'Loud boom' from blast - Cheney
27/02/2007 14:57  - (SA)  

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Kabul - US vice-president Dick Cheney said the suicide bombing on Tuesday at the US air base he was visiting in Afghanistan made a "loud boom" and drove him briefly into a bomb shelter.

But Cheney said it was "never an option" to scrap plans to go on to the Afghan capital Kabul, where he later held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Security fears during his trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan led Cheney to exchange his Air Force Two suite for a high-tech trailer chained to the floor of a cavernous military plane.

Strict ground rules were issued to the few travelling media to ensure no details of his schedule leaked out ahead of his arrival, and Cheney himself barely spoke in public.

Then the suicide bomber struck at the US military air base in Bagram outside Kabul.

At least 14 people, including three foreigners, were killed in the attack, highlighting Afghanistan's chronic instability and throwing into sharp focus the security measures that surrounded Cheney's entire trip.

The vice-president was not harmed in the blast inside a security gate, and many inside the sprawling air base did not even hear the explosion.

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