Injured Afghan Children Airlifted

Eighteen Afghans were carried on an emergency airlift mission to an American medical facility after two improvised explosive devices detonated on 6 January. More than forty-five Afghans were killed or injured in the explosions. Coalition forces used US Air Force HC-130 aircraft on alert from Karshi-Khanabad AB, 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 AB for advanced life-support care. Twelve of the evacuees were children. The lifesaving flights were the result of coordination between Combined Joint Task Force-180 forces at Kandahar and Bagram, and the Combined Air Operations Center in Kuwait.