The axe assault that badly injured a Canadian soldier was part of a planned ambush as troops met with village elders in southern Afghanistan, the military says. Lieut. Trevor Greene, a journalist and former navy officer from Vancouver, suffered a serious head wound during the meeting near the small Canadian outpost at Gumbad, about 70 kilometres north of Kandahar. Capt. Kevin Schamuhn, the commander who was leading the expedition, told CBC News that the Canadian troops had already visited several villages during the day to attend shuras, or meetings with village elders. He said all of them had been peaceful events where they shared lunch or tea and introduced themselves. Schamuhn said the last shura of the day started off well as the troops sat down with about 30 villagers, including many children. The Canadians took off their helmets and put down their guns as they usually do to reassure villagers that they were friendly.
Lessons learned, from now on guys...don't.
| My unusually reliable source tells me that virtually all the Canadians are on their second tour in Afghanistan. Our guys do the same sort of thing, on occasion. |
'There was no gut feeling that something was about to go down'. A few minutes before the attack, someone moved all the children about 20 metres away – but none of the Canadian troops noticed anything unusual, Schamuhn said. "There was no weird feelings. There was no gut feeling that something was about to go down. Everything was very calm and similar to the previous meetings."
A minute later, a man who appeared to be less than 20 walked up behind Greene and pulled a half-metre-long axe out from underneath his clothes. "He pulled an axe out from underneath his clothing and lifted right above his head, standing right behind Trevor," said Schamuhn, who was sitting only about a metre away. As he lifted up the axe, the man shouted "Allahu Akbar," which means "God is great" in Arabic. Then, said Schamuhn, "he swung the axe into Trevor's head." The Canadian soldiers reacted instantly, the military says.
Geez I would hope so.
"The Canadian soldiers who were by him, his security force, killed the assailant immediately following the attack," said Col. Tom Putt, the Canadian deputy commander of Task Force Afghanistan. Militants then started firing at the Canadian and Afghan soldiers from a nearby riverbank and they fired back. Another militant tossed a rocket-propelled grenade at the soldiers but no one was hurt. Schamuhn said it seems apparent that the attack was well-planned and not the spontaneous act of a madman. During the chaos, he said, all the young men and elders who were at the shura disappeared. "There's a lot of people who knew what was about to happen. I'm sure of it."
| I'd suggest hunting them down and killing them all, but we're still too civilized to do that... |
A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter flew Greene to the military hospital at the international brigades' headquarters at Kandahar airfield, where he underwent surgery. He was in critical but stable condition and would be transported on Sunday to the U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, military officials said.
| My source says he's dead. |
Schamuhn said Greene was simply trying to help the same people who attacked him. "He was just really set on helping these people and doing it right. He's just really well-spoken and mature. ...He was just really looking forward to helping these people."
Once again, lessons learned.
| They're dealing with Pashtuns. |
Greene was with the Seaforth Highlanders, a Vancouver-based reserve infantry unit, and was on a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. He was a navy officer for eight years in the Canadian Armed Forces, according to his website. He is also a published author and entrepreneur who worked for Bloomberg news service and wrote a book about prostitutes disappearing in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
I know I was supposed to leave, but the audacity and gruesomeness of this attack prompted me to post this, and also, just the other day I was looking at pictures on the CBC of Canadians providing security for one of these shura shindigs. Why on God's green earth did they lower their guard this time. |