Hundreds of Taliban die in battle for their training school Renata

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Hundreds of Taliban die in battle for their training school Renata D'Aliesio, CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, October 02, 2006 Article tools
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SPERVAN, Afghanistan - Names plaster the cement walls of a school built on a hill.

Hundreds of names, room by room, that mark the Taliban's presence.

This school, which Canadian soldiers and the Afghan National Army now guard, was a training centre for Taliban fighters. Its graduates are listed on the walls.

''The Taliban had completely taken it over,''said an official with special forces who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ''They were using it as their living quarters and a training area.''

The unexpected battle that unfolded out of this school a few weeks ago in Spervan has never before been told.

While Canadians were leading the charge into Pashmuhl last month, special forces and Afghan soldiers were taking on a surprisingly strong Taliban forces on the hill.

The fallout has created a treacherous environment for Canadian troops. The few locals who have returned to Spervan and nearby Siah Choy are mostly hostile. The insurgents, meanwhile, are regrouping nearby.

''We know they are there,'' said Major Steve Brown, commander of Charles Company, 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment from Petawawa, Ont.

''We suspect they are re-arming and regrouping for further operations. We don't know what or when that will be.''

Since the combat aspect of Operation Medussa ended on Sept. 14, Canadian soldiers have been the target of suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Two attacks have proven deadly.

On Sept 18, four Canadian soldiers three with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantryfrom Shilo, Man. and a medic based in Petawawa were killed by a suicide bomber on a bicycle.

And on Friday, a soldier with the RCRs died when he stepped on a pressure plate connected to an anti-tank mine.

A ramp ceremony for Pte. Josh Klukie was held at Kandahar airfield onSunday.

The dirt road leading to Spervan from the commercial hob of Panjwaii district has been packed with IEDs lately. Canadian and Afghan troops are monitoring the area but unlike Panjwaii, where most residents have returned, Spervan and Siah Choy remain ghost towns.

Residents don't believe this belt of farmland is free of the Taliban or fighting yet.

''If there is a void, they (the insurgents) will fill it,'' Brown said. ''We have to make sure we don't allow that to happen.''

Brown's troops now occupy the school in Spervan. It's uncertain exactly how many insurgents roamed its halls but the special forces official estimated 600 were killed in the battle on the hill.

The figure helps explain the discrepancy between tallies given by NATOfor the number of Taliban killed during Operation Medussa. With the estimate for insurgents killed in Panjawii and Zhari districts in the Canadian-led offensive, the death toll rises to roughly 1,000.

Like the publicized battles in Pashmuhl, their strikes played a major role in defeating the Taliban at the school. Details were kept secret until recently because of involvement by special forces.

Operation Medussa was in its infancy when a group of special forces and Afghan soldiers were sent to Spervan. NATOknew there was Taliban activity in the area, but it wasn't aware it had become such a stronghold.

''We were to go in and look at a couple of know areas in the south,''the special forces official said.

''What they didn't realize was that Spervan . . . had 800 to 1,400 Taliban lurking in the area.''

The special forces immediately came under fire as they approached the school on Sept. 3. Machine guns coughed and rocket propelled grenades whizzed the the soldiers.

The special forces retreated.

''We thought 'Oh man' this is some sort of stronghold for the insurgents,''' the official said.

''There aren't just one or two guys. There are hundreds of guys here.''

The NATO offensive to drive the Taliban from Panjwaii district had already taken a big hit by this point. Five Canadian soldiers had died in the first days of fighting, and the international force was drawing up new battle plans.

Despite the retreat from the school, a decision was made to strike back immediately. After a bombardment from the air, special forces finished off the remaining Taliban in the following days.

Small attacks ensued over the next six days, but they were unsuccessful. The Taliban, for the moment, had been decimated.

But their resurgence is troubling Brown.

Calgary Herald

© CanWest News Service 2006

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/wo...c14067&k=86560

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Pakistan churning out Taliban

Pakistan churning out Taliban

Ajum Naveed, the Associated Press
A Pakistani soldier guards Taliban weapons seized along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Pakistan signed a controversial truce last month with pro-Taliban fighters along its eastern frontier hoping the strategy will bring peace to the area and bring and end to cross-border raids. Coalition forces, however, have seen a tripling of attacks since a truce.
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NAS...=1014656511815

Mohammed Yousef Qureshi


President admits he is 'moving slowly' against extremist schools
The Boston Globe
Islamabad, Pakistan (Oct 2, 2006)
In a bustling, prosperous corner of this capital city stands the gated campus of a religious school, or madrasa, where some 10,000 students study the teachings of the Koran every day.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, assistant headmaster at the school, sat cross-legged on the floor flanked by a Koran and a Kalashnikov, and asked that a reporter not photograph the weapon because it would "give the wrong impression."

Then Ghazi proceeded to praise Osama bin Laden's call to jihad, or holy war, against the West. He expressed "great pride" that "at least hundreds" of graduates from his school have taken up arms against coalition forces, including Canadians, in Afghanistan. And he openly described himself and his students as "pro-Taliban."

The Jamia Feridia school does not exist in the shadowy fringes of militant Islam. It operates openly and has a 40-year history as part of the religious establishment in a country that Washington regards as a pivotal ally in the "war on terror."

The school starkly illustrates just how radicalized Pakistan has become and how widespread is the support for both bin Laden and the Taliban, diplomats and political observers here say.

Coalition forces in Afghanistan are fighting a resurgent Taliban guerrilla force five years after a U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power and into the mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border, along with the remnants of the al-Qaeda movement the Taliban regime hosted until 2001.

In the past year, the Taliban have regrouped in Pakistan and reasserted its authority in the south and eastern provinces of Afghanistan. Afghan leaders -- including President Hamid Karzai -- have complained angrily that the Pakistanis have not done enough to go after Taliban networks in Pakistan and close radical madrasas. Karzai declared: "Those places have to be closed down."

According to a Western diplomat, Ghazi's madrasa was on a list of militant institutions the Pakistani government has placed under surveillance and Ghazi has been detained at least once. Meanwhile, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf claims to have cracked down on Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists, arresting more than 600 since 2001. Musharraf told George Bush last week that only 5 per cent of the schools in Pakistan are radical, and that "we are moving slowly" against them.

The diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the sentiments expressed in the school were widespread and not at all surprising given the support for the Taliban and bin Laden in many corners of Pakistan.

The Afghan ambassador to the United States, Said T. Jawad, says both the Afghan Taliban leadership that fled across the border and a more indigenous Pakistani movement sharing the same name and ideology "operate openly in Pakistan."

Ghazi, with a long, grey beard and black head scarf that is the trademark of the Afghan Taliban, was asked if he saw himself and his school as part of what the Pakistani media have come to call "the local Taliban."

"Philosophically, yes" he replied. "The young generation, our students, are the local Taliban."

Speaking in perfect English with a hint of a British accent, Ghazi, who describes himself as the school's head teacher of Islamic theology, continued, "Osama bin Laden's philosophy is quite logical and consistent with the Koran. If there are any forces attacking your people and your faith, you are justified in attacking in response. In fact, you are obligated to do so.

"Where I might differ with Osama bin Laden is the extent of what you in America call collateral damage, the killing of civilians," added Ghazi.

Asked if he was sending students to Afghanistan to fight, he said the school was not involved in recruitment or training, but that it was proud of those who chose to go.

The students, he said, are "absolutely going and those going are justified to fight jihad against U.S. troops. It is a legitimate jihad to fight and kill soldiers in Afghanistan ... We teach that here because it is the accurate teaching of the concept of jihad."

One reason for their anger: They see the United States as the sponsor of autocratic regimes throughout the Middle East and the Muslim world -- including in Pakistan.

Support for the Taliban and bin Laden can be found from the capital city to remote, rural provinces. In a sermon in Peshawar, the message echoed off the ornate, alabaster architecture of the oldest mosque in the city.

Just before prayers on a recent Friday, Mullah Mohammed Yousef Qureshi, the chief cleric at the mosque, railed against U.S. policy and offered the popular theory that Israel orchestrated the 9/11 attacks to draw the United States into a war against Islam. Qureshi is a judge and is regarded as an expert on Shariah, or Islamic law.

"Osama's fatwa regarding war against America is right," said Qureshi, dressed in the traditional clerical robes and black kohl eyeliner often worn in Pashtun culture as a sign of piety. "What the U.S. is doing in Iraq and Lebanon and Afghanistan is an attack against all Muslims," he added.

When an interviewer pushed Qureshi to elaborate on these points, he walked out.

But in his sermon before a packed congregation, he thundered against the United States, saying, "We are friends of Osama because he is a friend of Islam and is standing up to the western world ... We are friends of the Taliban because they are working on behalf of Islam."

More than 3,000 Canadian soldiers are deployed overseas on operational missions. On any given day, about 8,000 Canadian Forces members -- one third of Canada's deployable force -- are preparing for, engaged in or returning from an overseas mission. Since 1947, the Canadian Forces has completed 72 international operations.

Here is a list of all current Canadian Forces operations as of 28 Sept. 2006

* Operation ALTAIR Persian Gulf: 237

* Operation Athena Afghanistan: 2,286

* Operation Archer Afghanistan: 35

* Operation ARGUS Afghanistan: 15

* Operation Foundation Tampa, Florida / Bahrain: 8

* UN Assistance Mission Iraq: 1

* NATO Stabilization Force Bosnia-Herzegovina: 9

* European Union Force Bosnia-Herzegovina: 11

* UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti Haiti: 4

* UN Disengagement Observer Force Golan Heights: 3

* Multinational Force and Observers Sinai: 28

* UN Truce Supervision Organization Jerusalem: 10

* UN Forces in Cyprus Cyprus: 1

* UN Organization Mission to the Congo Congo: 9

* CF Operations in Sudan Sudan: 44

* Standing NATO Maritime Group Operation Sextant: 309

* Total: 3,021

source: Department of National Defence

Coalition forces in Afghanistan are fighting a resurgent Taliban guerrilla force five years after a U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power and into the mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border, along with the remnants of the al-Qaeda movement the Taliban regime hosted until 2001.