CANADIAN-LED RAID UNCOVERS 16 DRUG SUSPECTS IN KABUL

Camp Julien Soldiers Launch First Offensive Action Since Arriving In
Afghanistan Last August: Operation Tsunami

CAMP JULIEN, Afghanistan - The raid dubbed Tsunami began before dawn
yesterday as light-armoured vehicles carrying Canadian soldiers and
Kabul city police roared out of the base toward a crumbling
neighbourhood believed to house drug traffickers with connections to a
terrorist group.

By the time it was over, 16 men were in custody, a result of the first
offensive action by Canadian soldiers since they arrived in Kabul last
August. The raid was a significant departure for the Canadians, who
have thus far concentrated on forging contacts in the capital and the
countryside, training local police and hosting dinners for Afghan
National Army officials and tribal leaders.

Yesterday those contacts paid off.

"If there's a message ... it's that there's more than just one game in
town," said Lieutenant-Colonel Don Denne, the commanding officer of
Camp Julien, part of Canada's contribution to the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. "We're now playing.
Does this make us more of a target? Possibly."

Regular military patrols by Canadians in troubled Kabul neighbourhoods
have had a measurable impact on crime, Lt.-Col said. Denne. The focus
has shifted toward rooting out criminal elements. "We're taking the
fight to the source," he said.

Yesterday's pre-dawn raid by 200 soldiers and dozens of Kabul city
police had been in the works for two months, after intelligence
sources alerted Canadians to suspicious activity at the compound. It
ended yesterday morning as bags of money were removed from one of the
two residences on the compound, along with an unknown quantity of
drugs and two AK-47s.

Handcuffed and hooded before being brought outside and lined up
against the wall of the compound, one of the younger men began crying
and asked through an interpreter, "What is going on? Am I going to
die?" Another suspect asked when they were going to be set free. He
said he and others had airline tickets to go on the hajj -- the
pilgrimage to Mecca that ends with the largest celebration in the
Muslim faith, Eid ul-Adha. They were to have left at 6 a.m. yesterday.

It is believed some of the suspects may be associated with
Hezb-i-Islami-Gulbuddin (HiG), founded by one of the most notorious
right-wing Islamic leaders of Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The
group has been linked to Osama bin Laden. Five of the suspects were
brought to Camp Julien later in the day for questioning.

The Canadians and Kabul city police used ladders to scale the
three-metre-high mud-brick walls of the compound, located at the end
of a hard dirt road in a neighbourhood of crumbling mud-brick houses.
One soldier's ladder broke. He grabbed on to the railing of a balcony
and pulled himself over, escaping injury. Another soldier was slightly
injured when he fell into a sewage-filled hole in the street while
walking to the compound in the pitch black night before dawn.

"Walking through open sewage is a common occurrence for us," said
Sergeant Sean Bechard, one of the other soldiers involved in the raid.
Sgt. Bechard and his fellow soldiers said they felt confident going
in, having trained for years for just such a moment. There were two
rehearsals at the camp before the team went in.

One shot was fired after a metal battering ram failed to force open a
locked door. A second shell jammed in the shotgun. Finally a soldier
used his shoulder to force open the door. The raid was somewhat
compromised when the soldiers came upon a pack of dogs before they
reached the site. The dogs started barking and continued barking
almost throughout the raid.

"We still had an element of surprise. Not as much surprise as we would
have liked," said Major John Vass, the officer commanding the
Parachute Company.