 |
| Image: Flickr User - U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos |
By Catherine Putz
As details emerge, the key question will be how did the attackers breach the airport’s security?
Tuesday evening Taliban assaulted the Kandahar airport, an attack that coincided with the opening of the Heart of Asia conference in Islamabad. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is in Pakistan attending the conference, which seeks to further regional cooperation and is seen as an opportunity for Afghanistan and Pakistan to move toward re-starting (re-re-re-starting?) the peace process aborted earlier this year.
Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city, is a well-know place within the wider war. Positioned in the south, in the heart of Pashtun territory and the Taliban’s traditional stomping grounds, the city continues to host thousands of coalition forces.
While reports are still coming out and many details are unconfirmed, the fighting has died down after nearly 24 hours. The latest AP report cites the Afghan Defense Ministry as saying that 37 people were killed in the attack, including nine of the attackers. Thirty-five people were injured and one attacker, reportedly injured, continues to battle Afghan forces. A doctor at a military hospital told the BBC that they had received 41 bodies, including children, from the attack. The Taliban, as it usually does, offered a likely exaggerated count of fatalities, claiming that 150 were killed.
Read the full story at The Diplomat