Posts Tagged ‘American soldiers’
Suicide bomber kills five American soldiers in Kabul
A suicide bomber yesterday killed 17 people, including five US soldiers and eight British and American civilian contractors, when he drove a minibus packed with explosives into the side of a military bus in Kabul in one of the deadliest attacks inside the city since the conflict began.
The explosion hurled the heavily armoured bus into the air, engulfing it in a fireball as it travelled in a convoy of armoured vehicles towards a nearby Nato base in the southwest of the Afghan capital.
Thick black smoke poured from the side of the bus as it lay on its side opposite Kabul’s American University and Darulaman palace, the bombed-out seat of Afghanistan’s former kings and presidents.
The victims included five American soldiers, a Canadian soldier, five American civilian contractors, two British contractors, an Afghan policeman and three Afghan civilians. Two children were among the wounded.
Ambulances and fire engines sped to the scene as Nato soldiers treated some of the casualties. The twisted frame of a motorcycle lay among the charred metal fragments that littered the road.
“There was a huge explosion and I turned to see a massive cloud of smoke rising into the air,” said Mokhtar Aria, who works as a mechanic. “The bus was on fire. I watched them pulling the bodies from it.”
Two Nato helicopters landed to evacuate the dead and wounded to a military hospital near Kabul. Later, witnesses saw US soldiers carry three black body bags from the bus before lifting out another badly charred body from the burnt-out wreckage.
Another witness said he saw the badly charred bodies of US soldiers inside the military bus, known as a Rhino because of its heavy armour. In accordance with usual practice, none of the military victims has been named.
Throughout yesterday, French and American bomb disposal units conducted a forensic examination of the area while Afghan intelligence officials scoured the site for evidence. A military guard dog was also killed in the blast.
As Nato cordoned off the surrounding streets, the wounded were rushed to Kabul’s Estiqlal hospital. Among them was Ali Ahmad, 9, who was yesterday recovering.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, although in the past the Haqqani network, the most lethal insurgent force in Afghanistan, has been blamed for similar high-profile attacks in the capital. Read the rest of this entry »
What battle?
Back to the battle in Nuristan’s Doab district. Fresh details have emerged that seem to contradict ISAF’s public version of the battle, which took place in May this year.
An article in the Christian Science Monitor on Tuesday strongly suggests that the fight between US forces and insurgents for control of the district centre was far more violent than ISAF initially let on.
ISAF told me in June that there was no evidence to suggest that insurgents had reached the district centre or, needless to say, had the insurgents ever controlled the district centre. However, an American major general quoted in the CSM piece says:
At the end of the day, the insurgents held the district center for 24 hours…
The Americans dropped 14 bombs on insurgent positions, killing 200 of the 300 fighters, according to an F-15 fighter pilot interviewed for the same article. American forces on the ground were surrounded and outnumbered about 10-1, the article states.
The F-15 fighter pilot said:
It’s extremely rare that we find ourselves in a fight where we deploy all of our bombs. But that day we dropped everything we had….Our guys got really close to being overrun.
Sounds slightly more violent than the sanitised account provided in the ISAF press release about the battle. I’ve highlighted the bits in bold that are at odds with the Air Force and Army commanders’ accounts. Read the rest of this entry »
