French, US troops in major operation east of Kabul: military

Last week we reported that in the aftermath of the so far disastrous French campaign to eradicate "rebels" in the north of Mali, because of their implied threat fo Europe, that "US Drones, Boots Arrive In Mali." Turns out we were wrong, and as the case virtually always is, for some reason there was already a US presence of at least three US commandos in Mali in the summer of 2012.

Whether it is to serve as a diversion from the ongoing deterioration in the French economy (purchases of French sovereign bonds by the SNB implying "all is well" notwithstanding), to distract public attention from the recent humiliation (and backfire) of the socialist government's "tax the rich" campaign or for whatever other reason, is unclear for now, but what is clear is that over the past two days France has launched a major airstrike and military campaign against Islamist rebels in northern Mali, the pretext being that control of northern Mali by the rebels posed a security threat to E

OTTAWA – The Department of National Defence has pegged the estimated cost of deploying a military transport plane to Mali for a month at $18.6 million. The figure was revealed Thursday as officials briefed a parliamentary committee about the situation in Mali, and Canada’s role to-date. Canada has provided a C-17 transport until Feb. 15 to help move French troops and equipment into place to launch attacks against Islamist forces who have taken over the northern half of Mali.

The Amenas gas plant in Algeria was guarded by around 100 armed gendarmes but they failed to fend off an attack by less than half the number of terrorists, it can be disclosed. A base for the gendarmes was built between the residential compound and the drilling area which are several miles apart in the desert, sources told the Daily Telegraph.

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan policewoman walked into a high-security compound in Kabul Monday and killed an American contractor with a single bullet to the chest, the first such shooting by a woman in a spate of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies. Afghan officials who provided details identified the attacker as police Sgt. Nargas, a mother of four with a clean record. The shooting was outside the police headquarters in a walled compound which houses the governor’s office, courts and a prison in the heart of the capital.

Canadian soldiers in northern Afghanistan are being forced to return danger pay they had previously been awarded, Postmedia News has learned. The troops, training the Afghan military in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, are required to pay back the government between $900 and $1,600 each, depending on the individual’s pay. About 30 Canadian soldiers are now in Mazar-i-Sharif, but the repayments will affect about 100 soldiers who have worked at that location training Afghans between June 1, 2012 and Feb. 3, 2013.

Paratroopers trained by special forces based in Canada were behind a failed counter-coup in Mali last year to bring back a democratically elected government, but many have since been hunted down and killed by the country’s military. Soldiers of the soldiers from the parachute regiment, 33eme RPC, were captured and later disappeared. They are believed to have been tortured and murdered by those behind Mali’s coup. Others fled to neighbouring countries.

Violence in Iraq dropped in 2012, data released Tuesday showed, but insurgents proved they were still capable of mounting waves of attacks and a watchdog warned the country was still in a "low-level war".