Canada’s 375 containers of military gear stranded in Kandahar

Canada's 10-year combat mission in Afghanistan created a lot of baggage, and I don't mean the figurative kind. Some of it is still over there.

The Canadian Press reports a team of soldiers has been sent to Kandahar, the hub of Canada's operations in Afghanistan until 2011, to determine if hundreds of shipping containers containing military equipment are still in good enough shape for the sea voyage home.

The 375 containers of what's been termed low-priority material, have been stranded at Kandahar Air Base for almost 18 months because Pakistan had closed the main exit point from Afghanistan for several months, CP said.

The certification of up to 150 containers has expired and the 15-member technical assistance team will assess whether they still meet standards set by international shipping companies, Capt. Jennifer Stadnyk of the military's operational command told CP.

The stranded equipment includes tires, spare parts, tents and other gear that was intended to be brought home and reissued to units here.

Sensitive and high-value equipment was flown out of Kandahar on Canadian military and rented cargo planes.

[ Related: The good, the bad and the ugly of Canada’s Afghanistan mission ]

Defence sources told CP that if the containers containing the marooned gear don't pass muster, some way will have to be found to dispose of the contents locally.

Only 186 of the 632 Canadian containers made it out of Afghanistan before Pakistan closed the border following a U.S. air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011. The crossing remained shut until July 2012.

The logistical snafu has added to the cost of Canada's Afghan mission. The government's tally as of mid-2011 totalled $11.3 billion, including "mission close-out costs." It doesn't include the costs of caring for veterans suffering physical or mental wounds from their Afghan service or an estimated $500 million for keeping 950 Canadian soldiers in the Kabul area to train the Afghan National Army until next March.

But even if the stranded containers make it home, there's a good chance they'll have been looted, CP noted. Documents obtained by the news service under access-to-information legislation found the average loss rate of the returned containers was 27 per cent. Thieves broke into containers, took what they wanted and replaced it with sandbags and weights before resealing them.

[ Related: Canadian Forces face danger pay cuts in Afghanistan ]

The U.S. military, whose Afghan deployment wraps up at the end of next year, is dealing with the same challenge of pulling out its equipment but on a much larger scale.

Bloomberg News reports the withdrawal will cost US$7 billion, requiring the repatriation of everything from Blackhawk helicopters and drones to trucks and Humvees.

The U.S. Army estimates it has about US$27 billion worth of gear in Afghanistan. Some 80 per cent will be returned, with the rest left behind or destroyed, Bloomberg said.