Taliban Wearing U.S. Military Uniforms Attack

28 August 2010

At around 0400 this morning Taliban militants wearing U.S. military uniforms assaulted Forward Operations Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman. The bases are located in Khost province which lies south-east of Kabul.

A spokesman for the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) said, Coalition Forces beat back both attacks killing 24 militants and capturing 5 as they attempted to breach the fence line surrounding the compound. Soldiers called in the helicopter gunships and three militants said to be involved in the attack were killed in an air strike on their fleeing vehicle. ISAF said that there were no coalition casualties.

Major Wazir Pacha, an officer at the provincial police headquarters told the AP news agency that the militants used rifles, heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the attack. He also told of how they had uncovered one truck load of explosives and another truck containing ammunition that had been abandoned after becoming stuck in deep mud.

ISAF announced earlier in the week that they had captured a senior Taliban commander in the Khost province and no one has said whether these latest attacks are related to that capture.

More and more Khost province is becoming the launching ground for Taliban insurgency attacks on Afghanistan.