Cellphone triggered bomb attack on NZ troops

Cellphone triggered bomb attack on NZ troops
7:32AM Tuesday April 08, 2008

As a fresh contingent of New Zealand defence force personnel flies to Afghanistan, more details have been released about the roadside bomb which damaged an army ute in Bamian province last week.

A deployment of 124 flies out of Ohakea Air Force Base tomorrow to begin a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. They will join 22 other personnel who left New Zealand last weekend, bringing the total number in Afghanistan to 146.

Four New Zealand soldiers serving in Afghanistan were fortunate to escape without injury last week when a roadside device exploded next to their patrol vehicle.

A four-vehicle New Zealand Defence Force patrol from the provincial reconstruction team was travelling to a village near the border of the Baghlan province with a doctor to set up a mobile medical clinic.

An improvised explosive device went off beside one of the unamoured vehicles, damaging the front and smashing the windscreen, but no shrapnel reached the four occupants.

It made a crater 70cm across and 30cm deep.

Commander Joint Forces New Zealand Major General Rhys Jones said that the bomb was set off by cellphone, probably by someone who was watching the convoy.

He said it was probably an old artillery shell or bomblet rigged up to a detonating device.

Whoever set it off was probably within a couple of kilometres of the patrol, but Maj Gen Jones said he was uncertain whether the New Zealanders were deliberately targeted.

The deployment of extra troops to Afghanistan was designed to lift security levels and enable New Zealand to maintain a quick-reaction force to deal with any threat, he said.

- NZPA

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