Afghan insurgency: Taliban bombers storm US base near Pakistan border

Dozens of NATO vehicles destroyed; three suicide bombers also killed.

JALALABAD:

Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen dressed as Afghan police attacked a US base near the Pakistani border on Monday and set dozens of parked NATO supply vehicles ablaze, officials said. All three attackers were shot dead by helicopter gunships during the assault on the base in Nangarhar province, but no member of the US-led NATO mission was killed.

“Our investigation shows some 41 vehicles – supply trucks and vehicles belonging to US forces – were destroyed in the attack,” provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said after the attack near the Torkham border crossing.

“Magnetic bombs were attached to some vehicles and detonated,” he told a press conference. “Three armed insurgents were killed by US helicopter gunships. Weapons, suicide vests and hand grenades were found afterwards.”

A senior Afghan border police official also told AFP that 30 to 50 vehicles had been burnt.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, however, claimed that 200-plus vehicles – including armoured personnel carriers, mine sweepers, trailers and container trucks – were destroyed in the attack. The insurgents usually exaggerate their gains.

In a statement, Zabihullah added that the vehicles were supposed to be shipped out to the United States. NATO combat troops are gradually withdrawing from Afghanistan and are due to finish their mission by the end of 2014.

Torkham is next to Khyber Pass and straddles a key NATO overland supply route into landlocked Afghanistan from the nearest sea port of Karachi.

“There were a series of explosions that occurred in the vicinity of a forward operating base in Nangarhar province,” said a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The military later described it as an “attempted but unsuccessful coordinated attack by enemy forces”. “There were three enemy forces killed during the attack. We can confirm that no ISAF personnel were killed as a result of this incident,” it said in a statement.

An AFP photographer saw the bodies of three dead attackers wearing Afghan police uniforms.

Zabihullah identified the attackers as Muhammad Yasin, Abdur Rahman and Farooq Jan, all from different parts of Afghanistan. “They stormed the base early this [Monday] morning and engaged the enemy forces in a firefight that lasted for about five hours,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd, 2013.