Dozens of people were killed or wounded in fighting at an airport in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar after an overnight attack by Taliban insurgents that security forces had not entirely suppressed nearly 24 hours later.
With final mopping up operations continuing late yesterday afternoon, at least 37 civilians and members of Afghan security forces had been killed and 35 wounded, the Afghan Ministry of National Defense said.
In addition, nine Taliban members were killed and another wounded, with a final survivor still resisting security forces, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the operation had proceeded slowly to minimize casualties.
Photo: AFP
“Afghanistan’s national army forces are bravely fighting terrorists in airport areas and are trying to act cautiously to avoid harm to civilians,” the ministry said.
The airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-biggest city, has for years been a major hub for operations of international forces, most of whom had withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of last year.
A spokesman for NATO’s Resolute Support mission said there had been no reports of casualties among the hundreds of international personnel at the air base, but he had no other details.
The raid in one of the Taliban’s traditional strongholds coincided with the start of the Heart of Asia regional security conference in Islamabad, where Afghan President Ashraf Ghani made a plea for more regional support to fight the growing Islamic insurgency.
Officials said fighters attacked a perimeter area of the huge and heavily fortified complex on Tuesday evening, initially taking up position in a school in a residential area of the site, which houses both a civilian airport and military base.
NATO military personnel, civilian contractors and Afghan forces are based there.
Earlier, the Taliban said in a statement that 150 soldiers had been killed, but the militants have often made exaggerated casualty claims in the past.
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