Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
November 13, 2008
Pg. 12
By Taimoor Shah and C. J. Chivers
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Suicide bombers carried out two fierce attacks Wednesday and Thursday, leaving as many as two dozen people dead and scores wounded.
On Wednesday, a tanker truck packed with explosives detonated outside the provincial council office in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s largest southern city, killing the driver and at least six other people and wounding more than 40 others.
The blast shook the entire city, caused at least five houses to collapse and left a huge crater near the council building, which housed an office of a national security service.
“The enemies of Afghanistan and peace once again put us in mourning,” Gen. Rahmatullah Roufi, the provincial governor, told reporters. He announced a “purification” operation to arrest insurgents in and near the city.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber rammed a car into an American military convoy as it was passing through a crowded market in the Bati Kot district of Nangarhar Province, in eastern Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported.
One coalition soldier and 20 civilians were killed, a United States military spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, told The A.P.
But a police officer in Kabul said only seven people were killed in the attack, according to Reuters.
Reports on the number of injured ranged from 56 to 74.
Just hours before the suicide bombing on Wednesday, two men on a motorcycle sprayed acid on the faces of eight teenage girls, apparently because they dared to attend high school.
The girls were walking to school when the men drove up and splashed their faces with what appeared to be battery acid.
At least two of the girls were hospitalized, with their faces blackened and burned and doctors trying to save their eyes. A woman who gave her name as Malina stood by the hospital bed of Shamia, 18, a ninth grader who was moaning.
“She is in pain,” Malina said. “Her sin was that she was going to school, What else can I say?”
Nearby, Atifa Bibi, 16, another injured student, said, “We haven’t received threats or warning from anybody.” She said, “I will not go to school anymore, until security becomes better.”
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said by telephone that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing but were not involved in the burning of the students’ faces. “We condemned this event,” he said. “It’s very bad, whoever carried it out.”
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and C .J. Chivers from Kabul, Afghanistan.
November 13, 2008
Pg. 12
By Taimoor Shah and C. J. Chivers
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Suicide bombers carried out two fierce attacks Wednesday and Thursday, leaving as many as two dozen people dead and scores wounded.
On Wednesday, a tanker truck packed with explosives detonated outside the provincial council office in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s largest southern city, killing the driver and at least six other people and wounding more than 40 others.
The blast shook the entire city, caused at least five houses to collapse and left a huge crater near the council building, which housed an office of a national security service.
“The enemies of Afghanistan and peace once again put us in mourning,” Gen. Rahmatullah Roufi, the provincial governor, told reporters. He announced a “purification” operation to arrest insurgents in and near the city.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber rammed a car into an American military convoy as it was passing through a crowded market in the Bati Kot district of Nangarhar Province, in eastern Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported.
One coalition soldier and 20 civilians were killed, a United States military spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, told The A.P.
But a police officer in Kabul said only seven people were killed in the attack, according to Reuters.
Reports on the number of injured ranged from 56 to 74.
Just hours before the suicide bombing on Wednesday, two men on a motorcycle sprayed acid on the faces of eight teenage girls, apparently because they dared to attend high school.
The girls were walking to school when the men drove up and splashed their faces with what appeared to be battery acid.
At least two of the girls were hospitalized, with their faces blackened and burned and doctors trying to save their eyes. A woman who gave her name as Malina stood by the hospital bed of Shamia, 18, a ninth grader who was moaning.
“She is in pain,” Malina said. “Her sin was that she was going to school, What else can I say?”
Nearby, Atifa Bibi, 16, another injured student, said, “We haven’t received threats or warning from anybody.” She said, “I will not go to school anymore, until security becomes better.”
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said by telephone that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing but were not involved in the burning of the students’ faces. “We condemned this event,” he said. “It’s very bad, whoever carried it out.”
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and C .J. Chivers from Kabul, Afghanistan.