OTTAWA — Ten years ago Wednesday, Canadian troops arrived in Kandahar to take up their combat posts from the U.S. Army.
It was the beginning — although no one knew it at the time — of a bloody five-year deployment.
Col. Ian Hope, the first battle group commander, says he is not "overwhelmed with nostalgia or remorse" at the milestone because he and his soldiers understood their mission from the outset.
He says they were there to buy time for the international community to build Afghan institutions that could withstand the Taliban.
A decade later, a report from the U.S.-based Rand Corporation suggests the insurgency war took two steps forward and two steps back in 2015.
The think tank says it's imperative that Washington promote peace and reconcilation with the Taliban in order to keep the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant out of Afghanistan.
