18 killed in American base suicide attack in Afghanistan

[Owais]

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18 killed in American base suicide attack in Afghanistan
KABUL: In a suicide attack at the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan at least 18 persons were killed and several wounded Tuesday during a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, though the vice president was apparently not in danger, officials said.

The blast happened near the first security gate outside the base at Bagram, said Kabir Ahmad, the district chief of the Bagram region. Several of the wounded said to be in a critical state.

US officials said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president, who was ``safely inside the base'' during the blast.

Cheney, who spent the night at Bagram, ate breakfast with U.S. soldiers Tuesday morning.

He was expected to later meet with President Hamid Karzai after their meeting was scrapped on Monday because of bad weather that prevented him traveling to Kabul.
http://geo.tv/geonews/details.asp?id=2712&param=2

[Spring Onion]

Is there any info who are killed ???

guess the local security men.

[Owais]

Is there any info who are killed ???

guess the local security men.

According to latest news on geo tv, 3 US corps were killed in that attack

[Janbaz]

Taleban attack during Cheney trip

At least nine people have died in a suicide bombing at the main US base in Afghanistan during US Vice-President Dick Cheney's stay, US officials say.
Mr Cheney, who was unharmed, was staying at the Bagram base near Kabul.

The US military said the bomber was also killed. Some reports say 14 people died - more than 20 others were hurt.

The Taleban said they carried out the attack and that the attacker was trying to get to Mr Cheney, who was on an unannounced visit to the region.
US spokesman described it as a "direct attack" on the base, which was put on red alert for a while.

Mr Cheney was said to be safely inside the compound at the time. He described hearing a "loud boom" and told reporters he had been briefly moved to a bomb shelter.

One US and one South Korean soldier were among the dead as well as a US government contractor who was a US national.

The others killed were Afghan civilians, many of whose distraught relatives gathered later outside the base.

Base operations commander Lt Col James Bonner said the bomber could not have got inside the base, 60km (40 miles) from Kabul.

"Our security measures were in place and the killer never had access to the base," he said in a statement.

"When he realised he would not be able to get onto the base he attacked the local population."

Talks delayed

Mr Cheney had breakfast with troops at the base and left about 90 minutes after the blast. He held talks with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on the deteriorating security situation before flying out of the country. It was "never an option" to scrap the talks, he said.

Shortly before the Bagram blast, there was another suicide bomb in the southern city of Kandahar, killing at least one person.

Elsewhere, Nato said it had killed three civilians in clashes in the south.

One person was shot dead by Nato troops in "self defence" near Kandahar on Tuesday, while two others had been hit by mortar fire in Helmand province a day earlier, a statement said.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul says Bagram is one of the most heavily guarded sites in Afghanistan and such incidents there are extremely rare.

The surrounding territory is heavily mined and people, including children, have frequently been injured by such devices.

Officials said the explosion occurred between the outside security gate and an inner gate guarded by US troops, some distance from living quarters at the base.

A trader in a market outside the base described the explosion as "huge", saying it shook market stalls.

Tough message

Mr Cheney's visit came amid increasing concern about insurgent activity in several areas of Afghanistan. There are fears of a spring offensive by the Taleban and its allies as the snows clear.

There are 27,000 US troops in Afghanistan, the highest number since the invasion of 2001, to combat any offensive.

Mr Cheney arrived in Afghanistan on Monday after holding talks with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf during a brief stop in Islamabad.

He urged Pakistan to do more to combat the Taleban near the Afghan border, but also praised its role in the "war on terror".

His visit comes as the US seeks to send a tough message to Pakistan that aid to the country could be cut unless efforts to catch militants are stepped up.

Afghanistan and Pakistan share a 1,400-mile (2,250km) border, and many Taleban fighters operate from bases on the Pakistani side.


BBC News.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6399527.stm

[Neo]

Bomb within earshot of Cheney kills 23


BAGRAM, Afghanistan - In what the Taliban claimed was an assassination attempt, a suicide bomber attacked the main gate of a U.S. military base Tuesday within earshot of Vice President
Dick Cheney. The explosion killed 23 people, including two Americans, and delivered a propaganda blow that undercut the U.S. military and the weak Afghan government it supports.

The bomber struck about 10 a.m., and U.S. military officials declared a "red alert" at the sprawling Bagram Air Base while Cheney was rushed to a bomb shelter. Cheney, who had been stranded at the base overnight by a snowstorm, met with President Hamid Karzai in the capital before heading back to the United States via the Gulf state of Oman.

"I heard a loud boom," Cheney told reporters aboard Air Force Two en route to Oman. "The
Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate."

Many of the victims were said to be Afghan truck drivers waiting to get inside the base. A dozen men � many of them sobbing heavily � left the base holding a stretcher bearing their loved ones wrapped in black body bags. Tears streamed down the face of one man sitting in the passenger seat of an SUV that carried another victim away.

Although the bomber did not get closer than roughly a mile to the vice president, the attack highlighted an increasingly precarious security situation posed by the resurgent Taliban. Five years after U.S.-led forces toppled their regime, Taliban-led militants have stepped up attacks. There were 139 suicide bombings last year, a fivefold increase over 2005, and a fresh wave of violence is expected this spring.

The guerrillas, according to
NATO officials, have the flexibility to organize an attack quickly and may have been able to plan a bombing at the base while Cheney was there after hearing news reports on Monday that he was delayed by bad weather. The Taliban have attacked in the area north of the capital in the past even though people living in the Bagram area have not been supportive of the guerrillas. Col. Tom Collins, the top spokesman for the NATO force, said the Taliban had a cell in Kabul that could have traveled the 30 miles north to Bagram.

Asked if the Taliban were trying to send a message with the attack, Cheney said: "I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government. Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that. But it shouldn't affect our behavior at all."

Cheney was the highest-ranking U.S. official to stay overnight in either the
Afghanistan or
Iraq war zones.

President Bush was not awakened to be told about the attack, but received an update early Tuesday morning. White House press secretary Tony Snow said Bush's first reaction was to ask if Cheney was OK.

A message posted on a Web site used by militants said "a mujahid (holy warrior) ... carried out a suicide attack in front of the second gate of the Bagram Air Base. ... The target was Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney."

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack carried out by an Afghan named Mullah Abdul Rahim.

"We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location. "The attacker was trying to reach Cheney."

But it appeared unlikely the bomber would have been able to reach the vice president, who was in a "very safe and secure place" roughly a mile from the blast site, said U.S. spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta.

The bomber, Accetta said, never tried to get by any U.S.-manned security checkpoints and instead walked into a group of Afghans outside the base and detonated himself.

"To characterize this as a direct attempt on the life of the vice president is absurd," Accetta said.

Cheney's trip to Afghanistan � on the heels of a four-hour visit Monday to Pakistan � had not been announced in advance. Snow said he did not know whether publicity about Cheney's overnight stay at the base helped invite the attack � after the planned meeting Monday with Karzai was postponed.

Even though reaching the front gate of the U.S. base could have been achieved with relative ease, the idea of getting through U.S. security to attack Cheney was "far-fetched," in the words of Maj. William Mitchell, a U.S. spokesman.

Nevertheless, Seth Jones, an Afghan expert at the RAND Corp. think tank, said the attack was a "stark reminder of the deteriorating security environment" in Afghanistan and was a propaganda boost for the Taliban.

"The attack also demonstrates the strength of the suicide network the Taliban and al-Qaida have in place," Jones said. "To execute such an attack on such short notice requires a well-developed network of suicide bombers and handlers that can react quickly."

Husain Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and a former adviser to three Pakistani prime ministers, said the attack "does not reflect well on the Afghan government's ability to maintain security."

The bombing sends the message that the Taliban threat "is greater than the U.S. has considered it," he said.

Karzai's office said 23 people were killed, including 20 Afghan workers waiting outside the base. Twenty other people were injured, it said.

NATO said nine people had been killed, including a U.S. soldier, a U.S. contractor and a South Korean soldier, but Collins said the numbers from Karzai's office were probably "close to the truth."

AP reporters at the scene saw 12 bodies being carried in black body bags and wooden coffins from the entrance of the base � where they were taken after the bombing � and into a market area where hundreds of Afghans, almost all men, had gathered to mourn.

Khan Shirin, a private security guard, sobbed in the back of a pickup truck and kissed the body bag bearing his relative, Parvez, who was a truck driver and the representative of a transport association that hauls goods for the U.S. base.

"How will I tell your mother and father and return your body to your home?" he said, wiping his tears away. "You've left us."

During their private hourlong meeting, Cheney and Karzai spoke about the "problems coming from Pakistan," said an Afghan government official, a reference to cross-border infiltration by militants who launch attacks in Afghanistan.

"We understand now that the U.S. government realizes that in order to stop terrorism in Afghanistan and to stop terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, there must be a clear fight against terrorism in Pakistan," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Karzai's office said Cheney told Afghan leaders the United States "will continue its assistance to Afghanistan."

A senior administration official told reporters on Cheney's airplane that Bush had wanted Cheney to travel to the region because of "the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world."

The official said Karzai was "upbeat" because of a recent pledge of $10.6 billion in aid to Afghanistan by the Bush administration, saying the money � much of it to be spent on new equipment for the Afghan police and army � was a sign of U.S. commitment.

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AP reporters Amir Shah in Bagram, Jason Straziuso in Kabul, Noor Khan in Kandahar and Terry Hunt in Washington contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070227/...rAZ4pyYfus0NUE

[Janbaz]

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Why, death toll is rising every time i check!