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| Afghanistan |
| More on the Kabul boom boy... |
| 2002-07-30 |
| A bomber who was captured in a car packed with a half-ton of explosives was just 300 yards from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul when he was stopped by a chance traffic accident. Foreign intelligence information indicated the alleged bomber, who was captured Monday after a car chase through Kabul, is a foreigner and a member of al-Qaeda, said Amonullah Barakzai, deputy director of the Afghan intelligence service. "He was on a suicide mission," Barakzai said, adding that Afghan authorities were not sure whether his target was the embassy, other foreign installations, or the Afghan leadership, including President Hamid Karzai, whose palace offices are little more than a half-mile from the accident scene. Just pick a place and explode... An Interior Ministry spokesman said late Monday that a second unidentified man also had been arrested in the case. But the intelligence official reported only the single arrest and said investigators had not determined the man's identity or nationality. "Unfortunately for the past 24 hours we have not been able to make him speak," he said. They're not hitting him hard enough... A government television report Monday night on the arrest was accompanied by video of the man's Toyota Corolla, whose door panels were exposed to show yellow blocks of what the intelligence service statement said was explosives. The report also showed a photo of the suspect, a heavily bearded young man in a waistcoat and open shirt. His dress and appearance seemed Afghan or Pakistani, but the government statement read by the station said he was a foreigner and the plan was developed abroad. Dressing up to blend in with the natives... When the fugitive had to stop at a crowded road checkpoint a half-mile away, the officers rushed the car. They became suspicious of the car doors, which were very heavy. Dismantling them, they found "500 or 600 kilograms" — 1,100 to 1,300 pounds — of TNT and C-4 explosives, rigged with an electrical detonating system, the intelligence official said. Afghan authorities had been tipped by information from the International Security Assistance Force and "other organizations" that a foreigner with explosives would be entering Kabul, Barakzai said, and so had deployed special mobile patrols and set up checkpoints. Eventually they'll get through and blow something up. Maybe then Binny will step forward and take credit. But the Kabul Kopper Korps and the intel system seems to be on top of things for now. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |