Ten civilians were killed when Taliban rebels fired rockets at a US base in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, and an Afghan soldier died in a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport.The 10 civilians died and another five were injured when militants fired rockets at the US-led coalition base in eastern Kunar province’s Chawkai district, which hit a nearby village, police and officials said. “The Taliban fired several rockets over the base but the rockets fell short and landed on civilian homes,” police official Abdul Sabour Allahyar told AFP. Government officials described the attack as “intense.”
The coalition, which has around 12,000 troops mainly in eastern and southern Afghanistan on counter-terrorism duties, confirmed that its base came under attack but could not provide information on casualties. “There’s a base up there (Chawkai) which received 10 rounds in indirect fire. We did not return any fire,” coalition spokesman Sergeant Dean Welch said. Earlier in the day, a suicide attacker rammed his explosives-packed car nose-to-nose with an international military vehicle, which was leaving the heavily secured NATO military gate of the Kabul International Airport.
The vehicle did not explode immediately and the foreign car sped off before the blast, which caught a group of Afghan soldiers preparing to fly to Italy for military training, witnesses said.
One of the soldiers, aged in his late 20s, was killed and four wounded, said Sergeant Aminullah, 28, an Afghan soldier who witnessed the attack. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the incident injured five of its troops. It does not give the nationalities of its casualties. Blood-spattered military boots and caps littered the scene where the other soldiers, who numbered about 30 and appeared shocked, waited with their bags, an AFP reporter said.