KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug 3, (Agencies): A Taleban suicide squad armed with bombs and rockets attacked the largest US military base in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, injuring one NATO soldier and two civilians. An initial rocket attack on Kandahar airfield, which left the three wounded, was followed by a suicide bomb attack that sparked an hour-long gun battle, officials said. Two suicide bombers detonated explosives strapped to their bodies outside the base perimeter, aiming to clear the entrance for the rest of the group to breach the wire, Kandahar provincial spokesman Zalmai Ayobi told AFP.

“Two of them blew themselves up and the other four were killed in the subsequent firefight,” he said. All six attackers wore suicide vests and rode in a tractor, which got stuck in mud before they had reached their target, said the base commander, General Gordon Moulds, in a press conference.
“They then blew up their tractor and tried to approach the airfield on foot and fired two rockets on the airport,” said Moulds, who also confirmed that one NATO soldier had been injured by a rocket.
NATO and Ayobi said the militants failed to enter the base, which was immediately locked-down and many civilian workers sent home, while six helicopters flew low overhead.

Taleban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack. Kandahar Airfield is the main base in the area for troops fighting the insurgency, which is concentrated in the southern province of Kandahar. It houses tens of thousands of personnel. Also in Kandahar, NATO said foreign and Afghan troops had destroyed a booby-trapped house rigged with trip wires linked to a home-made bomb, and killed several insurgents during operations in restive Zhari district.

In another incident, six Afghan private security guards were poisoned and fatally stabbed during a bank robbery in northern Afghanistan, police said Tuesday.
Alhaj Zaher Vahdat, deputy governor of Balkh province, said one person has been arrested in connection with the robbery Monday night at a branch of Kabul Bank in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
American public support for the Afghan war and US President Barack Obama’s handing of the conflict has hit an all-time low after the leak of secret military documents, a poll showed Tuesday.
Obama’s overall ratings also declined to a new low, with only 41 percent of Americans saying they approved of his performance, according to the USA Today/Gallup poll — his worst showing since taking office in January 2009.

The percentage of Americans who say the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Afghanistan rose to 43 percent, compared to 38 percent before the release of tens of thousands of classified documents on the war.
Public confidence in Obama’s war policy has also plunged to 36 percent, down from 48 percent in February survey, the poll said.
Even though he has failed to make a sizeable dent in high US unemployment, Obama received a better rating for his management of the economy than for the war, with 39 percent supporting his handling of the economy, it said.
Growing public doubt about the Afghan war came as the death toll for US troops in July hit a record high of 66.