Kandahar City: Matters involving the CF...

...that one reads about in the LA Times, not our major media (also some details on the recent KAF attack):

An earful after a military operation in Kandahar
Afghan tribal elders in Kokaran, invited to discuss governance and development, turn the focus instead on security, especially complaining about not receiving advance notice of military raids.

U.S. Army Capt. Michael Thurman, center, listens as Kokaran village elder Haji Fadi Mohammed complains about the raid carried out a day earlier by coalition forces in western Kandahar.
...(Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times / May 23, 2010)

Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan

It was supposed to be a meeting about governance and development — two of the three pillars of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Kandahar province this summer.

Instead, the shura, or assembly of local leaders, at a police station Monday turned into a gripe session about the third pillar: security. The elders complained bitterly about a U.S. military raid in their neighborhood, Kokaran, the night before, and about a big security sweep Saturday [May 23].

Security defines daily existence here — for the military, for development workers and for Afghans. Without it, neither governance nor aid to improve schools, sanitation and clinics is possible. And that is the crux of the challenge for the United States as it tries to wrest control of Kandahar from the Taliban.

"It's not good, these big operations. They worry the people," Haji Fadi Mohammed told the gathering Monday as other elders murmured in agreement.

American and Canadian civil affairs and development teams [emphasis added] had arranged the meeting to follow up on Saturday's joint U.S.-Afghan Operation Kokaran...

...The only visible hand of the government is the Afghan national police. Mohammed, speaking for the elders, accused them of taking bribes. Even American soldiers who train the police say they don't trust all of them.

One of four suspected insurgents captured after a Taliban assault on the main foreign base at Kandahar Saturday night was a police recruit. Three Canadian soldiers [emphasis added] and 10 civilian workers were wounded in the attack [more here]. According to the Canadian military, bomb-making materials were found in the officer's quarters at a police training academy a few miles from the base...

The discussion turned briefly to development. The elders complained that their neighborhood had received visits from U.S. and Canadian aid teams, but no projects.

Master Warrant Officer Kevin Walker, a Canadian civil affairs specialist [that's a CIMIC operator, all reservists, more here, here and here], explained that Kokaran had to be secured first. He had heard such complaints before; he's on his third tour in Afghanistan.

Walker, who has visited Mohammed at his home, told him that Saturday's operation, designed to cut Taliban infiltration routes and set up police checkpoints, would make it easier to visit and discuss development projects.

"The fact that he made the effort to get here shows he's serious and wants to engage with us," Walker said of Mohammed afterward...

Soon it was time to go. The American and Canadian soldiers strapped on their body armor and weapons and climbed back into their armored vehicles. Eight of the elders, dressed in flowing white salwar kameez and silver and black turbans, piled back into a battered Toyota Corolla station wagon. The other two left in a pickup truck...