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Cable found after fatal attack on Spanish patrol in Afghanistan
By m.p. - Sep 25, 2007 - 12:21 AM
ALSO SEE : • Spanish legionairres return from Afghanistan - Jul 7, 2008 - 5:58 AM
• The man who murdered a Spanish journalist and three others has been executed in Afghanistan - Oct 8, 2007 - 10:30 PM

EFE Archive photo of Spanish soldiers on UN duties in Afghanistan.
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Investigators are seeing whether the explosion was set off from a distance
Army explosives experts investigating the attack on a Spanish patrol in Afghanistan on Monday have recovered a cable from the scene of the tragedy, which could have been used to set off the explosion at a distance.

Two soldiers with the Parachute Brigade died in the explosion near Shewan, to the northeast of Farah, on Monday morning.

An Iranian interpreter also died, and three soldiers were seriously injured, with another three less seriously so.

The two dead were named as Germán Pérez Burgos, from Badadjoz province, in Extremadura, and Stanley Mera Vera, originally from Guayaquil, in Ecuador.

The Spanish Defence Ministry said in a press release on Monday that the cable had been discovered leading from a wall adjacent to a cabin, extending for 70m to the site of the explosion.

There was no other evidence found at the scene, with indications that the cable may have been there for some time.

The latest official press release quoted by El Mundo newspaper on Monday almost definitively rules out any possibility of a remote explosion, with the added fact that the five vehicles in the convoy were equipped with frequency inhibitors.

The two soldiers who died will be awarded with the posthumous Military Merit Cross for service abroad.

The Afghani President, Hamid Karzai, passed on his condolences to the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and to the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, at United Nations headquarters on Monday.

The Minister of Defence, José Antonio Alonso, is to ask Congress today, Tuesday for 52 more Spanish soldiers to be sent to Afghanistan.


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ALSO SEE :
• Spanish legionairres return from Afghanistan - Jul 7, 2008 - 5:58 AM
• The man who murdered a Spanish journalist and three others has been executed in Afghanistan - Oct 8, 2007 - 10:30 PM
• Spanish royals preside over state funeral for two soldiers killed in Afghanistan - Sep 26, 2007 - 11:37 PM
• The funeral for the two Spaniards killed in Afghanistan this week takes place in Madrid today - Sep 26, 2007 - 7:58 AM
• Spain to increase UN Afghan deployment by 52 troops - Sep 25, 2007 - 10:51 PM
• Two Spanish soldiers killed in Afghanistan - Sep 24, 2007 - 12:48 PM
• Four Spanish soldiers injured in Afghanistan when ambulance overturns - Sep 13, 2007 - 12:35 PM
• Spain to sponsor a new unit to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan - Aug 12, 2007 - 4:27 PM
• A Spanish solidier has died in an accident in Afghanistan - May 27, 2007 - 10:11 PM
• Spain to send 14 officers to Afghanistan police mission - May 14, 2007 - 10:54 PM