ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan - Canada is boosting its development and diplomacy efforts in what is perhaps Kandahar province's most volatile district.
A new Joint District Co-ordination Centre in Zhari district will soon be staffed by a member of the Canadian-led Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team.
"We have people coming out here on a periodic basis but starting late August, early September, we'll have a political and development officer out here," said Elissa Golberg, Canada's top civilian official in the area.
Golberg was at Thursday's official opening of the centre, which has been operating informally for about six months.
There are currently two Canadian civilian police officers mentoring Zhari's Afghan police chief at the centre, she said.
The centre also serves as a 911 call centre, not altogether unlike the emergency dispatch system familiar to Canadians. It gets as many as 15 calls a week from local citizens seeking to warn troops about suspected improvised explosive devices.
The centre has been primarily staffed by members of the Canadian army's Operational Mentor and Liaison Team which works with Afghan soldiers.
In fact, because of the lack of security in Zhari, much of the development work that has been going on there has been delivered by Canadian Forces Civilian-Military Co-operation teams, or CIMIC.
Few, if any, non-governmental organizations have been willing to work in the area.
A battle between Canadian troops and insurgents early Friday could be heard at the Joint District Co-ordination Centre. Six Canadians who suffered minor wounds were evacuated by helicopter to hospital at Kandahar Airfield, where they were treated and released.
Canadian commander Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson said while soldiers still have their work cut out for them battling insurgents in Zhari, it's important that development work take place simultaneously.
"We're going subdistrict by subdistrict clearing and holding, but as you go you can commence the process of holding the ground and then building on it," he said.
"Eventually, as you take a little nibble at a time, you've got to move on to the other pieces of that which is development and governance, which you do in parallel. It's not a sequential process, its something that proceeds in parallel."
Training the Afghan army and Afghan police, boosting development and strengthening local governance are all key to Canada's exit strategy for 2011.
As such, Canada has increased the size of its mentoring teams and is expected to double the number of civil servants it has working in the country.
Aimed at facilitating interaction between local citizens, the district's local leadership, Afghan security forces and coalition troops, the Joint District Co-ordination Centre is a place where residents can bring both complaints and concerns.
During Thursday's opening ceremony, for example, elder Haji Rahmatullah urged district leader Niaz Mohammad Sarahadi to look into the arrest of innocent citizens.
The centre is also often the first stop for those seeking compensation from Canadian troops for property damage or loss of life in cases where soldiers accidentally fire on innocent civilians.
In functioning as a 911 call centre, an interpreter relays the tips called in by local residents to Canadian troops, who dispatch either Afghan police, Afghan army, coalition forces or some combination thereof to investigate.
Pictorial cards explaining the purpose of the hotline to the largely illiterate population along with the phone number are often handed out during shuras, or town council meetings, Thompson said.
Sarahadi noted that the day before the opening, a tip from a local citizen allowed coalition and Afghan forces to disable an improvised explosive device before it did any damage. A skirmish ensued and four insurgents were killed, he said.
About six weeks earlier, Thompson added, a similar call resulted in the discovery of a half-dozen jugs filled with explosives that had been placed under a culvert just 1.5 kilometres from the centre.
It was "enough to completely destroy an armoured vehicle," he said.
Improvised explosive devices are perhaps the biggest threat to coalition troops. The majority of the 88 Canadians and one diplomat killed in Afghanistan are the result of IEDs.
Capt. Jason Snider is in charge of the JDCC and said the tips they receive are generally bang on and go a long way toward saving lives.
"We have found some extremely large IEDs that would have completely destroyed the road and killed people that people have turned in," he said.
One guy even cut the wire himself after watching an insurgent plant the device before calling the authorities, he added.
"We are very grateful to the citizens of Afghanistan that come and do that," Snider said, noting trust between local citizens and coalition and Afghan troops is growing.
Snider said the calls are handled anonymously and that citizens are even beginning to trust their local police more.
Notorious for being corrupt, an intensive training program for police is starting to change that, he said.
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