US-led soldiers and civilian contractors sit in a shelter during a ground and rocket attack at Kandahar military base on May 22, 2010. Gunmen have attacked the main military base for US-led forces in southern Afghanistan as anti-US sentiment in the war-weary nation reaches new heights.
On Saturday evening, five rockets were fired into the NATO base in the southern province of Kandahar, pushing all personnel into security lock-down and leaving a number of soldiers injured.
Fired before 9:00 p.m. (1630 GMT), the rockets hit near a shopping strip while one landed near a helicopter landing zone, AFP quoted Afghan contractors at the base as saying.
A spokesman for the US-led troops said the gunmen also made an attempt to break into the base on the north side, where they faced strong return fire.
The attack inflicted injuries on a number of foreign military personnel and civilian workers, but there are no confirmed fatalities, he added.
Earlier in the day, three US-led foreign soldiers and a civilian contractor were killed in southern Afghanistan, where a third soldier died in a powerful roadside bomb blast, NATO said in a statement.
Attacks on the 130,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan have been on the rise ahead of Washington’s planned deployment of 30,000 extra soldiers.
Earlier this month, the Taliban announced a new nationwide campaign of attacks in Afghanistan, targeting diplomats, Afghan parliamentarians, and foreign contractors as well as foreign forces.
At least 215 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2010.
Source: Press TV