into villages or schools and have scooped up all the young men in these villages, and this is from the American army, and they recruit them if you could call it that into their army. Now, if you have no coalition forces around and have a gun pointing at you, with threats to yourself or your family you will join the Taliban.