Attacks hit NATO and Afghan bases in Kandahar

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan

AP Photo

Eleven Taliban suicide attackers struck two Afghan and NATO bases in Kandahar province yesterday, after gunmen in police uniforms killed a coalition soldier, officials said.

Seven insurgents stormed a joint Afghan-NATO base in Shah Wali Kot district at around (2300 GMT Monday), sparking a 30-minute gun battle that left all the attackers dead, Kandahar governor’s spokesman Jawed Faisal said. NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the attackers breached the outer perimeter of the base but no coalition soldiers were killed.

But Faisal and provincial police chief General Abdul Raziq both said a foreigner had been killed and two wounded, with Faisal describing the fatality as a civilian contractor. Their nationalities were unclear. Hours later, four gunmen wearing police uniforms struck a police and NATO base in Kandahar city, triggering a firefight in which four officers and the attackers were killed, Raziq told Agence France-Presse. Nine police were wounded, he said.

Police witnesses said the attackers all had the uniform and equipment of regular officers, and were led into the base by a police captain who fled afterwards. Two other officers were arrested over the assault. Yesterday’s attacks came a day after men wearing Afghan police uniforms opened fire on NATO soldiers in Kandahar, killing one before fleeing. That incident brought to 23 the number of Western troops killed in 17 so-called green-on-blue incidents so far this year in Afghanistan, where 130,000 foreign soldiers are helping Kabul fight a Taliban insurgency. “The International Security Assistance Force confirms that three individuals in Afghan police uniforms turned their weapons against coalition service members in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing one ISAF service member,” the alliance said.

A police official in Zhary district said the dead soldier was American, but there was no immediate confirmation. ISAF gave no further details of the incident or the soldier’s nationality, though most coalition forces in Kandahar are American.