Taliban attack hits US military base in Afghanistan

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan

A day after a deadly suicide attack on a German diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, the Taliban managed to hit another foreign installation, this time the country’s largest U.S. military base.

An explosion inside the U.S. military’s Bagram airfield on Saturday morning killed at least four people and left 15 wounded.

U.S. General John W. Nicholson confirmed the incident but did not reveal the identity of the victims or the nature of the attack.

However, the Taliban claimed their suicide attacker killed “scores” of American forces. In a statement, the Taliban claimed their man “managed to enter the [Bagram] airfield very tactically along with necessary tools and explosives”.

Later Saturday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter confirmed in a statement that two U.S. service members and two U.S. contractors working on the base were killed, and 16 other American service members and one Polish soldier were wounded.

Local officials are ruling out the chances of explosives or a lone terrorist managing to enter the maximum-security facility where even day laborers go through a number of checks and retina scans before entering.

Abdul Shakor Qudos, chief of the Bagram district, told Anadolu Agency transporting weapons into the base was almost impossible, so chances were that the explosives consumed in this blast were already there for training or other purposes.

Saturday’s attack came a day after a deadly Taliban suicide attacker hit the German consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif, one of Afghanistan’s relatively safer cities. The Taliban said it was “revenge” for U.S. airstrikes in Kunduz province which claimed the lives of over 30 civilians last week.