KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – A soldier killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul on Tuesday is the highest ranking Canadian to die in Afghanistan since Ottawa first committed troops in 2002.
Col. Geoff Parker of the Royal Canadian Regiment was traveling in a convoy of three SUVs with U.S. troops when a suicide bomber driving a mini-van with nearly a ton of explosives packed inside swerved into them. Five American soldiers also died in the attack that killed the 42-year-old infantry officer, who was on a "recce" visit to Kabul before taking up an assignment there.
Parker was from Oakville, Ont.
At least 12 Afghan civilians were also killed in the same suicide attack, which occurred a few hundred metres from Canada’s old base on the outskirts of the city. The area, which Canadian troops left four years ago, when Ottawa switched its focus to Kandahar, is home to several Afghan army units and a U.S. training facility.
The Taliban have claimed credit for the attack, which was the deadliest in some time in the Afghan capital since September 2009, when six Italian soldiers were killed by a car bomb.
The Taliban spokesman told Reuters the Islamists had used a van packed with 750 kilograms of explosives.
Several hundred Canadian soldiers serve in Kabul, mostly in staff jobs with the various NATO commands in the city.
The bombing by a driver at the wheel of a minivan comes as NATO forces begin shaping operations for a major summer offensive in the southern province of Kandahar. That operation is expected to involve several thousand Canadian troops.
The latest fatality brings to 145 the number of Canadians soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since 2002.
"This will not deter us from our mission of securing a better future for this country," NATO spokesman Brig.-Gen. Josef Blotz said in a statement.
The interior ministry said 47 civilians were wounded. Most of the casualties were people waiting for a bus on the busy road near an army base, a government ministry and the parliament.
Kabul’s Estiqlal hospital was overwhelmed with wounded people, including children, with their heads, legs and hands covered in blood. Some moaned in pain.
"The blast knocked me down, although I wasn’t very near the explosion but I saw a van exploded and there was blood and bodies everywhere," said a teenager named Mustafa, whose head was wrapped in a blood-stained bandage.
Police cordoned off the road near Darulaman palace, a derelict building that once housed Afghanistan’s royal family, state television showed.
Afghan troops were collecting evidence and debris from the blast site.
Another survivor, government worker Noor Mohammad, was waiting for a bus when the bomber detonated his vehicle.
"A van driving very fast approached the convoy of foreigners and a huge blast went off . . . I didn’t know I was hurt, the explosion deafened my ears and I had a blackout," Mohammad, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his legs, said from his hospital bed.
President Hamid Karzai was holding a news conference at the time of the blast, following a trip to Washington where he met U.S. President Barack Obama to discuss strained ties between the two countries amid a rising insurgency and civilian casualties.
"I condemn this attack on strongest terms and hope that Afghanistan one day gets rid of this," Karzai said.
In the southeast, Afghan police shot dead a would-be suicide bomber who tried to attack a government building in Paktia province close to the Pakistani border, police said.
The bomber’s explosives were detonated by the shooting, killing one policeman and wounding another.
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