BENGHAZI 2:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/11/state-department-denies-coverup-diplomat-killedState Department denies cover-up over diplomat killed in Afghanistan
Anne Smedinghoff was killed walking to a media event, not in an armoured vehicle, but US denies misleading reporters
A US diplomat killed by a suicide bomber in southern Afghanistan was walking to a media event at a nearby high school when the attacker struck, and not travelling in a vehicle convoy as the State Department originally said.
Anne Smedinghoff died on Saturday, along with three soldiers and one other US civilian in Qalat, the small capital of Zabul province. It was the first time a State Department diplomat has been killed in Afghanistan since the 1970s.
At the time of the attack, Smedinghoff was returning from an abortive effort to escort Afghan journalists to a high school barely 50 metres from the gate of the US base in town, a survivor said. The provincial governor was attending a book handover at the school, and the group were planning to report on the ceremony.
The governor's convoy of armoured SUVs passed by as the journalists, soldiers and diplomats were nearly back inside the base and it was then that the suicide bomber detonated his explosives, Afghan journalist Ahmed Zia Abed told McClatchy newspapers.
The Taliban, who claimed the attack, said the bomber had been waiting for either the governor's vehicles or a US military convoy to pass by.
Abed, who was wounded by the blast, told the paper that the diplomats and journalists had got lost. However, the extremely close proximity of the school to the military base makes that seem unlikely, particularly as the group were escorted by US soldiers stationed in Zabul, who would have known the area and mapped out even the shortest movement in advance.
The US embassy in Kabul referred all questions about the attack to the State Department in Washington DC, which confirmed that the group were travelling on foot.
Statements made immediately after the bombing suggested that a car full of explosives had rammed into some kind of armoured vehicle carrying Smedinghoff, pictured, and others. Secretary of state John Kerry, who paid moving and personal tribute to the young diplomat, described the attacker as someone who "drives into their [the diplomats'] vehicle".
The State Department, still smarting from accusations that it had tried to distort information about an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in 2012, denied that it had intentionally misled reporters about what happened in Qalat.
The US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans died in the Benghazi violence. For months after there was a heavy stream of mostly partisan attacks against the White House and the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who were accused of attempting to cover up al-Qaida involvement in what was described as a terrorist attack.
Patrick Ventrell, the acting deputy press spokesman, said that early reports on Afghan TV and websites about the Zabul attack may have misled diplomats in other Afghan cities who were trying to pin down details of what happened form a distance.
"I think part of the initial confusion came about because there were reports in the media about the local governor and his convoy," he said. "Some of our initial reporting also indicated that, and that's why we weren't able to clarify right away. So our initial read on it was different, and we're now able to say that it was a convoy and they were walking."
The group were all "wearing personal protection gear and under escort of US soldiers", he added. Three of those soldiers died in the attack, along with a US Department of Defense civilian employee who has not been named, and an Afghan nurse who was also in the area.
Afghanistan Qalat school Afghanistan Qalat school. Photograph: Guardian
Four other State Department employees were wounded, including another media official Kelly Hunt, who was seriously injured and has been evacuated to Germany where she is in a medically-induced coma, according to a news website from her home state.
The State Department is reviewing security procedures, Ventrell said. Most diplomats and soldiers use armoured SUVs or even more heavily protected military MRAPs – mine resistant ambush protected vehicles – for most journeys around Afghanistan.
But it is not uncommon for groups of Nato soldiers and civilians to walk short distances near bases where security is considered relatively good, particularly when there are checkpoints on access roads and US spy blimps that can survey the area around the clock.
Zabul province neighbours Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace. Sparsely populated, it has seen regular insurgent attacks but is usually considered less dangerous than other southern provinces.
