[quote]Dick Cheney was rushed to the safety of a bomb shelter by Secret Service agents yesterday when a suicide bomber attacked an American base in Afghanistan, killing as many as 21 people. The Taliban claimed that it was an assassination attempt on the US vice president.
Mr Cheney had spent the night at Bagram air base and breakfasted with American troops before the bomber detonated his explosives at a security checkpoint outside the camp, 40 miles north of the capital Kabul.
The bomber had mingled with Afghan labourers waiting to begin work inside the sprawling base. He detonated a device strapped to his body when challenged at the first of several checkpoints.
An American soldier and a South Korean colleague were among the dead. Mr Cheney escaped injury and the attack failed to disrupt his itinerary.
He later visited Kabul for talks with President Hamid Karzai about the expected Taliban spring offensive, before flying to the Middle East.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said: “We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base. The attacker was trying to reach Cheney.”
But US officials cast doubt on the claim that it was a pre-planned attack on the vice president, pointing out that Mr Cheney had made an unscheduled overnight stay at Bagram after bad weather prevented him travelling to Kabul on Monday evening.
Speaking en route to Oman, Mr Cheney said: “I heard a loud boom. The Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack. They moved me for a relatively brief period to one of the bomb shelters.” He said that the attackers were seeking to challenge the authority of the central government.
“Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that. It shouldn’t affect our behaviour.”
Crowds of anguished relatives collected the bodies of Afghan civilians, which were lined up in body bags for identification outside the main gate.
“My brother,” screamed one man over the corpse of one of the victims.
Another man helped to carry away the body of a man named Said, a 28-year-old driver from the west of Afghanistan, who was delivering supplies to the base.
Taliban commanders have boasted that they have several thousand volunteers ready to carry out suicide bombings. Such attacks were all but unknown in Afghanistan until two years ago. A total of 21 occurred in 2005, rising to 139 last year.
On Monday Mr Cheney met the Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, in Islamabad. It was reported yesterday that during the visit Gen Musharraf, who has long denied al-Qa’eda enjoys refuge in his country, was presented by the CIA with “evidence” from satellite photographs and electronic intercepts that the group was building up its strength on Pakistani soil.
Bolstered by the CIA evidence, Mr Cheney delivered a tough message to Gen Musharraf that the United States would not tolerate Pakistan becoming a safe haven for terrorists.[/quote]
telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh … ghan28.xml
Looks like Cheney nearly had it.
The part at the end is idiotic. The “border” between Afghanistan and Pakistan is completely illusory. The border crossings are a complete joke. The Pakistani guards are only nominally beholden to the Musharraf regime; their loyalties lie with the local tribal elders who make tidy profits in drug and gun smuggling. Pashtuns in that region do not consider themselves “Afghan Pashtuns” or “Pakistani Pashtuns”, just Pashtuns. They are divided neither by language, family, or custom. The Taliban and al-Qaida move freely back and forth over the so-called border, and Musharraf can do nothing about it without earning the rage of local tribal elders, which would only result in their further cooperation and collaboration with the Taliban and al-Qaida. It’s a complex situation in Pakistan, but I don’t believe Musharraf has any more desire to see a re-Talibanization of Afghanistan (and therefore parts of Pakistan) any more than we do. Cheney’s rhetoric demonstrates an ignorance of the realities of Pashtunistan (as the locals call it) and Musharraf’s tough predicament.
