INDEPTH: AFGHANISTAN
Jan. 27, 2004 attack
CBC News Online | January 16, 2006
Cpl. Jamie Brendan Murphy
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Dead:
Cpl. Jamie Brendan Murphy, 26, Conception Harbour, Nfld.
Wounded:
Lt. Jason Matthew Feyko, 30, Peterborough, Ont.
Cpl. Richard Michael Newman, 23, Burnt Island, Nfld.
Cpl, Jeremy Gerald MacDonald, 28, Hartland, N.B.
On Jan. 27, 2004, one soldier was killed and three others wounded by a suicide bomber while on patrol near the Canadian base, Camp Julien, near Kabul. Two soldiers were killed and three injured on Oct. 2, 2003, in a roadside blast southwest of Kabul, which destroyed their light Iltis jeep. The men in both incidents were also members of the Royal Canadian Regiment.
The Canadian Forces says that the men were in two Iltis jeeps on patrol in a western district of Kabul and were killed in an explosion believed to be a suicide bombing.
Ali Jan Askaryar, head of police in the western district of Kabul, said, "There was a bump in the road, and when they slowed down to pass over it a terrorist jumped on one of the vehicles and blew himself up."
Lt. Feyko was taken to a German field hospital at Camp Warehouse, while the other two were cared for by Canadian Forces medical staff at Camp Julien.
Maj. John Vass, who was commanding the patrol of six soldiers and an Afghan interpreter, told the Canadian Press that they were on their way to a meeting with the mayor and police chief of the district. A few minutes into the patrol, a man with a long beard approached from a ditch and moments later there was an explosion near the rear Iltis jeep.
Vass said it was clearly a suicide bombing, with debris thrown up to 100 metres away.
The attack took place near a row of shops while hundreds of Afghans were shopping.
Some Canadian soldiers told reporters that the attack might also be retaliation because Canadian soldiers participated in a drug raid in downtown Kabul a week earlier.
Maj.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, the head of the Canadian Forces in Kabul for the RCR mission, said, "It's hard to make sense out of a senseless act, especially suicide bombings. This act, reprehensible as it is, indicates essentially why we're here. You're here to protect people from such animals as were involved in taking the life of one of our own and injuring others."
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Capital: Kabul
Area: 647,500 km sq. (same size as Manitoba)
Population: 28,513,000 (2004)
Head of State: Hamid Karzai
Unemployment: 78%
GDP (2003): $20 billion US (est.)
Exports to Canada (2003): $618,889
Imports from Canada (2003): $9 million
Median Age: 17.5
Life expectancy at birth: 42.46
Ethnic groups: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%
(Source: CIA World Fact Book, Government of Canada)
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