NYT sums up Canadian Forces action

Today's New York Times has an article by Afghanistan correspondent David Rohde, "Canadian Forces Regain Part of Strategic Area in Southern Afghanistan". It sums up Operation Light Candle, covered on this blog (here) earlier in the week. Excerpts:

Canadian forces this week regained control of roughly half of a strategic area outside of the southern city of Kandahar that fell to the Taliban in August...

Four Afghan police officers died and two Canadian soldiers were wounded in an offensive that unfolded [Sept 9 and 10] in the Zhare district, officials said. Seven hundred Canadian troops, backed by airstrikes and Leopard tanks, met little resistance from Taliban fighters. ...

The Taliban generally have avoided direct clashes with heavily armed NATO forces and instead attacked lightly armed Afghan police forces or carried out suicide and roadside bomb attacks. ...

Taliban forces took back roughly two-thirds of Zhare and one-third of Panjwai after Canadian forces withdrew from the area during a troop rotation in August. The Taliban struck vulnerable police posts and, in recaptured areas, began hanging civilians they declared “spies,” according to Afghan officials. ...

Sayed Aqa Saqib, the Kandahar provincial police chief, said three of the Afghan police officers who died during the operation this week had struck a land mine. He said 150 Taliban had been killed.

Canadian officials ... declined to give an estimate of the number of Taliban killed.