KABUL — An insurgent rocket attack damaged the plane of the top U.S. general as it sat parked at a coalition base in Afghanistan on Tuesday, dealing another blow to the image of progress in building a stable country.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the two rockets that landed near the C-17 transport plane that U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew into Bagram Air Field north of Kabul only a day earlier.
Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the U.S. military and the international coalition, said Dempsey was in his staff quarters when the two rockets landed and was unhurt in the attack. But the damage to the plane forced Dempsey to use another aircraft for his flight from Bagram to Iraq on Tuesday.
Dempsey was in Afghanistan for talks with military leaders about the war as well as a disturbing rash of killings of U.S. military trainers by their Afghan partners or militants dressed in Afghan uniform.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid issued a statement Tuesday claiming Dempsey’s aircraft was targeted by insurgents “using exact information” about its whereabouts.
Graybeal, however, rejected the claim, saying insurgent attacks are “not infrequent” at Bagram and that such fire most often comes from so far away that it’s virtually impossible to hit specific targets.
