[An Nahar] An Afghan drove a stolen vehicle onto the runway ramp at a military base in southern Afghanistan Wednesday just as U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
flew in for a visit, NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
and U.S. officials said.
"At no point was the secretary or anyone on the aircraft in any danger from this incident," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement, adding that "the alleged perpetrator" had been jugged.
Around the time Panetta's plane was landing, an Afghan drove the stolen vehicle onto a runway ramp and crashed into a ditch before emerging from the vehicle "ablaze", Panetta's front man George Little told news hounds in Kabul.
"He did end up on the runway ramp and ended up in a ditch," Little said. "Our personnel discovered he was ablaze."
The flames were extinguished and the Afghan was being treated for serious burn injuries, he said.
As coalition forces gave chase, the vehicle had struck and injured an ISAF service member, Little said.
It was not clear whether the incident at Camp Bastion was connected to Panetta's visit, he said.
A Pentagon front man in Washington said a small pick-up truck was driven at high speed "across the ramp near where (Panetta) was to pull up."
"No explosive was found on the individual or in the vehicle and no weapons," he said.
"I have no indication right now that leads to prove this was an intentional attack," he said.
Panetta flew to Afghanistan just days after a U.S. soldier rubbed out 16 villagers -- most of them women and kiddies -- in southern Kandahar province in the worst single such incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
He held talks with provincial leaders and also addressed U.S., NATO and Afghan troops at Camp Leatherneck adjoining Britannia's Camp Bastion, before flying to Kabul where he is due to meet Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
Thursday.