Global General

Taliban claim suicide attack on NATO-Afghan base

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-03-10 15:01

Taliban claim suicide attack on NATO-Afghan base
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, second left, tours through the town of Now Zad, Afghanistan, on Tuesday March 9, 2010. [Agencies]

KHOST, Afghanistan - The Taliban claimed responsibility Wednesday for a suicide bombing inside a NATO-Afghan base in eastern Afghanistan that killed two international service members.

A Taliban operative wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the base Tuesday night and detonated his explosive vest next to a group of soldiers who were warming their hands beside a fire, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press by phone.

US troops command most of the eastern area bordering Pakistan, but a NATO statement on the attack did not confirm if the small base was American or the nationalities of those who died. A number of others were wounded in the attack, the military alliance said.

The attack was a reminder of the increasing sophistication and reach of insurgents -- who have expanded attacks against targets like the capital and heavily guarded military outposts even as NATO forces have started to take back some of their strongholds in the south.

In December, a suicide bomber infiltrated a CIA base in Khost city, killing seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer. The bomber was able to enter the base because the CIA was cultivating him as a potential source of information about al-Qaida leaders.

Tuesday's suicide attack was along the porous Pakistan border, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Khost city, the provincial capital. Khost's rugged mountains are dominated by the Haqqani network, an al-Qaida-linked Afghan Taliban faction blamed for the CIA attack.

NATO said an investigation into the attack was under way, but did not give further details.

On Monday, international and Afghan forces in Khost city repelled an insurgent attack on the provincial government headquarters, NATO said.

The suicide assault in the east came hours after visiting US Defense Secretary Robert Gates toured an area of southern Afghanistan where international forces recently drove out Taliban insurgents.

Aiming to show progress in the expanded war against insurgents in southern Afghanistan, Gates took a brief, heavily guarded walk Tuesday down a rutted street in Now Zad, retaken late last year by international forces in the first significant military push following President Barack Obama's decision to add 30,000 troops to combat Taliban gains.