The aftermath

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - The Global War on Terror claimed new casualties this week, though the victims were not Afghan civilians or U.S. military personnel. Two American civilians were killed and one wounded when their Google Street View Prius triggered an IED while driving the streets of southern Afghanistan.

With the much-publicized U.S. pullout from Afghanistan looming on the horizon, the State Department had urged American businesses and private investors to continue to support the fledgling democracy. Touting a decrease in violent attacks across the nation, the White House had encouraged U.S. mapping companies to update their Afghanistan databases, giving greater access and understanding about the third-world nation to the rest of the world.

Google was the first company to respond, sending a team to begin street level input in the major southern Afghan city of Kandahar, once called the heartland of the Taliban, and still home to over 40,000 U.S. and Coalition military personnel actively engaged in combat operations.