Canada's role in the Afghanistan War

Canada's role in the Afghanistan War began in late 2001. Canada sent its first element of Canadian soldiers secretly in October 2001 from Joint Task Force 2, and the first contingents of regular Canadian troops arrived in Afghanistan in January–February 2002. Canada took on a larger role starting in 2006 after the Canadian troops were redeployed to Kandahar province. There were 2,500 Canadian Forces (CF) personnel in Afghanistan and 1,200 comprised the combat battle group. At the 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that an undisclosed number of Canadian soldiers would remain in the country to help train and mentor the Afghan National Army until 12 March 2014 (though Canadian troops ended their combat role there in 2011).

In September 2001 after the 11 September terrorist attacks, Minister of National Defence Art Eggleton advised Governor General Adrienne Clarkson to authorize more than 100 Canadian Forces members serving on military exchange programs in the United States and other countries to participate in U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Eggleton summed up the dominant thinking in the government at the time when he said, "Any Canadian military deployment to Afghanistan may well be similar to a situation in Eritrea and Ethiopia where we went in on the first wave, we helped establish the stabilization, the basis for ongoing peace support operations that would come after ... but then turned it over to somebody else." The operations were aimed at identifying and neutralizing al-Qaeda members in that country, as well as toppling the Taliban regime, which was supporting international terrorism.

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