Airmen from the international coalition in Afghanistan airlifted 18 Afghani victims of a January 6 bombing from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar to a U.S. medical facility at Bagram Air Base in northern Afghanistan for advanced life support care, according to a January 7 press release from the Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar.

More than four dozen Afghans were killed or injured when two improvised explosive devices detonated in Kandahar on the morning of January 6. Twelve of the 18 victims evacuated to Bagram were children.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ian Hendricks, director of the Theater Joint Patient Movement Requirements Center in Qatar said, "This should result in most of them returning to a relatively normal life."

January 7, 2004

Injured Afghani Children Airlifted by American Airmen
By Master Sgt. Jeff Bohn
U.S. Central Air Forces-Forward Public Affairs

COMBINED AIR OPERATIONS CENTER, Qatar - Eighteen Afghans were emergency airlifted to an American medical facility by two aircraft after two improvised explosive devices detonated and killed or injured more than four dozen Afghans in Kandahar shortly after 8 a.m. Kandahar time Tuesday (January 6).

Coalition forces used U.S. Air Force HC-130 aircraft on alert from Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, Uzbekistan, to rapidly transport the most severely injured from the medical facilities at the coalition air base at Kandahar to a field hospital in Bagram Air Base for advanced life support care. Twelve of the evacuees were children under the age of 18.

The life-saving flights were the result of rapid planning and coordination between Combined Joint Task Force-180 forces at Kandahar and Bagram and the Combined Air Operations Center located in Qatar. Putting air support and pararescue teams where they were needed most was a key to the operation's success, according to Air Force Lt. Col. John Nelson, Joint Search and Rescue Center director here.

"This was an outstanding example of interoperability among various divisions within the CAOC and the forces on the ground in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ian Hendricks, Theater Joint Patient Movement Requirements Center director here. "It resulted in a successful operation and led to getting the critically injured Afghan children to definitive medical care. This should result in most of them returning to a relatively normal life."

The CAOC is staffed by 800-plus airpower specialists from six coalition nations. Its mission is to provide coalition air support where and when it is needed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Horn of Africa region.