Harper's office denies Canadians captured

CBC News
Jun. 07, 2006

All Canadian soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are accounted for despite an Al-Jazeera report that an unknown number of soldiers had been captured by Taliban forces, the Prime Minister's Office said Wednesday.

A military head count was ordered after the television network quoted Taliban sources as saying the group had abducted Canadian troops.

After about four hours, Canadian military officials determined that none of the approximately 2,300 soldiers stationed in the country was missing.

"We are doing a verification with our chain of command that this is indeed false, which we believe it to be," Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of defence staff, told CBC News shortly before the PMO announced that no soldiers were missing.

Al-Jazeera itself said the sources for the original story were second-hand and downplayed its accuracy.

Hillier said a head count was complicated by the fact that Canadian forces in Afghanistan are spread out across "some significant chunk of terrain."

Canadian troops serving in the country have come under frequent attack from Taliban militants since taking over more dangerous assignments in the Kandahar region during the past few months.

The report came the same day Capt. Nichola Goddard was buried in the National Military Cemetery in Ottawa. She was the 16th soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.