Troops in Kabul ‘lucky’ to avoid casualties from massive truck-bomb

HAD it happened on any other morning, Australia would have spent yesterday counting potential combat casualties in ­Afghanistan.

Julie Bishop visits Australian troops in Kabul. Picture, Justin McManus

HAD it happened on any other morning, Australia would have spent yesterday again counting potential combat casualties in ­Afghanistan.

Less than 24 hours before Foreign Minister Julie Bishop secretly flew into the capital, Kabul, to spend Australia Day with the 409 Australian troops including special forces still based here, a massive roadside truck bomb sent shrapnel flying into the base.

The IED had been planted along a route that Australian commandos routinely use for ­jogging and just 300m from the main base housing Australian troops. “It was lucky it was a down day,” said one Australian commando who was woken by the blast at 5.50am on Sunday as his window blew through the room.

“There weren’t many on base. We were all sleeping in.”

Had it been another day, he said, many soldiers could have been killed or injured.

The explosion, with a blast ­radius of 500m, sent shrapnel into Camp Grant where Australia’s Joint Task Force 636 is based.

Ms Bishop flew into Kabul early yesterday on a RAAF C-17, having flown from the US where she had received briefings on the volatile situation in Afghanistan.

She met Afghanistan’s President, Ashraf Ghani, and senior government officials to discuss the security situation and economic aid under what has become the world’s largest intervention.