A vacation in Afghanistan turns to disaster when a rocket strikes, wounding 7
A minibus carrying foreign tourists, including three Americans, was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in western Afghanistan on Thursday, wounding six tourists and their Afghan driver, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
A grenade struck the bus on a road about 90 miles outside the western city of Herat, in the Chesht-e-Sharif district. The 12 foreigners were able to leap from the vehicle to safety, said Jelani Farhad, spokesman for the Herat governor’s office.
Six sustained injuries, along with the driver of the vehicle, and were evacuated by Afghan soldiers to a nearby district where they were awaiting a flight to Herat, Farhad said
“They have been taken to a safe place now,” he said.
Afghanistan, in the grip of a 15-year conflict, is not exactly a tourist haven. But a few hardy bands of adventure travelers every year ignore the threat of conflict and the security warnings issued by foreign embassies to visit the country’s pristine mountains and medieval Islamic architecture.
The tourists included six Britons, three Americans, two Scots and a German, according to Afghan officials. Wearing Afghan traditional clothing, they were on the road from Bamiyan, a relatively safe and ruggedly beautiful province, through the vast western province of Ghor, where police asked them to divide into two vehicles for safety.
The group insisted on traveling in one bus and declined an army or police escort, officials said.
Officials said the bus was chartered by Hinterland Travel, a British company that operates tours to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The group’s website advertises a three-week tour of central and southern Afghanistan for about $4,200 that takes travelers from Bamiyan through Ghor to stop at the Minaret of Jam, a 200-foot jewel of Islamic architecture built in the 12th century and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“To travel from the Bamiyan Valley to The Minaret of Jam via Chakcharan to the medieval Islamic glories of Herat is to be transported back in time itself,” the website says.
Calls to the company’s office and a listed cell phone number were not immediately returned.
Afghanistan’s deputy tourism minister, Zardasht Shams, said authorities had not been informed of the trip. The ministry would have ensured that security forces escorted the travelers if they had been alerted ahead of time, he said.
“We wouldn’t have allowed them to drive” in that area, Shams said. “There are many threats.”
Faizy is a special correspondent. Staff writer Bengali reported from Mumbai, India.
Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia
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