Bomb Hits U.S. Embassy Convoy In Kabul

Afghan Teenager Killed, Five Embassy Security Personnel Wounded

(AP)  A suicide car bomber attacked a three-vehicle U.S. Embassy convoy on a notoriously dangerous road in the Afghan capital on Monday, killing an Afghan teenager and wounding five embassy security personnel, officials said.

The blast propelled one of the armored SUVs across the road, which is often the site of bombings and rocket attacks. The two other vehicles were also damaged, and flames shot through the wreckage of the suicide car bomb.

A 15-year-old Afghan on the side of the road was killed, said Hasib Arian, the district police chief.

Five U.S. Embassy security personnel were injured, one seriously, said Col. Tom Collins, the spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. The U.S. ambassador, Ronald Neumann, was not in the convoy, said embassy spokesman Joe Mellott.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said in a phone call to The Associated Press that a Taliban militant from Khost province carried out the attack.

The explosion, witnessed by an Associated Press reporter traveling behind the convoy, occurred about two miles from the embassy on the road which leads to the U.S. base at Bagram and the town of Jalalabad to the east.

Late last month, a suicide bomber killed 23 people outside the U.S. base at Bagram during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney. In September, a suicide bombing near the U.S. Embassy killed 16 people, including two U.S. soldiers.

The U.S. Embassy closed down Monday and sent out a warning to Americans in Kabul, which has not seen a suicide bombing since December.

U.S. Embassy security teams initially prevented Afghan police, NATO soldiers and journalists from getting close to the vehicles.

"When I reached the bomb site, I told them, "I am the chief of district No. 9. It is my duty to investigate, let me go," said Arian. "But they didn't listen. They pushed me, they humiliated me."

In the southern province of Kandahar on Monday, a roadside bomb hit a police vehicle, killing Panjwayi district's chief of the criminal division, said provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai.

Elsewhere in Panjwayi, a suicide bomber attacked a team of police working to eradicate poppies, Alizai said. One vehicle was damaged but no one was hurt.

Afghanistan has seen an upsurge in Iraq-style violence over the past year as militant supporters of the former Taliban regime have stepped up attacks and increasingly embraced new deadly tactics such as suicide and roadside bombings.

The Afghan government, struggling to contain the violence, also must overcome mistrust among Afghans who believe their leaders are more corrupt than the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s or the Taliban-run government in the 1990s.

According to a survey released Monday by the independent Integrity Watch Afghanistan, about 60 percent of Afghans said the current administration is more corrupt than any other in the past two decades.

Money "can buy government appointments, bypass justice or evade police," while the government is "unable or unwilling to seriously tackle corruption," it said. The group said it interviewed 1,258 Afghans for the study. It gave no margin of error.

"Corruption has undermined the legitimacy of the state," said the group's executive director, Lorenzo Delesgues.

Corruption in Afghanistan is fueled by low-paid government workers who pad their salaries by demanding bribes to process simple paperwork. Many Afghans also pay bribes to avoid trouble with police, who make about $70 a month.

The country's booming heroin trade also leads to corruption, with police and other government officials looking the other way after payoffs by farmers and drug-runners.

Even Afghanistan's anti-corruption chief, Izzatullah Wasifi, has a troubling past. A recent Associated Press investigation found he was convicted two decades ago for selling heroin in the United States.

Wasifi is adamant his drug conviction should not affect his ability to serve in government, and compares his situation to that of President Bush, who was once arrested in 1976 for drunk driving.

[diplomacy3]

In 4 years of war we are still in Baghdad fighting the insurgents. How long will it take to conquor the whole of Iraq?

[patriotic9]

Soldiers don't die in every attack you knuckle head! You really are representing the first three letters in "ASSUME".

Look, were not Russia or China, we can't hide when soldiers are killed.
Posted by NavyChief8 at 09:23 AM : Mar 19, 2007

Out of more then One Hundred and fourty attacks per day,how many of em are reported in the news?
How many of those more then One Hundred and Fourty attacks today were reported in todays news.
You better check out
www.memri.org
Click on
Islamist website monitors project
Click on Islamist website monitor # 17
Click on the video link under the heading
Islamist video shows Bombings in Iraq

After looking at the sophistications of those attacks,if you believe that four five soldiers per one hundred and fourty attacks get killed every day,you seriously need to see a Psychiatrist.
We can not correct our mistakes and make better plans to save our troops unless we acknowlege the problems.
Living in the STATE OF DENIAL will only lead our country towards irreversible catostrophy.

[navychief8]

Even if we assume that only one soldier per attack looses his life,the number of US death is more then One hundred and fourty and it's atleast FOUR THOUSANDS per month.
If the attack can not be hidden by media,then the people who are supposed to give the detail refuse to comment like this attack on Embassy Convoy.
Posted by patriotic9

Soldiers don't die in every attack you knuckle head! You really are representing the first three letters in "ASSUME".

Look, were not Russia or China, we can't hide when soldiers are killed.

[antoniof123]

This has become a real mess thank you for all those who voted for this group of morons in the White House.

[tuckerndfw]

When a bomb hits a US troop convoy, people usually die.

How is that embassy vehicles are more heavily armored than US troop vehicles?

Obviously, the Bush administration is more concerned about protecting mealy mouthed pencil pushers than the guys actually doing the fighting.

[crater7]

BOMB HITS U S EMBASSY CONVOY IN KABUL;
Embassy workers, hey, lets go get some lunch, ok I'll follow you. I'll take the white SUV, you take the black SUV.
Does anyone understand this is a WAR ZONE, they want to kill AMERICANS. How do they know who the AMERICANS are? Ohhhh, I Know, they drive the SUV'S.

[candojj1]

The surge is working, so they tell us. Only one bomb hit, so they tell us. The democrats approved the funds for continuing the war. The people march, but congress gives lip service. On July 14th it's Bastille Day where the commoners stormed the palace. When will we storm the palace?

In NYC the guy gets shot 51 times and two cops get indicted for manslaughter. Yet, we know the whole country will riot when the verdict is read. People will get hurt and die and be frightened and looted as a result of the police brutality.

So why don't we hold the mayor and the police commissioner accountable now for not training their troops in how to deal with people and not be so trigger happy? The leaders should be held accountable there and put on trial and face the death penalty. So too in this case all of the legislators, congress, the Senators and the executives, should be put on trial for mass murder just as Hitler was and be executed for what they are doing. What's the difference? They are not protecting us. They are inciting others to hate us. The will of the people is not what they are doing. It is their will that they are doing for their own evil and we don%u2019t want the devil any where near us.

[patriotic9]

Make it
One hundred and fourty PER DAY

[patriotic9]

No further details are yet available. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said he COULDN'T IMMEDIATELY COMMENT.

This above mentioned statement is the evidence that our govt and media are hiding the truth.The number of casualties is much higher in Iraq(specially) and Afghanistan.
According to Pentagon,there are One Thousand attacks against our troops in Iraq every week which means more then One hundred and Fourty attacks per.After looking at the sophistication of those attacks by an UNSEEN ENEMY who doesn't wear MILITARY UNIFORM,DOESN'T FOLLOW GENEVA CONVENTION and willing to give the ultimate sacrifice of his or her life for killing his or her enemy,and has full support of the people around him or her,it's impossible that only one soldier per attack looses his life.
Check out
www.memri.org
Click on
Islamist websites monitor profect
click on
Islamist website monitor # 17
Click on the video link under the heading
Islamist video shows bombings in Iraq.

Even if we assume that only one soldier per attack looses his life,the number of US death is more then One hundred and fourty and it's atleast FOUR THOUSANDS per month.
If the attack can not be hidden by media,then the people who are supposed to give the detail refuse to comment like this attack on Embassy Convoy.

[randalds]

Isn't it time we pulled our troops OUT of Iraq and got them back to going after the people who actually attacked us? Bush screwed up big time by using the terrorist attack on 9-11 as a pitiful lie to invade Iraq and in the meantime let go the ones who really did the crime. he saw a chance to turn Americas outrage against al Qaeda into a profit making venture in Iraq and let the masterminds behind the murders run free so he could use them as boogie men to frighten republicans, idiots and small children into backing him up. Now thanks to the totally greedy and moronic way the neocons have handled this we are not only losing the war in Iraq (which we deserve to since we had no right to invade anyway) we are indanger of losing the only justifiable war we had, in Afghanistan!