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Cheney unhurt in Afghan blast

A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main US military base in Afghanistan yesterday during a visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20 more. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.

Cheney told reporters he heard "a loud boom" and that the Secret Service informed him of the attack and that officials moved him to a bomb shelter on Bagram.

"As the situation settled down and they had a better sense of what was going on, I went back to my room," Cheney said.

Asked if the Taliban were trying to send a message with the attack, Cheney said that fighters "clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government."

"Striking at the Bagram [base] with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that," he said. "It shouldn't affect our behavior."

The vice president met with President Hamid Karzai in the capital, Kabul, about two hours after the bombing before leaving the country.

There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Karzai's office said 23 people were killed, including 20 Afghan workers at the base. Twenty people were injured, it said.

A statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force said initial indications were that three people were killed including a US soldier, an American contractor and a South Korean soldier.

AP reporters at the scene saw the bodies of at least 12 people carried in black body bags and wooden coffins from the base entrance into a market area where hundreds of Afghans had gathered to mourn.

Friends and relatives cried and moaned as they carried or drove the bodies away from the base. Two men came to the base entrance crying and wringing their hands, one screaming: "My brother!"

Major William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to Cheney.

"He wasn't near the site of the explosion," Mitchell said. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion."

But a purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack, which Ahmadi said was carried out by an Afghan called Mullah Abdul Rahim from Logar province.

"We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base," Ahmadi told AP by telephone from an undisclosed location. "The attacker was trying to reach Cheney."

Mitchell noted that Cheney's overnight stay occurred only after a meeting with Karzai on Monday was canceled because of bad weather.

"I think it's a far-fetched allegation," he said, referring to the Taliban claim. "The vice president wasn't even supposed to be here overnight, so this would have been a surprise to everybody."

The explosion happened near the first of at least three gated checkpoints vehicles must pass before gaining access to Bagram.

Cheney left the base about two hours after the 10am blast. The explosion sent up a plume of smoke visible by reporters inside the base traveling with Cheney, and US military officials declared a "red alert" inside the base.

Cheney later flew to Kabul to meet Karzai after a meeting on Monday was canceled because of bad weather that prevented Cheney making the trip to the capital.
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