PASHMUL, Afghanistan - The death of three Canadian combat engineers along the highway that runs through what's been called the most dangerous patch of land in the world merely toughened the resolve of soldiers embarking on a massive assault, military officials said.
The fiery roadside bomb attack on Highway 1, just four kilometres west of a Canadian forward operating base in Zhari district, came as hundreds of soldiers began mounting up in an operation last week.
Its goal was to take back control of nearby Pashmul district and its villages of Mollayan, Degaran and Burmohammad - Taliban strongholds that had presented a virtually impenetrable challenge for this fifth rotation of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
The deadly bomb blast highlighted the need for the offensive, aimed at destroying facilities where insurgents strategized and produced the improvised explosive devices - or IEDs - used against vehicles on the highway.
"It only toughens our resolve to do an operation like this," said Capt. Alex Duncan, who paused for a moment of silence for the dead soldiers during a briefing before the operation, which concluded last Saturday.
"The result of this operation thus far has been a huge blow to the enemy's ability to plant major IEDs and more to plant them along Highway 1 in southern Kandahar," said Lt.-Col. Dave Corbould, the battlegroup commander.
"It's thrown them off balance and we'll continue to maintain the momentum to keep them off balance in that specific area."
Operation Timis Preem - a play on popular Transformers character Optimus Prime - was designed to "mow the lawn of Pashmul. Clear it out," Duncan said.
He noted that neither Canadian nor Afghan troops had a major presence in the area for the last year and a half.
"This is our last hurrah. This is the battlegroup's last push to clear Pashmul," he added.
The current contingent of troops are due to return home soon, to be replaced by another battlegroup from Canada. And the fighting season in Afghanistan may slow down with Ramadan coming up next month.
Operation Timis Preem involved the Afghan army, Afghan police, their Canadian Forces mentors as well as the infantry, tank and engineering corps, psychological operations team and coalition warplanes.
The operation was believed to have resulted in the deaths of more than 40 insurgents, including several commanders. One suspected insurgent was detained, and a variety of homemade bomb-making supplies and weapons were seized.
The three-pronged mechanized assault had Afghan forces and their Canadian mentors setting up blocks along the eastern and western fronts, while a large convoy of Leopard 2 tanks and light armoured vehicles drove up the middle toward the objectives.
"It is literally a massive reflection of how far the Canadian army has come over the last few years," Duncan said.
Led by what were essentially armoured plows that smashed through the hard-packed mud grapefield embankments and bulldozed over lush marijuana fields with stalks taller than the vehicles, the armoured teams secured the perimeter of each target village, engaging insurgents along the way.
The Afghan army cleared the villages so combat engineers could sweep through to search for weapons caches, bomb-making materials and other evidence of insurgent activity.
On the first day, an underground bunker believed to be a main insurgent command-and-control node was destroyed in an air strike.
Insurgents believed to be of Pakistani and Chechen origin were taken out by the tank and armoured vehicle gunners, often at dusk as the insurgents were spotted waving flags to draw the attention of their cohorts.
At night, weary soldiers who had spent as many as 16 hours a day cooped up inside poorly air-conditioned armoured vehicles hunkered down for some rest amid the ravenous sand flies.
But there was no peace and quiet when the psychological operations teams set to work.
They blasted Limp Bizkit, Blur and Rage Against the Machine tunes through loudspeakers all night to irritate insurgents. They taunted insurgents with insulting messages in Pashtu.
On Day 1, dozens of women and children fled the villages as the troops rolled in and engaged insurgents.
By Day 2, many of the insurgents had fled - but did so in a hurry, leaving plenty of evidence behind for Canadian Forces engineers to collect.
By Day 3, there was little left to exploit in the dozens of mud compounds and grape huts that comprised the troops' final objective.
The soldiers had time to chat up the locals to get a sense of the stranglehold the Taliban had on their community.
"We don't have a school," a young boy said through an interpreter. "We had one but the Taliban burned it down."
Over the radio, a soldier explained to his superiors that three village elders had refused compensation for crop damage caused by military vehicles.
"All these individuals have said they won't even attempt to make a claim for compensation because they will be found out by the Taliban and they will be killed," the soldier said.
The operation has been described by some as "Medusa II on crack" - a reference to the 2006 month-long Canadian-led offensive in the same region that has been credited with killing 512 Taliban fighters and detaining 136 insurgents.
While a far cry from Operation Medusa, Operation Timis Preem is an important operation nonetheless, said Sean Maloney, a military historian, author and Royal Military College professor who accompanied soldiers on the offensive.
"This is a historically significant operation for this rotation and its effects are very important in the context of the campaign at this time."
The IED threat in the area is huge at present, he said.
Reducing that threat immediately is critical as this batch of soldiers are approaching the end of their six-month tour, and new soldiers coming in need a chance to acclimatize.
