KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Two Canadian soldiers killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan Saturday are being remembered as mature professionals who died at the hands of “cowards.”
The two — Cpl. Francisco Gomez, 44, from Edmonton and Cpl. Jason Warren, 29, of Montreal — died when a car packed with explosives blew up beside their armoured vehicle.
“I did know both soldiers,” their commander, Col. Ian Hope, said Sunday.
“They were very professional. They were very mature.”
Eight other soldiers were injured in the attack, which happened about five kilometres west of Kandahar as a convoy of Canadians was returning to their base at the Kandahar Air Field.
Both of the slain soldiers would have wanted their families to understand how they died while trying to bring security to the vulnerable people of southern Afghanistan, Hope told a news conference at the Kandahar Air Field where Canadian troops are stationed.
“They would want their families, they would want their brothers and sisters in arms to hear what kind of operation unfolded that they were part of,” said Mr. Hope.
“The incremental successes that we've had. That's the context within which they would like their sacrifice to be remembered, I have no doubt.”
Mr. Gomez and Mr. Warren were in a Bison armoured vehicle at the back of a convoy of Canadians heading toward Kandahar when a car packed with explosives pulled up beside them and detonated.
The convoy was returning to base after two gruelling weeks in the field, in which the Canadians came in contact with Taliban fighters on dozens of occasions.
During sometimes intense battles over that period, nearly 100 Taliban insurgents were killed, the military estimated.
The soldiers who returned safely from the mission expressed mixed feelings about it Sunday, considering how their colleagues were killed.
“The two deaths are definitely bitter-sweet,” said Maj. Kirk Gallinger, the Officer Commanding of the First Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry's Alpha Company, also known as the Red Devils.
“But we feel good coming out of this operation.”
Mr. Gomez, who was driving the Bison, and Mr. Warren, were the 18th and 19th Canadian soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan since early 2002.
Their bodies were expected to be returned to Canada early Tuesday, following a ramp ceremony at Kandahar Air Field's runway strip.
That they were killed in a suicide attack has played on the minds of their fellow Canadian soldiers, Hope said.
“The soldiers who die on manoeuvre operations where we are taking offensive action against the enemy, we can rationalize that in our heads,” he said.
“Doesn't make it any better, but at least we understand it.”
“The IED (improvised explosive device) attack, from the soldiers' perspective, in their words, is cowardly.”
Just two weeks ago, near the beginning of the same coalition offensive operation that had wrapped up Saturday, another Canadian soldier was also killed.
Cpl. Anthony Joseph Boneca, 21, a reservist from the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment based in Thunder Bay, Ont., died in a firefight near the village of Pashmol west of Kandahar City.
“There's a difference in the reaction of the troops, psychologically,” to a combat offensive casualty compared with a suicide attack, Mr. Hope said.
U.S. military officials equated the slaying of the two Canadians to a “gross act against the people of Afghanistan.”
“We grieve for our lost Canadian soldiers who served so willingly,” said Maj.-Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76.
“They were superb teammates and we will always remember their selfless sacrifice. We are honoured to have served with them.”
There were conflicting reports Sunday of how many Afghan civilians were killed and injured in a second explosion, about 30 metres away from the first blast.
Afghan hospital said eight people were killed in the attack, and 29 injured. U.S. military authorities put the numbers at five dead and 32 wounded.
Some 2,200 Canadian troops are currently deployed in southern Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom. They are to come under NATO command by next week, as part of the alliance's expansion of the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, into the south.
Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, commander of Canada's forces in the Kandahar region, said Saturday's suicide attack would not deter the force from carrying out its mission.
“The death of those soldiers last night, and the wounding of the other soldiers, they are truly heroes for what they have done here,” Mr. Fraser said.
“Operations did not stop because of this. Operations continue.”
