The above picture shows a US Army armored truck, the one on the left doesn’t have a tow bar, but it’s esssentially the same as the blown up truck on the right. This truck was built to resist roadside bombs, but this time it resisted a suicide bomber in a mini-van. Nobody inside the truck was killed, but 15 civilians nearby were.
KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO forces were struck by three attacks within 24 hours across Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday, as the Taliban redoubled efforts to drive foreign combat troops out of the country ahead of President Obama’s well publicized plan to withdrawal at the end of 2014.
In recent months, NATO forces have seen fewer fatalities as more of foreign troops withdraw, they take fewer risks and Afghan forces assume more responsibility for the country’s security. But analysts say militants continue to view attacks on international coalition troops as their most effective path to power.
In the most coordinated attack of the day, a suicide bomber in eastern Ghazni province detonated his vehicle Wednesday afternoon in the vicinity of a base shared by Polish and Afghan forces, coalition spokeswoman Lt. Col. LaTondra Kinley said. Information on the number of NATO casualties was not immediately available, she added.
The attack started when the driver detonated the minivan at the entrance, said Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy governor of Ghazni province. At that point, four or more Taliban gunmen started firing at the base with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine guns.
This sparked a firefight between the insurgents and Afghan forces guarding the perimeter of the base that lasted about 90 minutes, Ahmadi said. Because the base is near a residential area, four civilians were killed and 25 wounded, including women and children, he said, adding that a fuel tanker inside the base caught fire and it was possible NATO troops suffered casualties.
In a statement emailed to journalists, the Taliban said its attackers destroyed the main gate of the Ghazni base and a nearby checkpoint, killing and wounding a “large number” of foreign troops and “puppet Afghan forces.” The militant group often exaggerates its enemies’ casualties.
A few hours earlier, a suicide bomber in a Toyota Corolla rammed his vehicle into an American military convoy in Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, killing four Afghan civilians including a woman and a child, and wounding 15 other people, said Omar Zowak, spokesman for the governor of Helmand.
There were no NATO fatalities in that attack, apparently an opportunistic strike in a residential area as the convoy passed by. Photographs showed a building reduced to sticks, bricks and dust near a disabled U.S. armored personnel carrier, its rear tires blown off and its body jammed against an electric pole.
“Insurgents once again showed their hatred of innocent civilians and their desire to please their own evil leadership,” the Helmand governor’s office said in a statement signed off with the slogan “Safer Helmand, Better Afghanistan.” Helmand has seen some of the fiercest fighting since the Taliban was ousted from power in 2001.
And in a third attack aimed at NATO’s logistics lifeblood, gunmen late Tuesday opened fire on dozens of fuel trucks parked along a road in southwest Farah province, igniting at least 40 of them, killing six Afghan drivers and injuring 10 civilians, said provincial government spokesman Abdullrahman Zhwandai. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for that attack.