KABUL -- Canadian soldiers launched an early-morning raid yesterday on a compound in Kabul, arresting suspected terrorists and seizing drugs, cash and weapons in their first offensive action since arriving in Afghanistan last August. After quietly surrounding the compound in the city's south end, it took just seconds for the heavily-armed soldiers to scale its three-metre-high, mud-brick walls and rush the buildings inside.
Shouts of "Get down, get down" could be heard from the soldiers as the compound's 49 still-sleepy residents met their uninvited guests.
"Over here, over here," yelled one soldier after discovering several men huddled close to an outhouse in one corner of the filthy courtyard. Guns were pointed, doors smashed open and children sent fleeing into their mothers' arms in what seemed like a frenzy of activity after days of calm preparation.
"This is the type of operation that we train for over
and over again back in Canada," said Maj. John Vass, commander of the Royal Canadian Regiment's Parachute Company.
"It was a great feeling for the soldiers. They finally got to do a live-fire raid."
Nearly 200 soldiers, in concert with Kabul police, launched the raid with the hope of capturing some of the city's most notorious drug lords.
Only one shot was fired: a shotgun blast to open a locked door. A second blast would have been heard, had the gun not inexplicably jammed. Where the shotgun failed, the shoulder of a burly infantryman succeeded in clearing a passageway.
The only injury was sustained by a soldier who hurt his leg slightly and received a cut to the face when he fell into a deep, open sewer hole in the darkened street outside the compound.
The raid ended with the arrest of 16 men, ranging in age from 16 to 70, who are suspected of participating in the thriving drug trade that fuels terrorist organizations in Afghanistan.
Canadian military officials, citing intelligence sources, linked at least some of the men to Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, founder of the radical Muslim terrorist group Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin, an organization with long-established ties to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Two AK-47 assault rifles were seized during the raid, along with several large plastic bags stuffed with unknown quantities of money and drugs.
As the suspects were herded out of a building and lined up against a wall in the centre of the compound, one man began shaking and crying.
"What's going on? Am I going to die?" the man asked through an interpreter, his hands held behind him with plastic binding and his head covered by a green plastic-mesh bag.
A Canadian soldier instructed the interpreter to tell the nervous suspect and the others to remain calm, adding that they wouldn't be harmed if they did what they were told.
Until now, British soldiers have been the only international forces directly targeting terrorists and drug operations in Kabul.
"This will go a long way to assisting the Kabul city police in gaining the confidence of the local population," predicted Vass.
