Cheney target of bombing in Afghanistan

February 27, 2007

Afghanistan - At least nine people have died in a suicide bombing at the main US base in Afghanistan during US Vice-President Dick Cheney's stay.

Cheney, who was unharmed, was staying at the Bagram base near Kabul.

The US military said the bomber was also killed. Some reports say 14 people died - more than 20 others were hurt.

The Taliban said they carried out the attack and that the attacker was trying to get to Cheney, who was on an unannounced visit to the region.

A US spokesman described it as a "direct attack" on the base, which was put on red alert for a while.

Cheney was said to be safely inside the compound at the time. He described hearing a "loud boom" and told reporters he had been briefly moved to a bomb shelter.

One US and one South Korean soldier were among the dead as well as a US government contractor who was a US national.

The others killed were Afghan civilians, many of whose distraught relatives gathered later outside the base.

Base operations commander Lt Col James Bonner said the bomber could not have got inside the base, 40 miles from Kabul.

"Our security measures were in place and the killer never had access to the base," he said in a statement.

"When he realized he would not be able to get onto the base he attacked the local population."

Talks delayed

Cheney had breakfast with troops at the base and left about 90 minutes after the blast.

He held talks with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on the deteriorating security situation before flying out of the country. It was "never an option" to scrap the talks, he said.

Shortly before the Bagram blast, there was another suicide bomb in the southern city of Kandahar, killing at least one person.

Elsewhere, Nato said it had killed three civilians in clashes in the south.

One person was shot dead by Nato troops in "self defense" near Kandahar on Tuesday, while two others had been hit by mortar fire in Helmand province a day earlier, a statement said.

Officials said the explosion occurred between the outside security gate and an inner gate guarded by US troops, some distance from living quarters at the base.

A trader in a market outside the base described the explosion as "huge", saying it shook market stalls.