16 Coalition Personnel Killed in Afghanistan Attacks

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2011 — A car bomb smashed into an Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force con­voy in Kab­ul today killing 13 coali­tion per­son­nel, NATO offi­cials said.

Five of the dead are ser­vice mem­bers, and eight are ISAF civil­ian employ­ees. The attack injured sev­er­al Afghans and coali­tion per­son­nel as well as inno­cent Afghan civilian. 

News reports out of Kab­ul say the Tal­iban took cred­it for the car bomb attack, and reports indi­cate the car ran into what is pop­u­lar­ly called a Rhi­no — essen­tial­ly an armored bus. 

Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panet­ta was informed of the con­voy attack soon after it hap­pened. “His heart goes out to those who were killed and wound­ed, and to their fam­i­lies,” said Pen­ta­gon Press Sec­re­tary George Lit­tle. “Con­tin­u­ing our aggres­sive pur­suit of the ene­my will hon­or their sac­ri­fice, and he is deter­mined that the Unit­ed States work­ing close­ly with our Afghan and NATO part­ners will do pre­cise­ly that.” 

A sec­ond attack in south­ern Afghanistan took the lives of three more coali­tion per­son­nel and wound­ed oth­ers when a man wear­ing an Afghan Nation­al Army uni­form shot the soldiers. 

ISAF Com­man­der U.S. Marine Gen. John R. Allen con­demned today’s ter­ror­ist attacks. 

“I am both sad­dened and out­raged by the attacks that took place today against coali­tion forces and the peo­ple of Afghanistan,” Allen said in a writ­ten release. “The ene­mies of peace are not mar­tyrs, but mur­der­ers. To hide the fact that they are los­ing ter­ri­to­ry, sup­port and the will to fight, our com­mon ene­my con­tin­ues to employ sui­cide attack­ers to kill inno­cent Afghan fathers, moth­ers, sons and daugh­ters, as well as the coali­tion forces who have vol­un­teered to pro­tect them.” 

Allen also men­tioned a sui­cide attack launched by a young girl who walked into a build­ing hous­ing the Nation­al Direc­torate of Secu­ri­ty, Afghanistan’s inter­nal intel­li­gence ser­vice, in the east­ern province of Kunar. The girl killed her­self and wound­ed sev­er­al NDS personnel. 

“My thoughts and prayers are with the fam­i­lies of those killed and injured in today’s attacks,” Allen said. “Their sac­ri­fices will be hon­ored and the ene­my will be held to account.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)