Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 18, 2008
Pg. 12
By Carlotta Gall
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck outside a mosque in southwestern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing 23 people, including two senior police officials and several children, officials said Thursday evening.
An estimated 31 people were wounded in the explosion, which occurred just before evening prayers in the border town of Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz Province.
Nimruz is a remote desert area, sparsely populated and poorly policed, where traffickers smuggle drugs across into neighboring Iran. There has also been an increase in insurgent activity in the province.
Many of those killed and wounded were civilians, shopkeepers and guests at a hotel, the provincial governor, Ghulam Dastagir Azad, said by telephone.
He said he believed that police officials had been the bomber’s targets. One of those killed was Bismillah Khan, a district police chief, and another was the commander of a battalion of border guards, he said.
“They are the enemy of the poor people, the enemy of human beings,” the governor said of the attackers.
Also on Thursday, the American military said that two United States marines from a unit that arrived last month had been killed and that two were wounded Wednesday morning when an explosion hit their convoy in the southern province of Kandahar.
Under NATO rules their nationality was not released immediately, said Capt. Kelly Frushour, the unit’s public affairs officer. She gave few details of the episode except to say that it had been a hostile attack, and that the wounded were being sent to the American military base at Landstuhl, Germany.
The marines came from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a force of 3,200 that was sent to Afghanistan recently to help NATO troops faced with a continued insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan. NATO commanders in Afghanistan have called for more forces repeatedly over the last two years, but were rebuffed until the Marine unit arrived.
The marines came with their own artillery, helicopters and Harrier fighter planes, and were expected to add considerable combat capability to the NATO forces, which have struggled to contain the Taliban insurgency since being deployed in 2006.
About 2,200 of the marines will work with NATO forces and serve as a task force capable of being used across the country as needed. The remaining 1,000 will provide training and support for the Afghan Army and police forces under United States command.
The Marine unit has been stationed at an air base just outside the city of Kandahar, and has yet to see combat.
In comments reported in The Baltimore Sun, members of the unit complained recently that the slow and cumbersome NATO command structure had delayed them from being utilized, and that they had been wasting time on the base rather than fighting insurgents.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
April 18, 2008
Pg. 12
By Carlotta Gall
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck outside a mosque in southwestern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing 23 people, including two senior police officials and several children, officials said Thursday evening.
An estimated 31 people were wounded in the explosion, which occurred just before evening prayers in the border town of Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz Province.
Nimruz is a remote desert area, sparsely populated and poorly policed, where traffickers smuggle drugs across into neighboring Iran. There has also been an increase in insurgent activity in the province.
Many of those killed and wounded were civilians, shopkeepers and guests at a hotel, the provincial governor, Ghulam Dastagir Azad, said by telephone.
He said he believed that police officials had been the bomber’s targets. One of those killed was Bismillah Khan, a district police chief, and another was the commander of a battalion of border guards, he said.
“They are the enemy of the poor people, the enemy of human beings,” the governor said of the attackers.
Also on Thursday, the American military said that two United States marines from a unit that arrived last month had been killed and that two were wounded Wednesday morning when an explosion hit their convoy in the southern province of Kandahar.
Under NATO rules their nationality was not released immediately, said Capt. Kelly Frushour, the unit’s public affairs officer. She gave few details of the episode except to say that it had been a hostile attack, and that the wounded were being sent to the American military base at Landstuhl, Germany.
The marines came from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a force of 3,200 that was sent to Afghanistan recently to help NATO troops faced with a continued insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan. NATO commanders in Afghanistan have called for more forces repeatedly over the last two years, but were rebuffed until the Marine unit arrived.
The marines came with their own artillery, helicopters and Harrier fighter planes, and were expected to add considerable combat capability to the NATO forces, which have struggled to contain the Taliban insurgency since being deployed in 2006.
About 2,200 of the marines will work with NATO forces and serve as a task force capable of being used across the country as needed. The remaining 1,000 will provide training and support for the Afghan Army and police forces under United States command.
The Marine unit has been stationed at an air base just outside the city of Kandahar, and has yet to see combat.
In comments reported in The Baltimore Sun, members of the unit complained recently that the slow and cumbersome NATO command structure had delayed them from being utilized, and that they had been wasting time on the base rather than fighting insurgents.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.