Dozens are killed in a Taliban attack on an Afghan airport
Taliban militants killed dozens of civilians in a failed attack on a major military base in southern Afghanistan after coalition and Afghan security forces prevented the militants from getting to the facility, the coalition command said Wednesday.
The militants launched an attack at a marketplace just outside the Kandahar Airfield, and a small number of attackers escaped into a residential area, where they seized hostages.
The attack was launched Tuesday, and fighting stretched into Wednesday amid conflicting reports about whether hostages were being held.
No coalition forces were killed or injured in the attack, and the militants never made it onto the airfield, said Col. Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition.
“Coalition forces on (Kandahar Airfield) conducted force protection measures to ensure all servicemembers and civilians on (the airfield) remained safe," he said.
The airfield is a major coalition and Afghan outpost in southern Afghanistan in a region that was once a Taliban stronghold. About 2,000 coalition troops are at the base, along with 5,000 coalition civilian contractors.
U.S. aircraft flew overhead but did not attack targets on the ground, the coalition said.
Less than 10,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, where they mainly advise and support Afghan security forces and provide a counterterrorism mission to directly target al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
Taliban militants have surfaced in pockets of Afghanistan as U.S. and coalition forces have reduced their presence in the country. In September, the militants briefly seized the town of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan. It was recaptured by Afghan forces backed by coalition aircraft.
Wednesday's attack started when about a dozen insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked the southern entrance to the airfield, firing on the base from a nearby school, according to the coalition headquarters. Most of the attackers were killed in the fighting.
Fighting shifted to the residential area, where the insurgents grabbed an undetermined number of hostages.
The militant attack on the marketplace killed at least 30 people, according to news media reports. Afghan security forces suffered an unknown number of casualties.
Samim Khpalwak, a spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, told Agence France-Presse that the Taliban targeted the homes of government employees and the joint Afghan-NATO military base on the airport complex.
An Afghan National Army commander said 14 insurgents attacked the complex Tuesday evening, wearing security forces' uniforms, Afghan broadcaster TOLOnews reported.
The Taliban said it carried out the attack and was holding hostages, the BBC reported. Citing the Afghan Defense Ministry, the BBC said 37 civilians and security personnel and nine insurgents were killed, and 35 people were wounded.