Taliban gunmen armed with rockets and grenades attacked the largest NATO base in Afghanistan at dawn yesterday, sparking battles that killed 10 militants and wounded seven soldiers.
The audacious assault on Bagram Airfield came one day after a suicide car bomber killed five US soldiers, a Canadian colonel and 12 Afghans in Kabul, highlighting the relentless pace of the nearly nine-year insurgency.
The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying that 20 suicide bombers took part in the assault. The militia is known to exaggerate its claims and there was no other confirmation that suicide attackers were involved.
Major Virginia McCabe, a press officer at Bagram, said the attack was still going on after 9am, but denied the insurgents had been able to penetrate the sprawling base, nor was she able to confirm they were suicide bombers.
“It is still going on, but it is sporadic now,” she said.
“They targeted a gate but couldn’t enter, they didn’t enter … Seven ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] soldiers were wounded. Our soldiers’ response was pretty quick,” she said.
“More than 10 Taliban were killed,” McCabe said.
ISAF said the ongoing attack on Bagram “included rockets, small arms and grenades.”
About 60km north of Kabul, Bagram is run primarily by the US military and is the biggest NATO base in the country.
With connecting flights across Afghanistan and abroad, the airfield is a transit hub for much of the 130,000-strong US-led NATO force, which is being boosted to 150,000 by August to step up the fight against the Taliban.
The group of insurgents launched their attack at dawn, according to witnesses in Nawdeh village next to Bagram airfield who said they were forced awake by US military helicopters and the sounds of gunfire.
“It was around 4am or 4:30am,” said Zemarai Malikzada, in his 30s.
“I saw American helicopters flying overhead, they were firing down and the terrorists were firing at them from there,” he said, pointing to vineyards.
Ahmad Jawad, a farmer who sets out for work before the sun rises and the temperatures climb, said he saw a man wearing a suicide vest.
“I saw one of them. I went towards him. He showed me his bombs on his chest. I ran away. He ran towards those vineyards,” he said.
“Police and the Americans followed him then he exploded, right in there,” he said, pointing to a vine about 75m from the paved road.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location that “four suicide bombers activated their explosive belts and fighting is continuing at the base.”
Bagram has acquired notoriety across Afghanistan and the Muslim world as the location of a US-run prison that the military opened following the US-led invasion that brought down the Taliban regime in late 2001.
The entrance to the base was last hit by a double attack in March last year that wounded three civilians.
On a busy day, the air terminal at Bagram, with connecting flights across Afghanistan and abroad, processes around 1,650 passengers.
In addition to troops, there are about 5,000 civilians on the 2,100 hectare compound, working for companies contracted by the military.
At least 210 NATO soldiers, 130 of them from the US, have died in the war so far this year. It has been the deadliest January to May period since the US-led invasion.
On Tuesday, eight NATO soldiers were killed — six of them in a suicide car bomb attack in the capital Kabul, which the Taliban claimed responsibility for.
Taliban have increased attacks over the past 12 months in Afghanistan’s heavily guarded capital, but strikes on NATO military bases are much rarer.
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