KABUL — Insurgents launched a predawn assault today against the U.S.-run Bagram Air Field one day after a suicide bomber struck a U.S. convoy in the capital of Kabul, killing 18 people. The Kabul dead included five American troops and a Canadian and was the deadliest attack on NATO in the Afghan capital in eight months.
The back-to-back attacks appeared part of a Taliban offensive that the insurgents announced earlier this month — even as the U.S. and its partners prepare for a major operation to restore order in the turbulent south.
A U.S. statement said seven insurgents had been killed so far during the “ongoing attack” on Bagram, which included rockets, small arms and grenades.
Five service members have been wounded, the statement said without specifying whether they were Americans.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Bagram, 30 miles north of Kabul. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said 20 suicide attackers carried out the attack.
The Bagram assault occurred after the deadliest day of the year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan with seven Americans dead — including two who died in separate attacks Tuesday in the south. The dead in the Kabul attack included Canadian Col. Geoff Parker, 42, the highest-ranking member of the Canadian Forces to die in Afghanistan since the Canadian mission began in 2002, the country’s military said.
Twelve Afghan civilians also died in the Tuesday blast — many of them on a public bus in rush-hour traffic. At least 47 people were wounded, the Interior Ministry said.
The American deaths plus the two deaths in the south brought the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan since the war began in 2001 to at least 994, according to an Associated Press count.
