Taliban Suicide Bomber Team Attacks U.S. Base at Aghan/Pakistan Border

Any minute, of any day you never know when Taliban jihadis are going to strap on bombs and head for the fence of a U.S. base.

The story comes from DAWN.

Afghan militants attack US base: official


KABUL: An Afghan official says a group of suicide bombers have attacked US base near the border with Pakistan, sparking an ongoing gunbattle.

There was no immediate information on casualties.

Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, says the heavily armed militants attacked the site in the Torkham area Monday morning.

An explosion heard toward the beginning was likely one of the suicide bombers detonating his explosives.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid says the insurgent group was behind the attack.

Nato says it has no immediate information on the matter.

Abdulzai says Afghan and US forces are engaged in gunfire against the militants, and that Nato helicopters are flying over the base.

The highway between Jalalabad city and Torkham, an important route for Nato supply trucks, has been closed.

Earlier on Sunday, the badly beaten, bullet-riddled bodies of seven Afghan soldiers were found dumped in an eastern province, apparent victims of insurgents, authorities said.

Local residents found the corpses next to each other in Andar district of Ghazni province, their hands chained behind their backs.

The dead soldiers had been kidnapped at different times, with some abducted while they were on leave visiting relatives, said Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy Ghazni governor.

The victims hailed from northern provinces and were found with identification documents.

The Taliban did not issue a claim of responsibility for the killings, but Ahmadi said the insurgents are known to occasionally stop vehicles in search of people to ''prosecute'' for working for the US-supported Afghan government or security forces.

In Ghazni's Qarabagh district, two Afghans involved in civilian militias that resist the Taliban were killed during a gunfight with militants, Ahmadi said.

Such citizen militias have cropped up in several parts of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb killed eight Afghan employees of a private mining company in the north on Saturday, authorities said.

Another explosion on Sunday, meanwhile, apparently targeted the mayor of the eastern city of Jalalabad, but wounded his driver instead.

Hazrat Hussain Mashreqiwal, a police spokesman in Nangarhar province, said the mayor was not in the vehicle when the bomb went off, and that investigators are trying to determine the type of bomb used.

The incidents come as the Taliban have stepped up their attacks in Afghanistan and US-led foreign forces are reducing their presence in the country.

The handover of responsibility for security to local forces has made the Afghan army an even more tempting target than usual for militants.