"Canada hands off part of Kandahar province to U.S."/US Army orbat

More details in Stars and Stripes (earlier story on topic here--via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):

Canada has handed over about half of its battle space in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province to newly arrived U.S. soldiers, allowing Canadian forces to concentrate on counterinsurgency and reconstruction efforts in the provincial capital, according to a senior officer.

The move also effectively doubles the size of NATO-led combat forces within Kandahar province, birthplace of the Taliban movement, from two to four battalions [emphasis added, see below], although they will operate under separate U.S. and Canadian commands.

The transfer of responsibility to soldiers of the U.S. 5th Stryker Brigade includes Spin Boldak district — site of an important border crossing with Pakistan — and the districts of Arghandab, Shah Wali Kot, and Kakrez, north of the city of Kandahar [see district map at right], said Lt. Col. Mike Patrick, chief of operations for Canada-led Task Force Kandahar...

The deployment puts two battalions from the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based brigade into areas that were previously held by much smaller Canadian forces.

"What the American forces represent is the ability to cover off on the population at large inside Kandahar province," said Patrick. "They’ve filled in some places where we weren’t."

Other battalions [emphasis added] with the 5th Stryker Brigade are deploying into neighboring Zabul province, said Col. Harry Tunnell IV, the brigade commander.

With the deployment into Zabul province, the 5th Stryker Brigade will essentially close a vital gap between U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province and Kandahar province in the south. Until now, Zabul province has been only lightly garrisoned by international troops [Romanians]...

The area that the Canadian-led task force will now focus on includes the city of Kandahar plus the districts of Maiwand, Ghorak, Zhari, Panjwayi, Dand and Daman, located to the west and south of the provincial capital. These areas include about 80 percent of the province’s population, Patrick said.

An estimated 914,000 people live in Kandahar province, but only about 324,000 live within the city itself, according to figures from the Program for Culture and Conflict Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. About 590,000 people live in rural districts, the program estimates.

Most of these districts are clustered around the provincial capital...

"Fully 10 of the districts (out of 17 total) were not covered by us in force [emphasis added]," said Patrick. "We could not provide that persistent force that was necessary [see second part of this post]."

The districts where the Stryker battalions will operate are not as heavily populated, but they cover the majority of the province, and they include unguarded corridors that insurgents are presumed to use for the transport of fighters, weapons and drugs...

Last summer, U.S. soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment from Fort Hood, Texas, were slated to deploy to eastern Afghanistan, but were sent instead to Maiwand district in western Kandahar province, where they came under Canadian command.

In June, those soldiers were replaced by the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, also from Fort Hood. Those troops will remain part of the Canadian task force [emphasis added], Patrick said...

From reading this it seems as if the Stryker brigade will have two combat batallions in Zabul, not one as previously assumed (note also mention of Spin Boldak at link), and two at Kandahar. So the orbat analysis here,

US Army ground strength at Kandahar: Upperdate

was wrong. Three US Army combat battalions at Kandahar it does appear to be--the two Stryker plus the 1-12--not four.