The June 15 Taliban-orchestrated suicide bombing at a U.N. International Women's Day event in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan, that killed 11 Afghan children and one Dutch soldier was entirely preventable with well-established procedures. And even if the bombing itself weren't preventable, Private Timo Smeehuyzen's death perhaps was. The 20-year-old Amsterdam native -- the first of two Dutch fatalities in the five-day battle that began with the attack -- might have survived if the bombed patrol had asked for assistance, had followed U.S. and Australian ambush-reaction tactics or had been fully equipped with blast-proof trucks.
For six weeks before Women's Day, Dutch forces advertised their scheduled Tarin Kowt appearance in an effort to drum up local interest in the event. Taliban spies knew exactly when and where Dutch forces would make an appearance. And the Women's Day delegation -- traveling in a mix of heavily armored blastproof Bushmaster trucks and thin-skinned M-113 YPR765 (corrected per reader response) armored personnel carriers -- followed the same route into and out of the area and even idled in front of the event location for the duration of the festivities, oriented in their direction of travel, effectively announcing their intentions to local Taliban -- all in defiance of well-honed tactics employed by U.S. and other coalition forces. As the patrol departed, weaving single-file down a narrow street criss-crossed with blind alleys, one vehicle halted so that an occupant could pick berries from a low-hanging tree branch, causing the rest of the vehicles to pile up behind it with their flanks exposed to the alleys. That's when the suicide bomber struck, emerging from an alley in a green compact car and exploding alongside an M-113 YPR765.
The bomber had tailed the patrol for several minutes before attacking, as seen in video footage shot by a Dutch reporter in the delegation. It approached the patrol head-on, stopped, then pulled into an alley before reversing direction and attacking.
U.S. and Australian tactics call for ambushed patrols to speed to safety immediately. But in the aftermath of the June 15 blast, the
Dutch patrol remained halted in the ambush zone. This despite the fact that all of the vehicles were capable of traveling. Instead of rushing their injured to the hospital at Kamp Holland, five miles away, Dutch medics attempted to treat them in the ambush zone. Smeehuyzen, the most critically injured, died after an hour. During this period, Dutch commanders turned down offers to help from an Australian platoon, including a medic and several heavy trucks, that was just two blocks away guarding a reconstruction project and witnessed the explosion.
It's perhaps no accident that the bomber hit the least-protected vehicle in the patrol: he'd had plenty of time to select his target. The reporters, civil affairs specialists and information officers in the delegation rode in brand-new Bushmaster blastproof trucks (pictured) that boast v-shaped hulls for deflecting explosions. The "force protection" detail, by contrast, traveled in slab-sided, Vietnam-era M-113s YPR765s -- vehicles so vulnerable that many U.S.
units in Iraq and Afghanistan refuse to ride in them.
The fighting around Tarin Kowt in mid-June represented the first major combat in decades for the Dutch army. But before the battle,
Dutch officers assured the press that the army was highly trained, well-equipped and prepared for any contingency. The patrol's actions and inactions in the wake of the June 15 bombing seem to indicate otherwise.
"I wonder if this is what war is," said one of the delegation's soldiers while recalling the attack a week later. "Something we create ourselves ... "
UPDATE: Dutch army spokesman Major Eric Jonkers writes in with corrections:
MY RESPONSE: My article is based on eyewitness accounts and on my own observations in Tarin Kowt during and after the attack. I did mistake the
YPR for an M-113, but I stand by everything else in the story. Whether Timo died in 20 minutes or an hour is beside the point. U.S. and Australian tactics call for departing the ambush zone immediately. Dutch tactics apparently do not, and I believe the delay might have been a factor in
Timo's death.
Jonkers says that the patrol already had 10 people working on Timo, so an additional Aussie medic wouldn't have helped. I have talked to some of the people who helped Timo, and not all of them were medics, but regular soldiers who were doing what they could to save the injured soldier's life.
An additional medic would have been an improvement over some regular joe with a big heart and busy hands.
Jonkers says that the idling vehicle wasn't stopped so someone could pick berries, but that its antenna was caught. One of my sources says the antenna got caught after the vehicle stopped for the berries.
As for the vulnerability of the YPR: Bushmasters not only offer superior blast protection, they also put soldiers up higher over the road -- a disadvantage for clearing low-hanging wires and branches, but an advantage in attacks where the explosion occurs at street level.
But all of these are minor issues. The major issue is that the Dutch set themselves up for an ambush by advertising their presence in advance, telegraphing their route and exposing their flanks. Jonkers does not dispute any of these points.
As for "causing doubt" with Timo's relatives: I did not kill Timo. The
Taliban did. And to do so they exploited obvious gaps in Dutch tactics.
Timo's tragic death does not make the Dutch army immune to criticism. Quite the contrary.
-- Cross-posted at War Is Boring
