Up to 30 Taliban fighters, including suicide bombers, have attacked two US bases in Afghanistan’s east. At least 13 Taliban fighters were killed and several Nato soldiers wounded in the pre-dawn attacks on Saturday, officials told Al Jazeera.
Fighting is said to be still ongoing at the heavily fortified Chapman base where seven CIA officers were killed by a suicide bomber last December, the second-most deadly attack in CIA history.
Co-ordinated attacks
“At about 4am the Taliban launched co-ordinated attacks on the two bases in the Khost province,” Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid reported from the capital, Kabul.
“What followed was a standoff that lasted way into the early morning and according to the Afghan chief of police there are still search operations going on in the areas around those two camps.
“Nato said they have not managed to enter the bases. They killed 13 of the fighters and arrested five more,” she said.
Two US soldiers were injured during the clashes, said to a statement issued by Nato.
The Taliban also claimed that they had downed a Nato helicopter during the standoff. Nato confirmed that a helicopter was hit by the Taliban, but said it has landed safely in camp Salerno.
Lieutenant Commander Katie Kendrick, a spokeswoman for Nato, confirmed the attacks.
“There is ongoing activity there, but it is fresh and I can’t give more details,” Kendrick said.
Despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops, violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.
The Taliban have launched increasingly brazen attacks around Afghanistan in a bid to topple the government and force out foreign troops.
More than 2,000 foreign troops have been killed, most of them Americans, since the conflict began.
Hundreds of civilians have also been caught in the crossfire, with civilian deaths spiking by 31 per cent in the first six months of this year, according to a United Nations report.
Contractors killed
Meanwhile on Saturday, the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force said its forces had mistakenly killed two private security contractors after one of its patrols came under fire from fighters in Wardak province, west of the capital, Kabul.
A car approached the patrol on a highway in the Maidan Shahr district of Wardak on Friday and men could be seen shooting out of the vehicle’s windows, Isaf said in a statement.
The patrol fired on the vehicle, killing two people inside later identified as private security contractors.
“It is believed that the private security contractors were returning fire against the same insurgents who had just previously attacked the coalition vehicle, and had increased their speed to break contact,” Isaf said.
Poor security is one of the main concerns for Afghans before parliamentary elections on September 18, a milestone after fraud-marred presidential polls last year and with Barack Obama, the US president, planning a strategy review in December.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Comments