Opinion
Barry Artiste
It’s nice much needed help is on it’s way from our Brothers and Sisters from the South.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=758812
American troops to help Canadians in Afghanistan
Scott Deveau, National Post Published: Saturday, August 30, 2008
(Photo Inset) An Afghan boy shakes hands with a U.S. soldier in this file photo.
Officials announce that some 800 American soldiers will be boosting Canadian ranks in Afghanistan. (John Moore/Getty Image Photo).
Reinforcements will help choke off insurgent supply line
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The United States has deployed a much-needed battalion of 800 troops to assist Canadian and Afghan Forces in Kandahar and to try to tame the province’s Wild West.
While the battalion has been active in Kandahar since early July, it has only just begun its operations in the past few weeks in the Maywand district, which borders on Helmand province to the west, and will serve as its new home.
Until now, insurgents have been using Maywand as a corridor to move soldiers, money, and weapons into Kandahar from Pakistan, through the Helmand River Basin.
A lack of security in Maywand has helped feed the insurgency in such hotly contested areas as Zhari and Panjwaii in Kandahar, which have been the epicentre of the fighting here this summer. The new troops come from the 2-2 Infantry Battalion assigned to the third brigade of the first infantry division of the U.S. army and are based in Fort Hood, Tx.
The battalion is better known as the “Ramrods” or the “2-2s”.
The battalion, which will now fall under the command and control of the Canadian Forces, will serve a vital role in disrupting the activities of insurgents in Maywand, which has lacked a permanent presence by Coalition and Afghan forces due to a lack of personnel, according to Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, Canada’s top soldier in Kandahar.
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