Arghandab: Did ANA troops "flee"?

On CBC Newsworld today the CBC's reporter, Paul Hunter, said "About half the Afghans turned and fled, so there's clearly some work to be done [see box at right in link below]." But now he's rather changed the words he uses in print--see bolded bit below.

Canadian and Afghan troops moved into the forests and orchards surrounding the city of Kandahar on Wednesday, battling with Taliban fighters who infiltrated the area, officials said.

At least two Afghan soldiers were killed in the hour-long firefight, said the CBC's Paul Hunter, who witnessed the battle in the Arghandab region, about 15 kilometres northwest of Kandahar. Thirty-six Taliban fighters were also reported dead.

"We watched the soldiers march towards these orchards. Shooting broke out. The Taliban fired at them, they fired back. You had a helicopter overhead, firing toward the ground," Hunter said.

While NATO spokesman Mark Laity said Afghan and Canadian troops only had a "a few minor contacts" with Taliban fighters during the battle, the Afghan Defence Ministry indicated the fighting was much heavier, claiming that 20 Taliban fighters were killed in the Arghandab village of Tabin, and 16 were killed in the nearby village of Khohak.

Hunter said Canadians are playing a secondary role in the battle, acting as mentors to soldiers in the Afghan National Army, which is in a building process. Two Afghan battalions participated in the Arghandab attack, but one of them was forced to retreat after coming under heavy fire [emphasis added].

"This whole process is about teaching the Afghans how to set up an army. About half the Afghans turned and fled, so there's clearly some work to be done," Hunter said. "It wasn't a complete success today, but I suspect they'll be back at it again. It was quite an operation by the Afghans and supported by the Canadians."

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the Afghan army has come a long way. Last year, it would not have had the ability to mobilize as it did for Wednesday's battle, flying in hundreds of troops from across Afghanistan, Appathurai said.

"Their capability to do this, to lead this operation, is so much more advanced than we saw a year and a half ago. I think we should be encouraged by that," Appathurai told CBC News in an interview from Brussels on Wednesday morning...

What gives? Why the two versions? No other report I've seen mentions the ANA fleeing, e.g. here and here. There's no excuse for Mr Hunter's use of the word "fled", with its severely negative connotations about the troops' bravery and/or competence if in fact the manoeuvre was simply an ordered retreat, even if a bit disorderly.

Please listen to this interview this morning with Lt.-Gen (ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie by Steve Madely of CFRA, Ottawa, for a good discussion of how our media commit "journalism" in Afstan, especially their use of Taliban-sourced material virtually at face value. Plus about the war, and our mission, overall.

Update: Reaction at Milnet.ca.

Upperdate: CBC's "The National" on June 18 ran video with Mr Hunter still saying the ANA fled (03:03 here).

Now two headlines from June 19, neither front page:

NATO-backed offensive holds Taliban at bay
Incursion into rebel-held strongholds yields weaker resistance than expected

Allies rout Taliban
Canadian and Afghan troops push insurgents back from fringe of Kandahar city

Rather an interesting difference of emphasis in those headlines, don't you think? Especially as the stories are basically the same: the Taliban look to have suffered a serious defeat with fairly heavy casualties, while the ANA had few casualties and the ISAF forces, mainly Canadian, none at all. Meanwhile Babbling lets loose, especially on the Globe and Mail.