Suicide Car Bomber Hits U.S. Convoy in Afghanistan

[new wave]

Suicide Car Bomber Hits U.S. Convoy in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

U.S. soldiers carried a body at the site of a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul on Tuesday.

KABUL — A man driving a Toyota minivan laden with explosives steered into an American convoy on Tuesday morning and set off his payload, killing at least 10 people, including five Americans, and wounding 47 , nearly all of them civilians, caught in rush-hour traffic in the Afghan capital.

The blast scattered body parts for 200 feet, as the injured, many of them women and children, some without limbs, lay in the road moaning for help.

In a passenger bus, an Afghan woman lay dead in her seat, cut in half, with her squirming baby still in her arms. Fifty yards away, a man’s head lay on the hood of a truck.

“I just dove on the ground to try to save myself,” said Mafouz Mahmoodi, an Afghan police officer. “And then I got up, and I saw the terrible scene.”

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack in a posting on its Web site, saying the group had dispatched a young man named Nizamuddin, a resident of Kabul. The Taliban said that Nizamuddin carried 1,500 pounds of explosives in his van.

It seemed likely that the bomber had cruised the city for some time looking for a target.

It was the worst such attack in Kabul in many weeks. The insurgency is a largely rural phenomenon in a largely rural country, and on most days the capital is quiet. Tuesday morning, it was not.

The attack came shortly before President Hamid Karzai prepared to speak to the press. Mr. Karzai had just returned from meeting with President Obama in Washington. The Karzai government is preparing, with the Americans and their NATO allies, to launch a major offensive around the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home.

A fireball went up after the attack as cars and trucks burned. Body parts and pieces of metal were scattered along the road, and the driver of a minibus was seen slumped dead at the wheel of his vehicle.

Two United States military helicopters arrived quickly at the scene and took away the American casualties. A large unit of American troops also arrived and sealed off the site.

“I got to the scene right afterward, and people were calling, ‘Help me, help me,’” said an ambulance driver, Yusef Tahiri, who evacuated six dead and two wounded. “There were body parts everywhere.”‘

He said an Afghan soldier approached him with a large red trash bag and said, “This is a bag of brains. What do you want me to do with this? Do you want me to bury it or do you want to take it?”

Abdul Hafiz, a guard at a nearby veterinary hospital, saw the explosion and ran into the street. “It was very dangerous,” he said. “It was very horrible.”

 

[Kabir Panthi]

Suicide Car Bomber Hits U.S. Convoy in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com


The blast scattered body parts for 200 feet, as the injured, many of them women and children, some without limbs, lay in the road moaning for help.

In a passenger bus, an Afghan woman lay dead in her seat, cut in half, with her squirming baby still in her arms. Fifty yards away, a man’s head lay on the hood of a truck.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack in a posting on its Web site, saying the group had dispatched a young man named Nizamuddin, a resident of Kabul. The Taliban said that Nizamuddin carried 1,500 pounds of explosives in his van.

......

“I got to the scene right afterward, and people were calling, ‘Help me, help me,’” said an ambulance driver, Yusef Tahiri, who evacuated six dead and two wounded. “There were body parts everywhere.”‘

He said an Afghan soldier approached him with a large red trash bag and said, “This is a bag of brains. What do you want me to do with this? Do you want me to bury it or do you want to take it?”

Tragic. Sheer inhumanity.

May the people who sponsored this perish in the same way.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Toll in Kabul Suicide Attack Included U.S. and Canadian Officers​

KABUL, Afghanistan — The suicide bomber who struck in Kabul on Tuesday killed four high-ranking NATO officers who had been on a brief visit, military officials confirmed Thursday. They said the victims included two full colonels, an American and a Canadian, and two American lieutenant colonels.

It was the largest number of ranking officers from the American-led forces here killed in any insurgent attack since the Afghan war that ousted the Taliban from power began more than eight years ago.

Also Thursday, for the third consecutive day, a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a NATO military target, this time a convoy in the southern province of Kandahar, but the police there said no soldiers were killed.

On Wednesday, Taliban suicide bombers in concert with armed insurgents orchestrated a failed attempt to break into the main American military base at Bagram, north of Kabul. None of the defenders were killed, but at least five American servicemen were wounded, the military said.

The attack Tuesday in Kabul came as the officers were driving in a convoy of armored sport utility vehicles during the morning rush. A suicide bomber in a minibus drove into their convoy, killing the 4 officers, 2 other American servicemen and 12 Afghan civilians in a passing bus.

The attack on Thursday also involved a minivan, which exploded close to the American convoy in the Shor Andam area of Kandahar Province. The provincial police chief, Sardar Mohammed Zazi, said there were no casualties, other than the suicide bomber, although a local witness said he saw a helicopter evacuating three soldiers.

Canadian military officials identified the colonel who was killed Tuesday as Geoff Parker, 42, from Oakville, Ontario, an officer of the Royal Canadian Regiment, and the highest-ranking Canadian to die in the Afghan conflict. He was to become the deputy commander of the Stability Division of NATO’s southern command in Kandahar on Nov. 1, and was on an assessment visit when the attack took place.

Similarly, the American colonel, whom the Pentagon identified Thursday as John M. McHugh, 46, from New Jersey, was also on an assessment visit as part of his assignment for the United States Army Battle Command Training Program at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

The two lieutenant colonels, Paul R. Bartz, 43, of Waterloo, Wis., and Thomas P. Belkofer, 44, of Perrysburg, Ohio, were both on a familiarization visit in advance of assignments in Afghanistan, according to a spokesman for the American military in Kabul, Lt. Col. Joseph T. Breasseale. Both officers were stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division.

The other two American soldiers killed on Tuesday were the officers’ drivers, and both had been assigned to Kabul since last fall. The Pentagon identified them as Staff Sgt. Richard J. Tieman, 28, of Waynesboro, Pa., and Specialist Joshua A. Tomlinson, 24, of Dubberly, La.; both had previously been stationed in Heidelberg, Germany.

The American military also announced Thursday that it had opened a criminal investigation into the involvement of “a small number of U.S. soldiers” in the unlawful deaths of up to three Afghan civilians, according to a press release. One soldier has been detained in the case, the military said.

The investigation was started this month when other soldiers passed information about the civilians’ deaths to their commanders. There are also allegations of illegal drug use, assault and conspiracy, the military said.

Colonel Breasseale, the spokesman, declined to give further details, including when or where the alleged killings took place. He said the case was not connected to the questionable deaths of three Afghan women in Gardez during a bungled night raid by American Special Operations forces in February.

In other Afghan news, a roadside bomb apparently intended for Jabar Khan, the Alisher District police chief in eastern Khost Province, wounded him and killed two other policemen when they were driving in a police vehicle, officials there said. Another policeman was wounded. A second roadside bomb in the same district struck a vehicle of the Afghan Border Police, killing one officer and wounding two others.

U.S. and Canadian Officers Died in Kabul Attack - NYTimes.com

He said an Afghan soldier approached him with a large red trash bag and said, “This is a bag of brains. What do you want me to do with this? Do you want me to bury it or do you want to take it?”

In a passenger bus, an Afghan woman lay dead in her seat, cut in half, with her squirming baby still in her arms. Fifty yards away, a man’s head lay on the hood of a truck.

sick, don't know whats happening on this planet :-|

 

[mjnaushad]

RIP the dead.....

Looks like they want to tell we are still here.