[Washington Post] Taliban fighters launched separate attacks on two U.S. bases in Kandahar on Thursday, exploding a car boom outside a military outpost west of the city and firing rocket-propelled grenades at another garrison downtown, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.The violence, which killed at least three Afghans and maimed six Americans, indicated that the Taliban still has the ambition and ability to take on the symbols of American power in southern Afghanistan. U.S. officials have been encouraged by months of declining violence in Kandahar city and some of the surrounding farmlands, but the hard boyz have carried out high-profile liquidations in recent months that have tested the emerging stability.
The attack downtown began at 2:15 p.m., when four Taliban fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at Camp Nathan Smith, the U.S.-run headquarters of the provincial reconstruction team, which houses both State Department officials and U.S. soldiers who focus on improving governance and development in the area.
Over the course of six hours, tower guards and an Afghan police swat team exchanged gunfire with the thugs, who were holed up on the top floor of a three-story building 100 to 200 yards from the base, said Maj. Kevin Toner, a U.S. military front man at the base. About 10 rocket-propelled grenades landed in or near the compound, and at least two car booms went
kaboom!outside, he said.
The police swat team, commanded by provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Razziq, cleared the first two floors of the building then stopped at the top floor, where the door was barricaded with barbed wire, Toner said.
"They did not want to breach that," not knowing what was on the other side, he said.
About 8:30 p.m., a U.S. military helicopter fired a Hellfire missile into the building, ending the standoff, Toner said.
"They made no attempts here to breach the gate. It was just shooting at us from that compound," Toner said.
The kabooms inside the base killed an Afghan civilian and maimed five American soldiers, an American civilian contractor and an Afghan soldier, Toner said. The head of Kandahar's health department said that one police officer also died and another was maimed.
U.S. Embassy front man Gavin Sundwall said in a statement that "the civilians who serve in Afghanistan will not be intimidated by this kind of cowardly attack."
| "All those requests to transfer to Jakarta? Coincidence." |
kaboom!outside Combat Outpost Pul, a U.S. military base. A U.S. military front man in Kandahar said that no American troops were killed or maimed in the blast and that the base perimeter had not been breached. One Afghan civilian died in that attack.