KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Canadian troops narrowly missed becoming the targets of a car bomb, a senior Afghan police official said Monday.
Gen. Abdul Qudus Omed, the chief of police for Police District 3, said a car bomb that exploded prematurely in a Kabul neighborhood last week, killing two Afghans who were assembling it, was to be used against a Canadian patrol.
The information, he said, came from a third bomb maker who survived the explosion and told police the trio were constructing one or more car bombs to attack "the slaves of the United Nations and the foreign invaders," the Ottawa Citizen reported.
More than 1,900 Canadian soldiers are in the final stages of deploying to Kabul this week in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force supporting the transitional Afghan government.
Wednesday's explosion tore through a middle-class residential area leaving twisted wreckage of two small cars strewn across the walled compound where the bomb was being built.
