{"id":10048,"date":"2007-02-27T08:43:55","date_gmt":"2007-02-27T13:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10048.html"},"modified":"2007-02-27T08:43:55","modified_gmt":"2007-02-27T13:43:55","slug":"cheney-targeted-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/cheney-targeted-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheney targeted in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Vice President was unhurt but nevertheless targeted<\/a> by a Taliban suicide bomber.<\/p>\n

A suicide bomber killed at least 14 people and wounded about a dozen more outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, officials said.<\/p>\n

The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.<\/p>\n

Cheney’s spokeswoman said he was fine, and the U.S. Embassy said the vice president later met with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul before leaving the country.<\/p>\n

Talking to reporters later, Cheney said he heard “a loud boom” and was informed by Secret Service agents that there had been an explosion.<\/p>\n

He was moved briefly to a bomb shelter, he said, but returned to his room “as the situation settled down.”<\/p>\n

“I think [the Taliban] clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government,” he said. “Striking at the Bagram [base] with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that … It shouldn’t affect our behavior.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Taliban said Cheney was the target, but he apparently wasn’t in any danger. Maj. William Mitchell said the VP “wasn’t near the site of the explosion,” and was “safely within the base” when the bomb was detonated.<\/p>\n

There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said 20 people were killed, while NATO said initial reports indicated only three were killed, including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean coalition soldier and a U.S. government contractor whose nationality wasn’t immediately known. NATO said 27 were wounded.<\/p>\n

This was, apparently, no small blast.
\n<\/p>\n

Khan Shirin, a private security guard, sobbed near the dead body of his relative, Farvez, a truck driver and the representative of a transport association that hauls goods for the U.S. base. Shirin said many of the people killed were truck drivers waiting to get inside the base.<\/p>\n

Ajmall, a shopkeeper, said the “huge” blast shook a small market where he has a stall about 500 meters (yards) from the Bagram base. Ajmall, who goes by one name, said those wounded in the blast were taken inside the U.S. base for treatment.<\/p>\n

The explosion sent up a plume of smoke visible to reporters inside the base traveling with Cheney, and American military officials declared a “red alert” inside the base.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ironically, Cheney was in Afghanistant to meet with Karzai to discuss the surge in violence in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vice President was unhurt but nevertheless targeted by a Taliban suicide bomber. A suicide bomber killed at least 14 people and wounded about a dozen more outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}