Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan during routine convoy - Toronto Star

OTTAWA—A training mission described as "relatively safe" by the Conservative government and the military saw its first casualty Saturday with the death of a Canadian soldier in a Taliban suicide car bombing along a busy thoroughfare in Kabul.

The name, age and hometown of the soldier have yet to be released, but a military spokesman said the family has been notified and was being given time to absorb the news.

The death is the first since Canadian combat operations in Kandahar ended earlier this year and the new Afghan army training mission involving 920 soldiers began.

The soldier was taking a routine trip between between training and headquarters bases in the Afghan capital when a car packed with explosives rammed into a heavily armoured NATO bus — known as a Rhino. It was escorted by two heavily armed patrol vehicles at the time.

A total of 13 NATO troops were killed, including the unidentified Canadian. Four Afghans also died, while a number of others were injured, including some civilian contractors.

According to reports from the scene, the explosion happened as the convoy passed the American University in Kabul. The blast sparked a fireball that littered the street with shrapnel and heavy black smoke.

When it announced almost a year ago that Canada would undertake a training mission until 2014, the Harper government insisted that troops would be safe because instruction would take place behind the wire of fortified bases.

But Kabul has become an increasing focus for spectacular Taliban attacks, including a 20 hour shoot-out near NATO's main headquarters and the U.S. embassy last month — a gunfight that involved Canadian troops who'd just arrived at Camp Eggers in a convoy.

"Afghanistan is a dangerous place," said Lt.-Col. Christian LeMay, a spokesman for Canada's Ottawa-based overseas headquarters. "Precautions have to be taken and in this case precautions were taken. It was a bad attack."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, as well as for another suicide bombing outside a government intelligence office in the northwest province of Kunar.

It was the deadliest single attack against the U.S.-led coalition since the Taliban shot down a NATO helicopter on Aug. 6 in an eastern Afghan province, killing 30 U.S. troops, most of them elite Navy SEALs, and eight Afghans.

The Kabul attack occurred near the landmark Darulaman Palace, the bombed-out seat of former Afghan kings.

Canadians, along with soldiers from several other countries, are training Afghan army trainers at a base near the palace.

Buses, which shuttle thousands of troops around the embattled capital have long been tempting targets going right back to the beginning of the war.

Four German soldiers were killed and 31 injured when a suicide bomber in a taxi rammed their unarmoured bus in June 2003. The troops had been scheduled to leave Kabul on that day after a six-month deployment.

A year later, Cpl. Jamie Murphy, of the 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, was killed when a bomber threw himself on the hood of a jeep near the site of Saturday's bombing.

And in April 2010, Col. Geoff Parker, the highest ranking Canadian to die in Afghanistan, was killed along with five Americans by a suicide bomber in Kabul.