Commander in Afghanistan: roadside bomb attack no cause for new measures

No injuries among 11 Finnish peacekeepers

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A group of Finnish peacekeeping soldiers found themselves in a dangerous situation in North Afghanistan on Tuesday again. A convoy of four peacekeepers' vehicles was arriving from Aybak to the main camp in Mazar-i-Sharif when a roadside bomb went off a few kilometres from the destination.
      Targeted in the attack were 11 Finnish peacekeepers and a local interpreter. There were no injuries, and the convoy proceeded to Mazar-i-Sharif without stopping.
      "At the camp we noted that there were small shrapnel marks in front of the car that was nearest to the explosion", says Juha Vauhkonen, commander of the Finnish crisis management force in Afghanistan.
      Vauhkonen says that the attack will not lead to any changes in procedure.
      "There are no roads that would not be dangerous around here. We will continue to observe the same advice as before", Vauhkonen said on Tuesday evening.
     
Just a week ago Finnish troops were targeted in a roadside bombing northwest of Kabul near the city of Poli Khumr. the group of six military observers escaped injury in that attack. In May a Finnish peacekeeper was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
      Commander Vauhkonen insists that Finnish peacekeepers are not being specifically targeted.
      "This is a game of coincidence. As a whole the situation in the area is quite peaceful, but as this case showed, it is in no way stable."
     
Local police are trying to determine the perpetrators of the attack, in which two 76-mm artillery shells were used to make the bomb.
      "The explosion was not perfect: it was a so-called deflagration, in which pressure rises rapidly inside the shell as the result of an intense fire. The pressure causes the casing to break in an explosive manner", Vauhkonen explains.
      "The most common way to build roadside bombs is to use artillery or mortar shells, because they can be easily found on the ground unexploded", says Lieutenant-Colonel Pertti Pulliainen of the International Centre of the Defence Forces, who returned from Afghanistan a month ago.
      "The percussion cap, which detonates the shell, is replaced by an electric fuse, for instance, that can be detonated by remote control. There are many methods", Pulliainen explains.
      There are a total of about 100 Finnish soldiers taking part in the NATO-led ISAF operation in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish vehicle damaged in explosion in Afghanistan (12.9.2007)
  Kaskeala: no increase needed in Finnish force in Afghanistan for at least a year (16.8.2007)
  Peacekeeper wounded in Afghanistan may have been shot by other Finns (13.10.2006)
  Finnish peacekeeper injured in firefight in Afghanistan (2.10.2006)
  Finnish peacekeepers caught in firefight in Afghanistan (13.9.2006)
  Finnish forces in Afghanistan face vicious opponents (21.4.2007)
  Finnish peacekeeper killed in Afghanistan (23.5.2007)
  Failed bomb attack on Finnish base in Afghanistan (16.1.2007)

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