Taliban suicide attackers struck a NATO base on an Afghan city airport at dawn yesterday, killing five people and wounding several foreign troops in a two-hour battle, officials said.
NATO helicopters went into action, firing on the insurgents as they tried to storm the base after two suicide car bombs hit the perimeter gate of the Jalalabad airport near the Pakistan border.
Eight attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons were killed, Afghan officials said.
The assault came as the usual summer fighting season should be drawing to a close, indicating that the insurgency remains resilient after surviving the biggest onslaught US-led forces will throw against them.
The last of the extra 33,000 soldiers US President Barack Obama deployed in a “surge” nearly three years ago left in September, and the vast majority of the remaining NATO force of more than 100,000 will follow by the end of 2014.
One of the aims of the surge was to put so much pressure on the Taliban that they would come to the negotiating table, but the insurgents called off early contacts in March.
The Islamists have waged an 11-year insurgency against the Afghan government since being overthrown in a US-led invasion for harboring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban claimed its militants had managed to enter the base and caused heavy casualties, but this was denied by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
“Insurgents, including suicide bombers, attacked the perimeter of the Jalalabad air base this morning,” an ISAF spokesman said. “None of the attackers succeeded breaching the perimeter.”
“I can confirm that there were helicopters involved in the coalition response to the attack. A number of ISAF forces were wounded,” he added, noting that it was ISAF policy not to disclose the toll of those injured.
The airport complex has multiple layers of security, with the NATO base set well back from the first entrance, which an Afghan official said had been breached.
Three Afghan guards were killed and 14 wounded, while two civilians also died and four others were injured, police spokesman Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal said.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
RSS