Afstan: Brits won't hunt enemy; will Canadian troops stop?

The UK has finally decided to commit a large force to southern Afstan.

However:

Mr Reid [UK Defence Secretary] told the Commons that the British force would not be there to "wage war" or carry out the kind of "seek-and-destroy" type operations that the Americans had been mounting.

On the other hand:

The task of seeking out terrorists will be left to the SAS, who are already operating from Kandahar alongside their Australian counterparts [no mention of Canadian JTF 2 who are also now doing the same thing from Kandahar].

Meanwhile a Canadian battle group is arriving in Kandahar with a combat mission.

More than 100 Canadian combat troops arrived in southern Afghanistan yesterday [Jan. 24], the first wave of a 2,200-strong battle group aimed at rooting out Taliban insurgents in the region...

...Lt.-Col. Hope [battle group commander] said yesterday he plans to take the offensive against the suicide bombers and those who train and support them. "We'll never be able to stop them completely, but we will continue to do the active offensive operations to counter them and deter them."

The Canadian battle group will be under US Operation Enduring Freedom until this summer. It will then shift to the command of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), led by a British general.

When the shift from Enduring Freedom to ISAF takes place

Canada will take command of a NATO brigade that will include Dutch [if their parliament next week approves their dispatch] and British soldiers so that Islamic insurgents do not retake control of the region, the birthplace of the Taliban.

So we end up with this situation. Our soldiers will have a combat mission under Enduring Freedom. Then the Brits send a large number of troops, mostly to Helmand Province just west of Kandahar province. The UK also takes command of ISAF. This will include the Canadian-commanded multi-national brigade in Kandahar with its component Canadian battle group and UK contingent.

But the UK has now made it clear that its troops will not have the offensive counter-terrorist mission that Canadian troops will have while part of Enduring Freedom.

So we might end up with a truly curious situation. The Canadian battle group continues its combat mission when it transfers to ISAF command, while the UK troops that are also part of the same Canadian-commanded brigade merely defend themselves aggressively. Surely one cannot have a brigade with different rules of engagement for different national contigents.

Or else the Canadians--JTF2 aside--relinquish their counter-terrorist role.

This would seem necessarily to be the case once they come under ISAF.

Rejecting U.S. calls to take on tougher counter-terrorism tasks, NATO nations insisted the job of hunting and killing insurgents would remain the preserve of the 19,000-strong Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) force led by the United States.

Proposed new rules for ISAF will allow its soldiers to shoot first against any threat to their security, but their core tasks will remain the patrols and support of Afghan security forces -- albeit in a more dangerous environment.

"The way we describe it is: 'We are not going out hunting the bad guys'," said one NATO diplomat who requested anonymity.

The new government should be asked to clarify the situation.

It is also curious that none of the UK reporting has mentioned the plan for a British formation to serve under Canadian command at Kandahar. One wonders why.

Posted by markc at January 27, 2006 10:32 AM | TrackBack