AP, JALALABAD, Afghanistan – Suspected Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents fired two rockets Friday at an airport where U.S. forces are based, shattering windows in buildings but causing no casualties, an Afghan military official said.
The rockets, shot from the southern side of the Jalalabad airport, exploded in a field near the airport's military base, said Gen. Abdul Malik Malikzai, head of Afghan's ninth brigade.
The Jalalabad airport often has been the target of rockets fired by insurgents, but they rarely cause serious damage or casualties since they involve crude launchers with poor aim.
“The Taliban and al-Qaida carried out the attack because there is an operation going on against them in the area,” Malikzai said in an interview.
The U.S.-led coalition launched Operation Mountain Resolve a week ago in Nuristan and Kunar provinces, which border the eastern province of Nangarhar province where Jalalabad is located.
The special anti-terror operation involves ground forces supported by helicopter gunships scouring steep, snow-covered mountains. There have been several skirmishes, during which coalition troops have killed or captured enemy fighters. No coalition soldiers have been hurt.
Also Friday, the U.S. military said suspected Taliban insurgents had fired two rockets at a coalition base in the tense eastern border region of Paktia province, but there were no reports of casualties. The attack occurred late Thursday at a base near Shkin, U.S. military spokesman Col. Rodney Davis told reporters at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military headquarters.
Last month, two CIA agents were killed in an ambush near the base at Shkin.
Insurgents believed linked to the Taliban and suspected al-Qaida members have recently stepped up attacks against coalition forces, supporters of Afghanistan's central government and aid agencies.
In other violence, two explosions went off outside a small coalition camp in southern Kandahar province Thursday, Davis said. Neither attack caused casualties or damage.
In another development south of Jalalabad, Afghan security forces seized 11 AK-47 rifles, ammunition and land mines that were traveling aboard four donkeys in a drug-smuggling route near the Pakistan border, said Gen. Mustafa Khan, the local chief of border security forces. No arrests were made, he said.
