Defence Chief: Soldier Killed In Afghan IED Attack

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston
Chief of Defence Force

RTF Soldier Killed In Roadside Bomb Attack

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming out so early this morning.

It's my sad duty to inform you of the death of an Australian soldier whilst on operations in Afghanistan.

The soldier, serving with the Reconstruction Task Force was tragically killed and another soldier wounded when a roadside bomb detonated next to their vehicle in Oruzgan Province yesterday morning, Afghanistan time.

These two men were part of a patrol returning from an engineer reconnaissance task and were six kilometres from their base at Tarin Kowt when the incident occurred.

The security element to which these two soldiers belonged was protecting engineers who undertake important reconstruction work in the province.

In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, other members of the patrol secured the scene and provided assistance to the crew of this stricken vehicle. Despite their best efforts, one soldier died as a result of the blast.

The wounded soldier was provided with immediate first aid and evacuated to a nearby international security assistant force medical facility by helicopter. His wounds were initially classified as serious but not life-threatening.

Since our report last night, I'm pleased to advise that he is likely to make a full recovery and return to work in the near future.

The armoured vehicle, an ASLAV, that the two soldiers were travelling in was immobilised by the roadside bomb strike, but has been recovered to Camp Holland.

This is a tragic day for the Australian Defence Force, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of these two soldiers.

Late last night, the families of the two soldiers were informed of this incident by the Australian Army. We continue to provide assistance to them. At the request of the family of the deceased soldier, I'm not prepared to release his name at this time, and I ask that you all respect the privacy of the family who are coping with a very difficult and emotional set of circumstances.

This incident is a tragic reminder of the dangers Australian Defence Force personnel face in serving our nation. The loss of this soldier is felt by all across the ADF family.

It highlights that Afghanistan remains a very dangerous place, and that Taliban extremists see international security assistant force efforts as a direct threat to their continued existence.

In placing improvised explosive devices on public roads, the Taliban seek to kill and maim people. They are opposed to any improvement in the quality of life of the Afghan population, and are threatened by Reconstruction Task Force projects.

Despite being deeply upset at the loss of their mate, soldiers from the RTF are determined that they will not be diverted by the Taliban from their important reconstruction work.

We're now working on arrangements to bring the body of the fallen soldier back to Australia. This will be by ADF or permanently chartered ADF aircraft, and his body will be under constant escort by ADF personnel. We will provide additional details on these arrangements as they are confirmed.

I'm now prepared to take questions.

QUESTION: [Indistinct] explain a little of the circumstances of the ASLAV, and particular, the deceased soldier's role and position in that that might shed some light on why he was more vulnerable within the vehicle than others?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: The deceased soldier was the driver of the vehicle and, clearly, he was in a situation at the front end of the vehicle.

QUESTION: In relation to detonation, was it a device that was triggered by the vehicle or is - the indications are that it was a device that was triggered by people who laid the ambush?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: It was an improvised explosive device and how it was triggered we've yet to confirm. But there was a bit of confusion last night that suggested it might have been a suicide bomber. That was an incident that had occurred a couple of days before and involved other coalition forces in the province.

QUESTION: Back to the ASLAV, does this raise the question as to whether Australia needs to upgrade the vehicles that are used in terms of armour, or to increase the armour on the existing vehicles, the ASLAVs and the Bushmasters?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: No, we have great confidence in the capability of the ASLAV, but it is a - it's not a heavily armoured vehicle. It is a light armoured vehicle and, you know, it does its job very well. And, as you know, we've had a number of other strikes against ASLAVs and a lot of lives have been saved as a consequence of being aboard those vehicles.

And I might add that some of these improvised explosive devices have been effective against armoured vehicles as - with as heavy armour as Abrams tanks. We've seen that in Iraq.

QUESTION: [Inaudible question]

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Look, we are - we're doing everything we can to counter the threat of the improvised explosive device threat. We set up the improvised explosive device counter IED task force back in February of 2006. They've done magnificent work on learning as much as we can about the threat that we face.

We've modified our tactics, techniques, procedures. We've exploited the technology that's available to give us the necessary counter technology against some of these threats. But the fact remains that it is a very lethal threat, and it's something that we work against all the time. Yeah.

QUESTION: There - one report suggested that children were actually in the vicinity of the explosion. Was that a confusion with the earlier incident or...

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: That - I believe that was a confusion with the earlier incident. There was a suicide bombing in the province a couple of days earlier and children were involved in that. To my knowledge, there were no children involved in this incident yesterday.

QUESTION: Right. Do you think that the explosive used was an explosively formed projectile designed for an armoured vehicle or was it a more conventional...

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: We're still, you know, analysing exactly what happened. As we - as more details are forthcoming, we'll keep you informed. But at this stage, we're still investigating the circumstances as to why this strike was successful against our vehicle.

QUESTION: Without giving the names away, have you got any more details on the dead soldier, his rank, his state, his age, and was there only two people travelling in the ASLAV at the time?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Look, I'm not prepared to go into any detail about the individual. Overnight we informed the family. The family asked one thing that their privacy be respected, and I respect that immensely, and I will protect them for the time being.

Clearly, in the fullness of time, you will get those details, but only when the family is ready to expose them to the public.

QUESTION: Defence makes a real study of the improvised explosive devices, and certainly in Iraq there is a concern that the more high-tech and threatening ones for armoured vehicles are coming in from neighbouring Iran. Without referring specifically to this incident, could you tell us a little bit about how high-tech the Taliban are in the sort of weapons they're deploying against our forces, and where they're coming from?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Well, I think when we first went in with the special operations task force, back in the middle of 2005, we didn't see too many improvised explosive devices in the province. But certainly this year we've seen a lot more. Indeed, over the last four months there have been 25 improvised explosive device attacks against the coalition. That hasn't been just against us. It's been against the Dutch and also our Afghan National Army and National Police friends. So what we've seen is an increase in the number of attacks in the province.

QUESTION: And an increase in sophistication?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Yes. An increase in sophistication. We're starting to see similar devices to those that are deployed in Iraq.

QUESTION: EFPs?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Yeah. We're seeing - we're starting to see EFPs.

QUESTION: Does that imply that the Iranian weapons the coalition believes are getting into the Iraq theatre, are also getting into the Afghan theatres?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: We believe that might be so.

QUESTION: So this weapon might, and I underline might, have come from Iran?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: I'm not prepared to speculate on where it might have originated from. We still need to do the exploitation on the incident site. And once we've done that, we'll have a much better idea of, you know, where the device may have come from, where it might have been constructed and so forth.

QUESTION: This area is six kilometres from Tarin Kowt. How often would that road have been travelled in recent times and what was known of its threat environment?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Well, we know that - we've known for a long time, given the number of attacks we've had over the last four months, 25 IED attacks in Oruzgan, and several of those have been in and around Tarin Kowt. So it's a threat that we have been living with; it's a threat we've been working against. Unfortunately, on this occasion, the - the adversary go through with a successful strike.

QUESTION: Given the increase in attacks over the last couple of months, and now this incident, I mean, how concerned are you about - how do you rank the security situation at the moment? Is it getting far worse or has it been stable and this is just, sort of, bad luck along - along the way? Or, you know, how do think - how do you assess it?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Well, I think if you - if you look at what I've said over the last 12 months or so, we have said consistently that the threat in Afghanistan is very high. And very high means we expect casualties. So we've had that set of circumstances for the last 12 months. And here we are, we've mitigated against that threat to the maximum extent possible, and unfortunately on this occasion we've missed out.

QUESTION: Senior…

COMPERE: One more question thanks.

QUESTION: [Indistinct] can expect to happen, more deaths of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: Look, we've said all the way along that, with a very high threat, casualties are likely. So, it's something we work against all the time; that's why we have the Counter IED Task Force, that's why we work so hard on our tactics, techniques, procedures, that's why we work so hard on modifying our vehicles, to ensure that we have the best technology available to counter these - these lethal weapons. But we do the best we can, but, yeah, we work in an extremely dangerous environment and casualties will occur from time to time.

QUESTION: [Indistinct] can I just one last one, is - there was a survey recently showing that one in two Australians actually don't support the deployment. Do you fear that in incident like this might erode public support further?

ACM ANGUS HOUSTON: No. I think we're - we've got a very clear mission in Afghanistan and certainly all of my people support that mission 100 per cent. And broadly, the Australian public support our troops. And I'm very happy with the level of support to our troops from the people of Australia.

Thank you very much.

ENDS

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