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More Coalition Troops Hurt Near Kandahar As Canadian Bodies Prepared for Home

Posted on: Monday, 24 July 2006, 12:00 CDT

By TERRY PEDWELL

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - The violence in Afghanistan intensified Monday as Canada prepared to send two of its fallen home.

In the south, just east of Kandahar, two international coalition soldiers were seriously hurt when a van packed with explosives detonated as their patrol was driving past.

Two days earlier, two Canadian soldiers - Cpl. Francisco Gomez of Edmonton and Cpl. Jason Warren from Montreal - died after a suicide bomber drove his car beside their Bison armoured vehicle, and triggered an explosion.

The bodies of Warren and Gomez were to be returned to Canada on Tuesday, following a ceremony at the Kandahar Air Field.

In Monday's incident, a joint Afghan National Army and coalition patrol was driving west along Kandahar's infamous Highway One when they came across a vehicle that appeared to be broken down, reported coalition spokesman Maj. Scott Lundy. As the patrol was passing, the car exploded, he said.

"It detonated, causing two coalition casualties," he said.

The nationality of the two coalition soldiers has not been revealed, but witnesses say they were American.

The blast occurred in Daman district, about seven kilometres east of Kandahar City, on the same highway where the Canadians were attacked on Saturday, although on the other side of the city.

The heaviest violence, however, was seen in western Afghanistan, in long-quiet Farah province.

A Taliban spokesman had promised last week that a relentless wave of fighting against Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces would commence within days.

The threat appeared to come alive Monday when hundreds of Taliban fighters attacked a western Afghan government building with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.

Three police officers were reported killed and seven wounded in one of the militia's boldest strikes to date.

Across other parts of Afghanistan, there was a flurry of suicide attacks, roadside bombings and shootings.

Four suspected suicide attackers riding on two explosives-laden motorbikes in Farah province were killed after they were challenged by police while driving through the provincial capital late Sunday, said Gen. Sayed Aga Saqib, the provincial police chief.

Two of the suspected attackers were fatally shot. The other two were killed when police shot at their bike and detonated their explosives.

A boy walking nearby was killed in the explosion, while the child's father was wounded, Saqib said.

Near Kandahar, gunmen also killed two Afghans delivering medicine for the international aid agency World Vision.

The heaviest fighting was in the town of Bakwa in Farah province, which had been spared the worst of the violence between resurgent Taliban-led rebels and Afghan and foreign troops that has killed more than 800 people, mostly militants, since mid-May.

About 400 Taliban fighters in about 35 pickup trucks arrived in the town late Sunday and launched a heavy assault on a district police and administration headquarters using dozens of machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Saqib said.

The militants fled back toward neighbouring Helmand province after a five-hour battle, carrying an unknown number of militant casualties.

About 600 Canadian troops had just returned from Helmand on Saturday, where for weeks they had faced almost daily battles with Taliban fighters. It was at the tail end of that convoy where a suicide attacker killed corporals Gomez and Warren.

In the attack, Gomez was driving a Canadian Forces Bison while it's believed Warren was keeping an eye out for insurgents through the vehicle's turret.

They were the 18th and 19th Canadian soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan since early 2002.

Military sources speculate that there was almost no time to react once the suicide attacker was beside the armoured vehicle.

About an hour later, a second suicide attacker, this one on foot, detonated an explosive vest close to where the Canadians were hit, killing up to eight Afghan civilians and injuring dozens more.

Gomez's father, George, said his son was due to come home later this month, and that his son seemed happy when he had called home, about a week ago.

Gomez, 44, had joined the Armed Forces right out of high school more than 20 years ago, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Richard Gomez, who is stationed in Halifax with the air force.

Source: Canadian Press

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