Canadian troops blow up more than 12 tonnes of ammo in Afghan operation
Monday, 08 Jul, 2002 05:23:00
NAHLAH AYED 
KOHE KHAWAJAN KHAN BABA MTN, Afghanistan (CP) - Canadian soldiers blew up more than 12 tonnes of
ammunition in a huge, fiery explosion that changed the face of a mountain believed to have once been home
to terrorists.
In what has been lightheartedly dubbed Operation Pack Mule, soldiers spent nine hours Monday stacking up
thousands of machine-gun rounds, some rocket-propelled grenades and mortars into a potent mix with C-4
explosives before they were detonated to prevent hostile forces - or even innocent children - from misusing
them.
The mostly Soviet and Chinese ammo cache, stacked up at the foot of a majestic, rocky mountain more than
150 kilometres northwest from Kandahar airfield, was gathered by anti-terrorist coalition forces from a
number of caves in the area and was believed to have been at the disposal of either the former ruling Taliban
militia or the al-Qaida terrorist network.
"It's a denial, it's a safety issue," Maj. Bob Ford, officer in command of the C company of the Princess
Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry battle group, said following the mission.
"Kids being kids, when they're bored and there's nothing else to do, they'll go play with RPG rounds, and
they'll go play with machine-gun ammo and beat it with rocks and throw it in fires."
With yet another major mission having ended last week without a brush with the enemy, the more than 60
soldiers out Monday got a charge out of their mission Monday, said Ford.
"There are thousands and thousands and thousands of rounds, so you know it's nice to be able to get rid of
that much. The troops said as much: there was a tangible reward at the end of this one that they don't
always see," he said.
Ford's soldiers, with the help of the group's engineers, schemed to destroy the cache inside a deep cave up
the side of the mountain - a cave which they also wanted to shut down for good.
With temperatures reaching above 40 degrees, soldiers formed a line which snaked up the mountain and
hurled some 4,000 metal boxes of ammunition up the line until the cache at the bottom disappeared and the
cave was brimming with it.
Members of the 12 Field Engineers Squadron braved even hotter temperatures inside the 30-metre-deep
cave to build charges and stack the ammo.
Locals eager to help dispose of the pile joined the line, an effort for which they each received a bag of flour
delivered by the U.S. Chinook helicopters which landed minutes after the explosion to pick the Canadians
up.
The day ended with a ball of fire unleashed from the side of the mountain, blocking the cave's entrance,
collapsing its roof and damaging the ammunition and the handful of anti-aircraft weapons also thrown in.
The 60 or 70-metre-high explosion prompted local onlookers to run scared, and the Canadian soldiers -
many of whom admitted they've never seen a larger explosion - to holler in victory.
Chances are that the mission is the last for Canadian soldiers, who are already packing to go home later
month - and will in less than a week relinquish their current role as the combat-ready team on the Kandahar
air base.
Ford said: "I got a couple of comments that it was a nice way to end up operations, if that's the way you're
going to do it: with a big bang."