Afghanistan — Afghan, Coalition Forces Repel Airport Attack

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2010 — Afghan and Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force forces repelled a num­ber of insur­gents who attacked the air­field in Jalal­abad, Afghanistan, this morn­ing using a vehi­cle-borne bomb, rock­et-pro­pelled grenades and small-arms fire.

The airfield’s perime­ter was not breached, offi­cials said, and sev­er­al insur­gents were killed dur­ing the attack. 

Two mem­bers of the com­bined secu­ri­ty force suf­fered minor injuries, and there are no reports of civil­ian injuries, offi­cials said. 

“While designed to gar­ner media atten­tion, this attack only tem­porar­i­ly dis­rupt­ed oper­a­tions, as our forces suc­cess­ful­ly repelled the attack,” said Navy Capt. Jane Camp­bell, spokes­woman for ISAF Joint Command. 

In oth­er news from Afghanistan: 

— An Afghan-inter­na­tion­al force cap­tured a Haqqani ter­ror­ist net­work bomb and weapons facil­i­ta­tor and anoth­er man in Khost province’s Ter­azai dis­trict last night. The facil­i­ta­tor is linked to road­side-bomb attacks that have injured Afghan civil­ians. The com­bined force pro­tect­ed women and chil­dren present dur­ing the search, and no dam­age was done to the compound. 

— A com­bined Afghan-inter­na­tion­al force detained sev­er­al sus­pect­ed insur­gents in Kan­da­har province’s Arghandab dis­trict last night while pur­su­ing a Tal­iban facil­i­ta­tor who coor­di­nates for­eign fight­ers, assas­si­na­tions and logis­ti­cal sup­port for Tal­iban com­man­ders oper­at­ing in cen­tral Kan­da­har. Afghan forces used a loud­speak­er to call for all occu­pants to come out of the tar­get­ed com­pound peace­ful­ly. After secur­ing the area, the secu­ri­ty force detained the sus­pect­ed insur­gents for fur­ther ques­tion­ing while pro­tect­ing women and chil­dren who were present. 

— A com­bined force detained two sus­pect­ed insur­gents in Zab­ul province’s Tarnek wa Jal­dak dis­trict last night while pro­tect­ing women and chil­dren who were present. 

— An Afghan-inter­na­tion­al patrol dis­cov­ered near­ly 2 tons of ammo­ni­um nitrate in Hel­mand province’s Reg‑e Khan Neshin dis­trict yes­ter­day. The ille­gal fer­til­iz­er is used in mak­ing road­side bombs, and an ISAF analy­sis showed the amount seized in this raid could have been used to make more than 80 of the explo­sive devices. 

— An ISAF patrol found a boo­by-trapped weapons cache in Ghazni province last night. The cache con­sist­ed of 50 mor­tar tubes, five mines, two box­es of explo­sives, sev­er­al assault rifles, ammu­ni­tion, a long-bar­reled rifle, hun­dreds of machine-gun rounds and a large quan­ti­ty of bomb-mak­ing materials. 

Mean­while, oper­a­tions involv­ing Afghan and ISAF forces con­tin­ued yes­ter­day in Kunar province. The Afghan-led force includes almost 600 per­son­nel, more than 60 per­cent of whom are mem­bers of the Afghan Nation­al Army, Afghan Nation­al Police and Afghan Bor­der Police. 

The oper­a­tion began after the com­bined force was air­lift­ed by heli­copter into the moun­tains ear­ly June 27 near the town of Dari­dam in the province’s Marawara district. 

Insur­gents were using the town and sur­round­ing dis­trict as a stag­ing area for attacks on both civil­ians and coali­tion forces, offi­cials said. This group is believed to be respon­si­ble for device bomb attack that killed five U.S. ser­vice­mem­bers June 7. Through­out the oper­a­tion, the com­bined force has received cru­cial infor­ma­tion from res­i­dents and local offi­cials, includ­ing details that about 250 insur­gents were in the area. 

The oper­a­tion is ongo­ing, offi­cials said, and com­ple­ments recent oper­a­tions in the province in which a Tal­iban com­man­der was killed and sev­er­al insur­gent facil­i­ta­tors were detained. Devel­op­ment projects are also planned to improve crit­i­cal ser­vices for local res­i­dents, offi­cials added. 

Source:
Com­piled from Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force Joint Com­mand News Releases