A hero Royal Marine saved 130 soldiers from certain death when he rugby tackled a suicide attacker before he could detonate a huge motorcycle bomb.The 40-year-old Marine saw the Afghan insurgent reaching for a yellow detonator button on the bike and leapt into action to drag him away.
He foiled a cunningly planned attack in which the same motorcycle had been checked by the same troops just hours earlier when its panniers had been packed with potatoes instead of explosives.
The suicide bomb contained 70 kilograms of explosives and was so huge it would have destroyed everything within 180 metres and left a huge crater.
The 20-year-old Taliban fighter had driven it into the middle of a group of 130 Marines and Afghan Army soldiers.
He tried to set off the first of the two bombs but it failed to go off and the Marine was
alerted by the distinctive pop of the detonator.
He spotted wires running from the bulging saddlebags to another yellow button on the petrol tank and he hauled the bomber off the bike as he reached to press it.
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