Early Monday morning at the Kandahar airfield, the comrades of four dead Canadian soldiers will hold a ramp ceremony to send them home.

"It will be an opportunity for those on base to come out and have a final moment of thought for these four fallen soldiers, say their final goodbyes before the bodies are flown to Trenton," CTV's Sarah Galashan told Newsnet on Sunday from Kandahar.

The four are scheduled to return to the eastern Ontario air base of CFB Trenton on Tuesday.

The investigation into Saturday's deadly incident is ongoing, she said.

The soldiers were killed in the Gumbad region of Afghanistan, about 75 kilometres north of Kandahar.  They were part of a mixed convoy of light armoured vehicles and G-wagons returning to Kandahar from Gumbad, when their vehicle was struck by an powerful bomb, possibly buried in the road.

Three of the men died instantly. Medics loaded Cpl. Randy Payne onto a helicopter for transport to hospital but he died before he arrived.

The military had identified the three other men as Cpl. Matthew Dinning, Bombardier Myles Mansell and Lieut. William Turner.

Dinning was born in Richmond Hill, Ont., and was stationed in Petawawa; Mansell was born in Victoria B.C. where he was also stationed; and Turner was from Toronto but was stationed in Edmonton. Payne was born in Lahr, West Germany and was stationed at CFB Wainright.

A documentary filmmaker who had been traveling with soldiers stationed at the Gumbad platoon house captured footage from a nearby convoy when the blast occurred and the scramble that followed.

Richard Fitoussi felt the effects of the explosion while sitting inside a heavily-armoured military vehicle called a Bison about 15 metres from where the attack occurred.

"It shook the Bison. The oxygen and the air just kind of got sucked out, which led me to believe it was something big," he said.

The military has banned Fitoussi's footage of the debris at the moment, citing the ongoing investigation as the reason.

Fitoussi has been traveling with the soldiers stationed at the Gumbad platoon house -- which they called the Red Devil Inn -- for about a week. He said he came to think of the fallen soldiers as friends.

Fitoussi said he was amazed by the close-knit group and their openness to talk about their feelings during their mission.

Rocket attack

The Kandahar airfield came under attack from a single rocket or mortar just before lunch local time (or just about 3 a.m. EDT).

"It hit a warehouse of some kind. There was a fire; firefighters were sent to the scene," she said.

Military officials asked journalists not to shoot the warehouse to prevent anyone from determining the location of the damaged building, she said.

That followed two earlier rockets that hit the base in the early morning hours of Sunday.

The early attack was believed to come from two 107-mm rockets. No injuries or significant damage was reported.

"Shortly after 2 a.m., we heard two rapid explosions, we hit the ground, grabbed our flap jackets and our helmets and raced to a shelter as fast as we could, where we stayed for about 45 minutes until we were given the all-clear," Galashan said.

However, with the noon-hour attack, "no siren," she said.

Officials say the attacks are not disrupting operations, she said.

Other news

Taliban guerillas also attacked an Afghan-run construction company operating in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province, the same one in which the Canadian soldiers were killed.

The attack occurred Saturday night.

Tawazo Construction Company is building a road between Kandahar province and the adjoining one of Urguzgan. The U.S. government is funding the project.

One guard was killed and two others wounded. The insurgents also set 14 vehicles on fire.

Britain's defence secretary arrived in Kabul Sunday, saying his country's troops were taking part in a NATO-led peacekeeping mission, not the U.S.-led force hunting militants.

"We're in the south to help and protect the Afghan people to reconstruct their economy and democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three year's time without firing one shot,'' John Reid said.

Another official said British troops wouldn't be directly involved in fighting the huge drug trade.

About 3,300 British troops will be moving into Helmand province, which is adjacent to Kandahar province. Helmand is considered the primary opium production region of Afghanistan.

In Britain, questions have been asked about whether enough troops are being said, but Reid denied a British newspaper report he'd been asked for another 600 troops.

Britain will be taking command of the NATO mission next month.

The U.S. plans to cut back its troops in Afghanistan, from 19,000 to 16,500.

With a report from CTV's Sarah Galashan