Taliban Launches Brazen Attack on Afghan NATO Base

An aerial view of Jalalabad, on the Afghanistan - Pakistan boarder, on December 15, 2009. Taliban fighters carried out a raid on the US airfield here on the early morning of June 30. (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images)

Taliban fighters carried out a raid on a US airfield early Wednesday morning, in the latest audacious attack on a NATO target.

The attack started with a car bomb and Taliban militia followed up by firing rocket propelled grenades at a base on Jalalabad airfield, on the border with Pakistan.  

NATO forces said the attack had failed to penetrate the defensive perimeter and allied casualties were minor. However, airport officials said that eight of the attackers had been killed.

The brazen assault comes just days before the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as US commander in Afghanistan.

Petraeus, who succeeds Gen. Stanley McChrystal—who was removed from the post last week—warned on Tuesday of a “tough fight” against the Taliban in the coming months.

“The airfield’s perimeter was not breached, and several insurgents were killed during the attack,” said NATO spokeswoman Capt. Jane Campbell, in a statement.  

“While designed to garner media attention, this attack only temporarily disrupted operations as our forces successfully repelled the attack,” said Campbell.

Wednesday’s raid began at 7:30 a.m. local time, and militia attacked from two directions. One Afghan soldier and one international service member were wounded in the attack.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, was quoted as saying that six suicide attackers had taken part in the assault.

The raid marks an increasing trend by Taliban forces of attacking coalition airbases. In May, Bagram and Kandahar airfields suffered rare frontal assaults.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a force of 600 US and Afghan troops battled a large group of militiamen in the mountains of Kunar for a third day.

Earlier in the week, the allies were reported to have killed 150 militants in an effort to clear the district of Marawara.

Gen. Petraeus, who is due to visit Afghanistan this weekend, said that he expects that fighting “may get more intense in the next few months.”

US troops are expected to increase from 140,000 to 150,000 in August as part of a US ’surge' strategy.

A total of 100 NATO troops were killed in the month of June, making it one of the deadliest months for coalition forces since the US-led invasion began in 2001.

According to figures kept by the independent website, icasualties.org, the toll for the year to date is 320, compared with 520 in all of 2009.