Suicide bomber shot as he tries to enter army recruitment centre, roadside bomb

• published: 21 Jul 2015
• views: 1

1. Wide of police and soldiers standing near the site of the suicide bomb attack 2. Wide of Afghan soldiers on trucks being driven into army recruitment centre 3. Afghan soldiers and police standing at the scene of attack 4. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Abdullah Khan, Afghan soldier: "This suicide bomber wanted to come close to us, but we gave him the signal not to. He did not stop. Our soldiers stopped him and shot him. Wounded, he detonated his bomb. He died, no-one else was hurt." 5. Soldiers standing at the scene, with blast marks on the road in background 6. Wide of the army recruitment centre 7. Helicopter flying overhead 8. Afghan soldiers and police standing at site where NATO convoy attacked with roadside bomb 9. Police looking at damage caused by the roadside bomb STORYLINE: Afghan troops shot a suicide bomber on Tuesday, after he tried to enter an Afghan army recruitment centre in Helmand province, police said. Troops standing guard opened fire on the bomber, who had explosives hidden beneath his clothes, after he tried to enter the recruitment centre in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and failed to heed their warnings to stop. Wounded, the bomber detonated the explosives, but was too far away to harm anyone seriously, according to the province's deputy police chief. "This suicide bomber wanted to come close to us, but we gave him the signal not to. He did not stop. Our soldiers stopped him and shot him. Wounded, he detonated his bomb. He died, no-one else was hurt," said one eyewitness. In what police said was a related attack, a roadside bomb went off just after a convoy of NATO vehicles had passed in the town, wounding two Afghan civilians, police said. No NATO vehicles were damaged in the explosion. NATO-led troops last week launched their largest offensive yet in the northern part of Helmand, a stronghold for Taliban insurgents who have stepped up attacks over the past year and are threatening a fresh offensive this spring. Helmand is the world's biggest producer of opium, and a new United Nations drug assessment indicates that this year's poppy harvest could be higher than last year's record output. The UN says Taliban fighters protect poppy farmers and tax the crop, deriving much-needed income for their insurgency. The government has stepped up its poppy eradication efforts this year, angering some farmers and others who profit from the narcotics. In other violence, a suicide bomber detonated his bomb, in the town of Waish, about 500 meters (yards) inside Afghanistan's Kandahar province, killing three civilians and wounding eight others, police said. Tuesday's violence also follows a roadside attack in Bakwa district of neighbouring Farah province on Monday that killed nine policemen, including a local commander. The district briefly fell out of government control last month, but security forces have since moved back in. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/d0161e1e0ba2fc71ad0b95d2be5de4b2 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork