An attack on a joint US-Afghan military base at the Jalalabad airport in eastern Afghanistan killed nine attackers and at least five Afghans, officials said.
Suicide bombers detonated explosives at the gate of the base, after which there was an exchange of fire that lasted for at least two hours. American helicopters were also involved in the fighting, which fired at the Taliban fighters before they were defeated.
In today's attack, two vehicles loaded with explosives drove at full speed towards the main gate of the base around 6.00:XNUMX a.m. local time. The first vehicle exploded at the gate itself, said a police spokesman in Nangarhar province, where Jalalabad is located.
The guards opened fire on the second vehicle before it also exploded, he added. The police spokesman said that five Afghans were killed (three soldiers and two civilians), 18 were injured and the attackers lost nine people.
Nine attackers took part in the attack, he said, three of them died in suicide explosions and another six armed attackers died in battles that lasted several hours.
International forces described the attack as a setback for the Taliban attackers.
"We can confirm that insurgents, including multiple suicide bombers, attacked Jalalabad Air Base this morning. None of the attackers managed to cross the perimeter of the base," said Col. Hagen Messer, a spokesman for the international military coalition in Afghanistan, in an email. He said that the fighting ended around noon and that according to reports, one member of the Afghan security forces was killed.
Colonel Hagen Messer added that several foreign soldiers were wounded, but did not give further details.
"The final assessment of what happened this morning is not yet complete, but initial reports indicate that there were three suicide bombers," Messer said.
This is the biggest conflict at the base in Jalalabad since February, when a car bomb exploded at the entrance to the base, killing nine Afghans, six of whom were civilians.
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