NATO: Intelligence suggested bomb threat (Afghanistan)

KABUL, Afghanistan - Intelligence reports indicated Taliban militants had the ability to set off suicide attacks in the Bagram area even before a bombing that killed 23 people during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, a NATO spokesman said Wednesday.

Militants have suicide bomb cells in Kabul, just 30 miles south of the large U.S. military base at Bagram, said Col. Tom Collins, the top spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

"We know for a fact that there has been recent intelligence to suggest that there was the threat of a bombing in the Bagram area," Collins said. "It's clear that there are suicide bomber cells operating in this country. There are some in the city of Kabul."

Tuesday's bombing killed about 20 Afghan civilians, a U.S. soldier, a U.S. contractor and a South Korean soldier outside Bagram while Cheney was meeting with officials inside the base, an attack the Taliban claimed was aimed at Cheney but which officials said posed no real threat to the vice president.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_as/afghan_explosion

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The guerrillas, according to NATO officials, have the flexibility to organize an attack quickly and may have been able to plan a bombing at the base while Cheney was there after hearing news reports on Monday that he was delayed by bad weather. The Taliban have attacked in the area north of the capital in the past even though people living in the Bagram area have not been supportive of the guerrillas. Col. Tom Collins, the top spokesman for the NATO force, said the Taliban had a cell in Kabul that could have traveled the 30 miles north to Bagram.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_as/afghan_explosion_29