KABUL, March 15, (Agencies): A rocket attack on the largest U.S. military hub in Afghanistan killed one person Monday, NATO said, while Afghan authorities in the country’s east prevented three would-be suicide bombers from attacking a security post.
The rocket attack targeted the sprawling Bagram Air Field, north of the capital, Kabul. A NATO spokesman would not say whether the victim was a service member or a civilian.
Abdullah Adil, the police chief in the Bagram district of Parwan province, said one rocket was fired onto the grounds of the base at about 4 a.m. A Taleban spokesman told The Associated Press that two rockets were fired on the base.
Bagram is home to some 24,000 military personnel and civilian contractors supporting the war against the Taleban insurgency. While well protected and located in a relatively quiet area, the more than 5,000-acre (2,000-hectare) base is still susceptible to rocket and mortar attacks. Last year, insurgents launched more than a dozen attacks on Bagram, killing at least four people.
The main air field is being expanded to accommodate some of the 30,000 new American troops that President Barack Obama has ordered to Afghanistan to try to turn the tide of the war.
A cabinet minister said Monday that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had ordered extra forces to secure the strategic southern city of Kandahar after coordinated attacks killed 35 people.
The Taleban claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attacks — one of the biggest coordinated assaults of their more than eight-year insurgency — to pre-empt US-led plans to launch military operations in the Kandahar region.
Militants have increasingly mounted coordinated suicide bombings in their effort to destabilise the Western-backed government, underscoring the security challenge facing Karzai and 121,000 US-led NATO troops.
“The Afghan president has ordered new security forces for better security of Kandahar,” Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar told reporters during a visit to Kandahar to offer condolences to the families of those killed.
Provincial governor Turyalai Wisa said Sunday he had requested more troops to help secure the city from further attacks by the Taleban.
Kandahar was the Islamist militia’s base during their five-year rule of the country, which ended with the US-led invasion in 2001.
The Afghan interior minister said Monday that military operations in Kandahar would begin “after consultations with tribal elders”.
Southern Afghanistan is the heartland of the Taleban-led insurgency. Quelling violence in the region, offering development, creating jobs and expanding government control is seen as vital if the West can end the war.
US President Barack Obama and NATO allies have pledged to boost troop numbers to 150,000 by August, with most of the new deployments headed to the volatile south and a major focus placed on training Afghan troops to take over.
A major campaign has already begun in the Marjah area of the southern province of Helmand, expected to serve as a template for the counter-insurgency due to unfold in Kandahar in coming months, military planners say.
Visiting Afghanistan last week, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told troops to brace for a tough fight as generals laid plans to take the fight to Kandahar, possibly as early as the summer, when enough troops are in place.
Six people, possibly militants, were killed in Kandahar on Monday when they drove over an improvised bomb of the type used by Taleban-linked militants to attack military forces, the provincial government said.
Security forces found Pakistani identity cards and other documents on the victims’ bodies that could link them to insurgent groups, it added.