1 Bulgarian Ranger in Coma after Taliban Rocket Attack

Four Bulgarians have been injured in a Taliban rocket attack on the Kandahar Air Base. Photo by BGNES

One of the four Bulgarians injured during a Taliban rocket attack on the NATO base near Afganistan’s Kandahar Sunday night is in a coma.

This has been reported by the Trud Daily citing unofficial sources. The attack occurred at about 10 pm Eastern European Time Sunday.

A total of four Bulgarian rangers were injured, three of them suffered severe injuries. Th attacked happened as Bulgaria’s Defense Minister Nikolay Mladenov is on an official Afghanistan visit, and was visiting the 270-strong Bulgarian detachment stationed at Kandahar as part of the ISAF.

Mladenov is unhurt and it is still unclear whether the attack had anything to do with targeting him.

The rocket hit a building located some 200 m away from the sleeping quarters where Bulgarian’s Defense Minister was accommodated. It is still unclear how the Bulgarian rangers appeared to be on the spot and got injured as the Bulgarian quarters are some 500 m away from the site of explosion.

The three severely injured Bulgarians are in the American field hospital in Kandahar.

According to the Trud Daily, which cites an “excellently informed source”, there was a warning about the attack at around 10 pm Bulgarian time, there was a siren going off in the NATO base, and then the explosion from the rocket hit.

The 270 Bulgarian troops at Kandahar are part of the 500-strong Bulgarian contingent in Afghanistan. The Kandahar base is the major air force base in Southern Afghanistan, it has about 5 000 foreign troops, and its exterior is guarded by British detachments.

The air base is surrounded by mountains, and the Taliban insurgents often launch rocket attacks from there.

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