KABUL—Taliban insurgents wearing police uniforms Monday morning attacked the U.S.-led coalition’s base at the Kabul airport, waking Afghanistan’s capital at dawn with the sound of blasts and gunfire, and halting air traffic for hours.
Seven insurgents, most of them sporting suicide vests, seized two buildings under construction near the airport and rained rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire from them, the Afghan police said.
All seven were killed, Kabul’s police chief Gen. Ayub Salangi said—two by exploding their vests and the remaining five by Afghan troops. There were no fatalities among civilians in the area or among Afghan forces, he said.
Hours later, Afghan officials said, another group of suicide bombers stormed the provincial council building in the southern province of Zabul. Heavy fighting followed suit, and a provincial official said there were several casualties, including among council members.
The Taliban have stepped up their operations in the Afghan capital and across the country this year, trying to show the insurgency’s undiminished potency as the U.S.-led coalition forces withdraw. The coalition is expected to announce later this month the “milestone” of putting Afghan forces in the lead across the country, ahead of ending the coalition’s mandate at the end of 2014. While coalition casualties have declined, the Afghan forces have been losing some 80 to 120 men killed in action per week in recent months.
A Taliban spokesman who claimed responsibility for Monday’s Kabul attack said the insurgents targeted only the military part of the airport because U.S. forces are stationed there. The coalition said the perimeter of its base at the airport was not breached by the attackers.
In Kabul, plumes of smoke rose from the airport area as explosions alternated with the rattle of gunfire through Monday morning. Afghan army and police—aided by Norwegian special forces and some U.S. troops—flocked to the area and, some four hours after the attack began, finished clearing the two buildings.
The Kabul airport was closed Monday morning while the clearing operations were under way, with no flights landing or taking off. Airport operations resumed as normal in the late morning.
Attacks in the Kabul airport area are relatively rare, and the halting of air traffic rarer still. Monday’s assault took place hours after Afghan President Hamid Karzai flew from the airport to the Gulf emirate of Qatar to discuss plans for opening a Taliban negotiating office there.
This was the second major insurgent assault in Kabul in little over two weeks. Last month, the Taliban launched an attack on the compound of a United Nations-affiliated refugee body, the International Organization for Migration. Days later, insurgents also attacked the compound of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Seizing unfinished buildings and turning their upper floors into firing positions has long been a favored Taliban tactic in Kabul, used in previous spectacular attacks.
Several construction workers from the northern province of Samangan slept in the unfinished five-story structure that the Taliban took over on Monday, just after 4 a.m. These workers said the Taliban first lined them up with their faces to the wall, and then ordered them to flee the building.
Journalists taken on a tour of the building after the clearing operations ended were shown one of the bearded attackers lying in a pool of blood, much of his torso ripped open by the explosion but his limbs still clothed in an Afghan Border Police uniform.
The northern side of the Kabul airport, facing the buildings taken over by the Taliban, houses a sprawling military base that is home to the coalition’s Joint Command, the war’s operational headquarters.
The area where violence erupted Monday is also near the heavily fortified Criminal Justice Task Force compound, home of the Afghan and U.S. investigators into Afghanistan’s drug trade. A special prison housing major convicted drug dealers and suspects is located inside the compound.
–Ehsanullah Amiri contributed to this article.
Seven insurgents, most of them sporting suicide vests, seized two buildings under construction near the airport and rained rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire from them, the Afghan police said.
All seven were killed, Kabul’s police chief Gen. Ayub Salangi said—two by exploding their vests and the remaining five by Afghan troops. There were no fatalities among civilians in the area or among Afghan forces, he said.
Hours later, Afghan officials said, another group of suicide bombers stormed the provincial council building in the southern province of Zabul. Heavy fighting followed suit, and a provincial official said there were several casualties, including among council members.
The Taliban have stepped up their operations in the Afghan capital and across the country this year, trying to show the insurgency’s undiminished potency as the U.S.-led coalition forces withdraw. The coalition is expected to announce later this month the “milestone” of putting Afghan forces in the lead across the country, ahead of ending the coalition’s mandate at the end of 2014. While coalition casualties have declined, the Afghan forces have been losing some 80 to 120 men killed in action per week in recent months.
A Taliban spokesman who claimed responsibility for Monday’s Kabul attack said the insurgents targeted only the military part of the airport because U.S. forces are stationed there. The coalition said the perimeter of its base at the airport was not breached by the attackers.
In Kabul, plumes of smoke rose from the airport area as explosions alternated with the rattle of gunfire through Monday morning. Afghan army and police—aided by Norwegian special forces and some U.S. troops—flocked to the area and, some four hours after the attack began, finished clearing the two buildings.
The Kabul airport was closed Monday morning while the clearing operations were under way, with no flights landing or taking off. Airport operations resumed as normal in the late morning.
Attacks in the Kabul airport area are relatively rare, and the halting of air traffic rarer still. Monday’s assault took place hours after Afghan President Hamid Karzai flew from the airport to the Gulf emirate of Qatar to discuss plans for opening a Taliban negotiating office there.
This was the second major insurgent assault in Kabul in little over two weeks. Last month, the Taliban launched an attack on the compound of a United Nations-affiliated refugee body, the International Organization for Migration. Days later, insurgents also attacked the compound of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Seizing unfinished buildings and turning their upper floors into firing positions has long been a favored Taliban tactic in Kabul, used in previous spectacular attacks.
Several construction workers from the northern province of Samangan slept in the unfinished five-story structure that the Taliban took over on Monday, just after 4 a.m. These workers said the Taliban first lined them up with their faces to the wall, and then ordered them to flee the building.
Journalists taken on a tour of the building after the clearing operations ended were shown one of the bearded attackers lying in a pool of blood, much of his torso ripped open by the explosion but his limbs still clothed in an Afghan Border Police uniform.
The northern side of the Kabul airport, facing the buildings taken over by the Taliban, houses a sprawling military base that is home to the coalition’s Joint Command, the war’s operational headquarters.
The area where violence erupted Monday is also near the heavily fortified Criminal Justice Task Force compound, home of the Afghan and U.S. investigators into Afghanistan’s drug trade. A special prison housing major convicted drug dealers and suspects is located inside the compound.
–Ehsanullah Amiri contributed to this article.