Vance: Troops have saved many lives
Published Saturday October 3rd, 2009
War | Former 2RCR chief says our soldiers excel at finding IEDs
Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are getting to more and more improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, before they have a chance to detonate, says their commander.
Brig.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, in charge of Canada's 2,800-plus soldiers, air crew and support staff in the embattled region, said this country's efforts in locating and destroying roadside bombs have saved many lives.
"We are at the very top of the percentages in the alliance in terms of the finding of IEDs before they detonate," Vance said in an interview with The Daily Gleaner.
"We're good at finding them and we also put an awful lot of effort into preventing them from getting into the road."
Vance, a former commander of The Second Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (2RCR) at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, wouldn't declare the efforts a rousing success, but he said it's reflective of his soldiers doing the best they can.
Canadian efforts, however, haven't come without a price.
IEDs are responsible for the majority of the 131 Canadian deaths in the country.
Earlier this week, an IED attack near the model village of Deh-e-Bagh in the Dand district southwest of Kandahar city sent another Canadian soldier to hospital.
News reports following the incident stated Vance, who was en route to that location when he came upon the injured soldier, was angered by what happened and demanded a shura, or meeting, with village elders.
But Vance said at no time did he experience frustration or anger, nor did he have an outburst.
When a violent act occurs, efforts are always made to engage the locals in dialogue to determine what can be done to improve the situation, he said.
Vance said he was concerned the population might have been "taking their eyes off the ball" with regard to what was happening around them, and that was a point he made to the elders.
He said a family of Afghans travelling the affected highway could have also set off the bomb.
"My troops were clearing the road in the morning and it could just as easily have been a carload of Afghans, and given the magnitude of the explosion it could have killed them all."
The good news is that many Afghans are now reporting the presence and location of IEDs to Canadian soldiers, he said.
"The population participating like this is critical."
Vance said the battle against IEDs is synonymous with the battle against the insurgency.
"It's a terrible method they have chosen. It's not just because it kills soldiers, but it kills a lot of Afghans, too. It's not a particularly smart way for them to be fighting because they are certainly not doing anything to win over the population. All they do is create fear."
Vance acknowledged that the level of violence has gone up in Afghanistan.
But he said that's because the number of friendly forces has risen and they're going into areas where they haven't ventured previously.
"Consequently, we are touching the insurgency where it hasn't been touched before."
A recent UN report found that August was the deadliest month so far this year for civilians because of violence from the insurgency.
The enemy said it would step up its campaign this year and do whatever it could to disrupt elections and that is what they have tried, Vance said.
But increased U.S. troops, however, have helped to counter that, the commander said.
The U.S. currently has 62,000 troops in the country, with 6,000 more expected by the end of the year. There are more than 100,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The presence of more U.S. forces has allowed Canadians to deploy soldiers in a manner that creates more secure conditions, the commander said.
"The larger presence has allowed us to concentrate our focus on the population where, as before, we sort of had to concentrate on the insurgency. We were constantly going around conducting operations just to defeat their ability to hurt the population or Afghan institutions. Now, we have got a better balance."
Disabled
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (4)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.