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Attacker Killed in Kabul Blast, 867 U.S. Forces Killed in Afghanistan
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Camp Warehouse on fire
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KABUL,
December 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A man who threw a
grenade Thursday, December 19, at a base housing multinational
peacekeeping troops in Kabul injuring two civilians was killed in the
attack, a spokesman for the peacekeepers said.
Major
Gordon Mackenzie said the man had pulled a gun and a
"grenade-type device" as he was being searched at the
entrance to Camp Warehouse, the main base for the 22-nation
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
"He
pulled out a grenade-type device which exploded. The man was killed,
but it was not clear whether he died in the explosion," Mackenzie
said, adding that it was not known if shots were fired by ISAF guards.
He
said two civilians were injured, one seriously. It was not known if
they were involved in the attack, Mackenzie said.
Kabul
security chief Basir Salangi said two Afghans were involved. One was
killed by the explosion, while a second was injured.
Camp
Warehouse lies roughly five kilometers (four miles) from the center of
Kabul on the main route to the principal eastern city of Jalalabad.
The
incident follows a grenade attack on two U.S. soldiers and their
translator in the capital Tuesday, December 17, which left all three
injured.
Three
Afghans and two foreigners have been arrested in connection with
Tuesday's attack which prompted fears that more violence could hit the
relatively stable capital.
The
main suspect, who state media said was a teenage Afghan enraged by the
U.S. presence in his country, was being questioned at the Interior
Ministry where U.S. soldiers and investigators have been seen since
shortly after the incident.
This
week's explosions come just weeks after six rockets struck an area
near the Jalalabad road and close to bases housing both ISAF and U.S.
troops.
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ISAF
member (L) and U.S. soldiers guard the road leading to the
attacked ISAF Camp Warehouse
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The
rocket attack was said by security officials to be the work of
fighters belonging to the former Taliban regime, their Al-Qaeda
associates or anti-government forces. Other reports indicated they
were the work of Afghan opposition forces who reject U.S. presence in
Afghanistan.
Meanwhile,
a website named www.jihadunspun.net
posted the results of a report on the military casualties in the
U.S.-led war on Afghanistan.
According
to the report, 968 coalition forces, including 867 Americans, were
killed and 676 others, including 537 Americans, were injured in
Afghanistan.
"From
October 21, 2001, Jihad Unspun staff and researchers began tracking
military casualties in the U.S. war on ‘terrorism’ campaign in
Afghanistan from approximately 40 international news sources daily.
"Although
limited information on the extent of casualties suffered in
Afghanistan by U.S. and Coalition troops has appeared in main stream
North American press, this has not been the case in other parts of the
globe," said the report.
"Source
material [of the report] has been gathered from mainstream and
uncensored news sources" and only "reports that could be
verified in more than one source" were included.
"When
casualties or kills were listed as 'several soldiers wounded', they
were excluded. As the counts come only from those that actually found
their way into the press, we expect the actual[ly] figures to be as
much as three times higher than those listed here," said the
report.
The
report recalled that Rena Golden, the executive vice-president and
general manager of CNN International, said at a Newsworld conference
in Asia that U.S. news organizations "censored" their
coverage of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.
"Although
we can not conclude with 100% accuracy the validity of any news item,
this report begins to show a broader picture of casualties as reported
throughout the globe and helps us to put into perspective the human
cost of this war," said the website, adding that the report
"has been independently audited by TREK Technologies Inc., a
third party market research firm, to add further validity to this
work."
According
to the report, the search "began after Operation Enduring Freedom
in the mountains of Afghanistan and therefore is not a complete
accounting from the beginning of the Afghan invasion."
Click
here to see the full report
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