Taliban ambushed Canadian troops, alliance spokesman says.

ASSOCIATED PRESS - October 14th, 2006.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Two Canadian soldiers died Saturday in an ambush of rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire as they guarded a road that’s become a prime target for insurgent attacks west of here.

Two other troops were wounded and are in hospital at Kandahar Airfield in serious but non-critical condition, said Col. Fred Lewis, deputy commander of Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan.

No names or other details were immediately released while family members were notified.

Lt.-Col. Omer Lavoie, the ground-level commander of Canada’s fighting force, was on the road at the time but was not hurt. Undisclosed air support and Dutch Apache attack helicopters were called in as a subsequent firefight lasted for more than two hours.

“After the first 15 minutes or so, we were the ones doing most of the shooting,” Lewis said. He declined to discuss insurgent casualties.

The Canadians were attacked while patrolling an unfinished four-kilometre road to link the Panjwaii district about 20 kilometres west of Kandahar with a main highway. The vital artery would allow safer passage for troops and local Afghan people. But it has proven to be a treacherous gauntlet for troops ambushed or killed by bombs in recent weeks.

Soldiers in the region say there just aren’t enough of them to properly clear the area of insurgents who’ve stepped up attacks since a major three-week offensive against the Taliban last month was declared a success by NATO.

A day before Saturday’s ambush, Lavoie told The Canadian Press that it has taken longer than expected to train local police and security forces to help secure the area near Pashmul.

“Part of the problem might be retainment in some cases,” he said in an interview.

“Once they’re trained, it might be more profitable to go work for a security company.”

Or the enemy. Troops on the ground openly question the loyalty and competence of Afghan soldiers and police.

Six Canadians have died along the unfinished road or the 16-square-kilometre area around it since late September.

“The Taliban don’t like roads because roads mean progress,” said Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, the Canadian and NATO commander in southern Afghanistan.

“And the Taliban only want to destroy.”

Fraser concedes that the recent addition of more Afghan troops and police in the region is only a start.

“We have to keep on . . . asking for more resources down here to keep building the progress we’re having.

“That progress will be challenged every day by that organization called the Taliban who wants to take it down. Whatever they destroy we will rebuild.”

Forty-two Canadian troops and one diplomat have now died in Afghanistan since 2002.

Soldiers take their lives in their hands just navigating the suicide attacks and booby-trapped roads around Kandahar.

Cpl. Jeff Burtch of A Company, 2nd Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry, didn’t hesitate Friday when a man in a car along Highway 4 near Kandahar pointed an AK-47 at a Canadian convoy of light armoured vehicles. Burtch, who was riding sentry, fired a C8 assault rifle through the door of the man’s car, hitting him.

The convoy did not stop.

“He’s dead,” Burtch said as the vehicles rolled safely into the Kandahar base, his hands shaking just visibly. “It was self defence.”

The mounting tally of death on both the Canadian and insurgent sides is like nothing even veteran soldiers have ever seen.

“This is the first time in 23 years and five deployments that I’ve had to deal with anything of this nature,” says Sgt. Maj. John Hooyer, also of the Princess Pat’s A company, 2nd Battalion.

His troops are helping to hold the hard-won mountainous moonscape stripped from the Taliban during Operation Medusa last month. Hooyer spoke just a few kilometres from where the contested road is being built near high marijuana crops and farm fields well suited for blind-side attacks.

“The sad part of it is that people are getting used to it,” Hooyer said of the losses. “The soldiers are getting used to it.

“I think the real trial for them is going to be when we get home and we get re-integrated with our families.”