Afghan security personel stand guard near the airport complex in Kandahar on Dec. 9, 2015. Taliban militants stormed the airport complex, triggering an all-night gun battle. AFP PHOTO / JAWED TANVEER/AFP/Getty Images (Jawed Tanveer/AFP/Getty Images)
By Sayed Salahuddin-December 9
KABUL — The civilian airport in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar remained closed Wednesday a day after Taliban insurgents staged an audacious attack there, resulting in the deaths of dozens of people, officials said.
The attack began late Tuesday afternoon when a group of Taliban suicide bombers armed with rocket-propelled grenades, small arms and hand grenades broke through a main entrance of the airport, said Gen. Abdul Razaq Sherzai, the Afghan air force commander in Kandahar province.
The clashes continued well into the night and throughout Wednesday at the combined military and civilian airport that is also used by U.S. troops and is a hub for CIA operations, officials said.
Later Wednesday, officials said the siege was over and that more than 50 people were reported killed.
Sherzai said the insurgents seized a number of family members of the Afghan troops who live in a residential area near the sprawling airport.
“The airport has been closed for all civil flights since yesterday,” Sherzai said by phone from Kandahar. He added that U.S. gunships are assisting by hitting “areas where the insurgents have dug in.”
A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, Dawlat Waziri, said many of the dead were civilians.
Women and children were among them, he said, adding that U.S. troops were advising Afghan forces in the battle.
“Civilian people are trapped,” and some “are highly panicked,” Haji Agha Lalai, a member of Kandahar’s provincial council, said before the siege ended.
The attack is seen as a show of the Taliban’s mobility and flexibility as key regional leaders attend a conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, called the Heart of Asia.
Afghan, U.S., Pakistani and Chinese officials discussed resumption of peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban on the sidelines of the conference.
Afghan and coalition officials said the attackers were well away from the runway, the main military part of the airport and installations used by foreign troops and advisers.
Coalition officials declined to discuss the specifics of its engagement in the clashes. The coalition said it has conducted “force protection measures to ensure all service members and civilians at the airport remained safe.”
There were no coalition force casualties, said U.S. Army Col. Michael Lawhorn, a coalition spokesman.
The Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack. It is the biggest strike by the militants since late September when they seized the northern city of Kunduz and held it for days. It was the largest city captured by the Taliban since the radical Islamist movement was driver by power in Kabul in November 2001 by Afghan opposition forces and U.S. airstrikes.
The attack came amid reports of infighting among Taliban leaders. The Afghan government said last week that the Taliban’s new leader, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, was wounded in internecine fighting in the Pakistani city of Quetta. A Taliban spokesman denied the report.
In the past, the militants have launched attacks on at least two airports.
The most devastating one happened in 2012 when Taliban combatants wearing U.S. military uniforms succeeded in storming Camp Bastion in neighboring Helmand province, demolishing aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mohammad Sharif contributed to this report.
