KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A small group of Canadian soldiers has finally returned to their base in Afghanistan after playing key roles in some of the heaviest fighting this fall.
Details are now starting to emerge about the part about 30 Canadians played in the battle for Lashkar Gah, the capital of nearby Helmand province that was threatened by the Taliban late last month.
"(The fighting) was quite intense," said Maj. Steve Nolan, who commanded one of the mentorship teams working with a kandak, or battalion, of Afghan National Army soldiers.
Taliban fighters began to mass around Lashkar Gah around Oct. 12.
Afghan Gen. Sher Muhammad Zazai has said hundreds of Taliban fighters were involved, attacking the city on three sides. Nolan's team and their kandak, normally based in Kandahar province, were mobilized and arrived in the embattled city the next day as insurgents were attacking police outposts around the city.
"We pulled into Lashkar Gah in the dark and it turned into a combat mission right away," said Nolan. "As we were moving in, there was tracer fire moving over our convoy."
On Oct. 17, the Canadian-mentored kandak was ordered to clear a swath of territory five kilometres wide and 10 kilometres long into the nearby village of Aynak -- a maze of eight-metre deep canals, three-metre high cornfields, vineyards and narrow lanes lined by tall mud walls.
"There is no more complex terrain anywhere in the world," Nolan said.
Backed up by attack helicopters, the Canadian and Afghan soldiers advanced into repeated ambushes, coming under machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Shots would be exchanged, then the Taliban would fall back to their next position.
"It's an all-day affair. There was always fire, or you always knew (every) 50 metres, that's where the next little contact would be."
There were no Canadian or Afghan casualties. Helmand's governor estimated 63 Taliban were killed.
After sweeping the corridor into Aynak free of Taliban, the kandak and the Canadians took part in a massive assault involving more than 1,400 Afghans, as well as mentor teams from Britain and the U.S.
That assault, on Oct. 21, cleared a similar corridor into another nearby village called Nawa.
On Oct. 22, Gen. Zazai declared the Taliban had been successfully driven back from Lashkar Gah. The Canadians finally returned to their base on Sunday.
Insurgents rarely attempt frontal assaults on major cities.
The threat of such an attack on Kandahar in 2006 produced Operation Medusa, several weeks of fighting that summer by Canadian soldiers in the nearby Panjwaii district that pacified the area -- at least temporarily.
Those attacks, however, were led by Canadians. This one was led by the Afghan National Army.
Nolan said the success of the operation proved the ANA has made substantial progress in planning and executing its own operations.
"It made me feel very proud to be part of it because it showed that there has been a lot of progress made."
