Sgt. Jack Durnford of the Royal Canadian Dragoons prepares his team for a night patrol around Kabul, almost exactly 24 hours before a similar patrol was attacked yesterday with an improvised explosive device. 2005
An explosion that killed a 10-year-old boy, injured a farmer and shook up a convoy of Canadian soldiers has given the troops in southern Afghanistan some confidence in the armour plating on their vehicles.
Yesterday's blast scattered pieces of the suicide bomber's jeep hundreds of metres away, cut electrical lines and showered nomads in the desert nearby with a rain of shrapnel.
But only a few metres away from the blackened crater on Highway 4 outside of Kandahar, the Canadians' modified sport-utility vehicles were barely damaged. One of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons suffered a broken bumper, a smashed headlight and other scratches and dents.
A gunner in one of the vehicle's armoured turrets was slightly injured, and two other soldiers reported minor aches and pains.
The Canadian forces are slowly replacing a fleet of 20-year-old Iltis jeeps with the Mercedes G-Wagons and other vehicles.
Delivery of the G-Wagons was accelerated after outrage over the death of two Canadians killed by a land mine in 2003, as they drove around Kabul in an Iltis.
Concerns about the thin-skinned jeep grew even stronger last year, after a suicide attacker threw himself on the hood of another Iltis and killed Corporal Jamie Brendan Murphy.
"For a lot of us here, it's renewed our faith in the vehicle," said Warrant Officer Mike Gauley, commander of the reaction team sent to the blast site.
"It's a miracle it didn't suffer more damage."
In Ottawa, Defence Minister Bill Graham said "I'm very pleased to hear that three of our troops had minor injuries but they're fine. . . .
"As you know, we replaced the previous jeeps we had there with the G-Wagon which they were riding in. It's obviously served its purpose."
Some soldiers also expressed reservations about the G-Wagon. The five-cylinder diesel SUV was originally designed as a luxury vehicle, taking its proper name Gelaende-wagen from the German word for cross-country vehicle.
Troops deployed in the dusty heat of Afghanistan appreciate the fact that the G-Wagons have air conditioning, and the vehicles' small size has allowed Canadians to patrol sections of Kandahar's narrow streets that were inaccessible to U.S. Hummers.
But the Canadians grumbled about cracks that often appeared in the G-Wagons' floorboards, and some soldiers put Kevlar armoured blankets on their seats for added protection.
Several months ago, soldiers in Afghanistan recommended better shielding around the machine-gunner who peers out from a turret built into the G-Wagon's roof.
Engineers from the National Research Council took their advice, and designed armoured gun shields that were added to the vehicles.
Yesterday's blast tested those preparations. At about 10:15 a.m., local time, as a convoy drove from Kandahar's airport toward the headquarters of the Provincial Reconstruction Team inside the city, a Russian-made jeep slowly approached the Canadians.
It detonated with so much force that almost nothing remained of the jeep -- just a twisted engine block and pieces of its charred metal frame.
"It was a scrap heap," WO Gauley said.
"The parts were strewn across several hundred metres."
The suspected bomber was presumed dead. Local authorities also reported that a 10-year-old boy was killed as he rode in an empty trailer attached to a farm tractor, Captain François Giroux said.
The man driving the tractor, a farmer believed to be the boy's father, was seriously injured.
At the scene, WO Gauley saw the broken Massey Ferguson tractor and the homemade trailer.
"These folks were just headed to their fields, going to work for the day," he said.
Even more children could have been hurt, he added, because the blast happened only about 100 metres away from an orphanage.
"The reckless disregard for the lives of people who live here is just brutal," WO Gauley said.
A forensic team will now pick through the wreckage for clues. Capt. Giroux said it is too early to know whether the Canadians were targeted, or who was responsible.
The attack is part of an upsurge in violence across Afghanistan this year. More than 1,000 people have died, including 50 U.S. soldiers. Taliban insurgents have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks.
No Canadians have been killed so far this year, but politicians in Ottawa have been warning the public about the greater risk of casualties as Canada increases its presence in the dangerous southern city of Kandahar.
About 250 Canadian soldiers are deployed there now, but their numbers will grow to 1,500 by February.
Graeme Smith, The Globe and Mail's Moscow bureau chief, recently returned from two weeks
in Kandahar
The army's SUV
The Canadian military Gelaendenwagen, "G wagon" for short debuted in Afghanistan earlier this year. The army has ordered 802 of the Mercedes Benz vehicles some with armoured plates, to replace the aging and unarmored 20 iltis year old jeeps.
ILTIS JEEP
2.01 metres length; 1.52 metres width
Weight: 1.4 tonnes
Engine: 74 hp. 4cyl., gasoline
Ground clearance: 25 cm
G-WAGON
2.85 metres length, 1.81 metres width
Weight: 2 tonnes
Engine: 156 hp. 5cyl., turbocharged diesel
Ground clearance: 43.9 cm
Source: Canadian National Defence; Mercedes Benz