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Kabul airport under rocket attack Kabul airport comes under rocket fire
(about 3 hours later)
Insurgents used rockets to attack Kabul international airport on Thursday, a senior Afghan military A squad of suicide attackers took over
official said. a half-finished building just outside the perimeter of Kabul airport
The gunmen occupied two buildings, which were under construction, 700 to shower rockets and gunfire on the compound in a pre-dawn attack.
metres north of the airport and were using them as a base to The assault shut down the airport of Afghanistan's capital and
fire rockets and guns towards the airport and jet fighters from the Nato-led Isaf force flying forced incoming flights to divert to other cities – but began
over Kabul, said General Afzal Aman. before the airport opened to passengers and security officials picking off the
Aman said several rockets hit the airport and two attackers were killed by Afghan forces. fighters one by one said there were no reports of civilian deaths or
Aman said the fighting was going on and that the gunmen had been surrounded by Afghan forces. Alarms sounded at the US embassy in Kabul, as they usually do when there is an attack in the city. Isaf jet fighters were patrolling overhead. injuries.
Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi says the gunmen who captured the building were surrounded by police. “At half past four in the morning a
Besides civilian traffic the airport is used as a base for Nato-led group of attackers took over an empty building near the airport,”
forces that have been fighting for more than a decade against Taliban said police spokesman Hashmat Stankezai. “First the attackers set
and others. Rocket attacks near the airport are not rare, but are not off a car bomb, then they climbed into a building that was under
usually this close. construction.”
On Tuesday a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with Eyewitnesses living near the building,
explosives near a busy market and a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 89 people in the deadliest insurgent attack on part of a gated apartment complex stretching up a gentle slope, said
civilians since the 2001 US-led invasion. they heard three or four large explosions followed by rocket and
The pre-dawn attack on the airport adds to tensions as a recount takes place of votes in the second round of the disputed presidential election. small arms fire.
Four
hours of sporadic fighting followed, but hemmed in by Afghan commandos
the Taliban squad had few chances to target the airport again.
The attack followed the same template
as another Taliban operation just over a year ago. Then seven
fighters holed up on a building site to aim at the airport from a
distance, shutting it down and grabbing headlines worldwide but
doing little damage.
“We started an operation this morning
at Kabul airport, which is a military airport housing foreign and
Afghan forces,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. “The
attackers are armed with explosive vests and heavy and light weapons
and we have damaged the airport.”
The suicide squad operation follows a
series of rocket attacks on the airport hangars, one of which hit and
destroyed the helicopter used by President Hamid Karzai.
The attack on Thursday has comes just hours before Afghanistan begins
an unprecedented audit of every single vote cast in the contested
presidential election to replace Karzai. Ballot boxes will be flown into Kabul by
Nato forces so they can be checked under the eye of international
auditors. The Taliban have denounced the poll as a sham and may be
looking to disrupt the recount.
Additional reporting by Mokhtar Amiri