Canadian soldiers travelling down Highway One in southern Afghanistan, west of Kandahar city, know they're moving targets.

Whether it's an ambush, a roadside bomb, or a suicide attack, the troops are trained to expect and deal with it all.

But Tuesday, several Canadians on a convoy headed towards Kandahar Airfield told CTV's Steve Chao they had an especially bad feeling about this stretch of highway, nicknamed Ambush Alley.

They noticed a suspicious vehicle on the left side of the road as they were making their way back from one of Canada's forward operating bases.

Seconds later, a bomber sitting inside the van detonated his load. The force of the explosion damaged two convoy resupply trucks and a Nyala RG 31 armoured vehicle.

Two Canadian soldiers suffered cuts and bruises in the blast; two civilians are believed to have been killed, and six others were taken to Kandahar hospital -- two of them in critical condition.

Chao and CTV cameraman Tom Michalak, who were travelling in the convoy along with the troops, were just two vehicles back from one of the trucks that was hit. The blast sent pieces of shrapnel flying through the hatch of the vehicle Chao and Michalak were riding in.

Footage shot by Michalak shows an explosion through the vehicle's upper windshield.

"I could actually feel the concussion in the vehicle that I was in. All of a sudden we saw this huge plume of smoke," Chao said. "We heard over the intercom that a vehicle had been hit by a suicide bomber."

The soldiers reacted instantly, the rear gunner ordering everyone off the road while others took up defensive positions and scanned for other suicide bombers who may have been lurking in the area. Explosives experts found unexploded grenades on the bomber's body, carefully removing and later detonating them.

Meanwhile, the bomber's body smouldered as pieces of shrapnel and shattered glass littered the area. The military transport truck closest to the blast was disabled, its 90-kilogram blast shield inside the truck blown apart in the force of the blast.

The two soldiers who received minor injuries in the attack told Chao they were very lucky, and very happy, to be alive.

While the attack was the first Chao said he had directly experienced, he said many of the soldiers have lived through at least five similar incidents in the last few months, and they were "extremely calm" throughout the ordeal.

For others, it was their first experience with a suicide attack.

Cpl. Robert Chafe of St. John's, N.L., had driven a supply truck on the route 30 times before and never seen anything other than small-arms fire.

"I'd seen it go. I'd seen the little orange glow and then the windshield hit me in the face," Chafe told The Canadian Press.

"It landed right on top of me. The glass on the outside blew right out," said Chafe, who suffered a cut on the side of his mouth and on the little finger of his left hand.

Master Cpl. Greg Keeping was hurt in the leg when the blast shield blew in.

"I reached down to make sure my leg was still there,'' he said."But I think the blast shield saved my life.''

There have been more than 100 suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year. Two Canadian soldiers died last Monday after an attack on the same stretch of road. Cpl. Albert Storm and Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard of the Royal Canadian Regiment's 1 Battalion were killed when a bomber attacked their Bison armoured personnel carrier.

They were the 43rd and 44th Canadian soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan since 2002.

With reports from CTV's Steve Chao in Kandahar and The Canadian Press