U.S. VP OK
Pretty close though.
(AP: Alisa Tang) BAGRAM, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded 11 outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, though the vice president was apparently not in danger, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
The blast happened near the first security gate outside the base at Bagram, killing 19 people, said Khoja Mohammad Qasim Sayedi, chief of the province’s public health department. Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said “18 to 20 dead bodies” lay on the ground after the blast.
Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president.
“He wasn’t near the site of the explosion,” Mitchell said. “He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion.”
Mitchell said it appeared there were casualties from the blast, but he didn’t immediately know how many.
Ajmall, a shopkeeper in the market outside the base, called the blast “huge,” and said it shook the small market area. Ajmall, who goes by one name, said those wounded in the blast were taken inside the U.S. base for treatment.
However Iraqi VP Narrowly Escapes Assassination
(AP: Brian Murphy) BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq’s Shiite vice president narrowly escaped assassination Monday as a blast ripped through a government meeting hall just hours after it was searched by U.S. teams with bomb-sniffing dogs. At least 10 people were killed.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi was slightly wounded in the explosion, which splintered chairs, destroyed a speakers’ podium and sent a chilling message that suspected Sunni militants can strike anywhere despite a major security crackdown across Baghdad.
As U.S. forces sealed off the area around the municipal building, investigators grappled with the troubling question of how the bomb was smuggled into the ministry of public works - a seven-story structure with crack surveillance systems from its days as offices for Saddam Hussein’s feared intelligence service.
The bomb - possibly hidden in the podium - went off moments after the minister for public works finished a speech in the third-floor chamber, witnesses said. Abdul-Mahdi had made a welcoming address a few minutes earlier, raising speculation the bomb could have been on a timer-trigger that missed the vice president by sheer luck.
Among those killed were several ministry employees, police said. More than 25 were wounded, including the public works minister, Riyad Gharib. Read on
