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 KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents launched a brazen but ultimately futile assault on the American base at Bagram on Wednesday morning, igniting a ferocious gun battle that left at least one American contractor dead, a dozen soldiers wounded and 10 guerrillas dead. 
  
 Four of the insurgents wore suicide vests but were killed before they could detonate them, American officers said. Earlier in the day, a Taliban spokesman had claimed that seven fighters had struck at Bagram’s gates and allowed 30 others to get inside. 
  
 Americans officers said the attempt failed. 
  
 “At no time were Bagram defenses breached,” said Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the American command. No suicide bombings succeeded, he said. 
  
 Still, the attack represented an aggressive attempt by the Taliban to strike at one of the most important symbols of American power here. Bagram Air Base, about 50 miles north of Kabul, is one of the largest American bases in the country and the headquarters for the military campaign in the east. 
  
 While the details were sketchy, it seems clear, given the number of American casualties, that the Taliban fighters had successfully infiltrated the area and achieved some level of surprise on the heavily fortified base. 
  
 Once the battle started, the Americans sealed off the roads leading into Bagram, and kept many of the local Afghan police officers and soldiers away as well, Afghans said. Afghans living near the base said that the sound of gunfire rattled for more than an hour, and that helicopter gunships were firing on insurgents below. 
  
 Bagram Air Base, built by the Soviet Union in its doomed attempt to subdue the Afghans in the 1980s, is ringed by several layers of defenses. The population in the area, mostly ethnic Tajik, is thought to be friendly to the Americans. 
  
 The assault came on the heels of an attack on Tuesday by a suicide bomber in Kabul, who rammed an explosives-laden bus into an American convoy, killing 18 people, including 5 American soldiers and a Canadian officer. 
  
 The two attacks appeared to be part of a wider campaign directed at the capital and its environs. In recent days, the Taliban have smuggled as many as five suicide bombers into the area, an American military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Some of those bombers may have been killed during the assault on Bagram. 
  
 In addition to killing NATO troops, the Taliban’s goal appears to be to highlight the inability of the Afghan government to hold the capital and the areas around it and to generate maximum publicity. 
  
 The back-to-back attacks came as American and Afghan leaders were preparing to launch a major offensive in the city of Kandahar to break the hold of the insurgents in southern Afghanistan. That campaign is expected to feature several military operations over the course of the summer. 
  
 Bagram has come under attack before, most notably in February 2007, during a visit by then Vice President Dick Cheney. A suicide bomber outside the gates blew himself up and killed 23 people. Mr. Cheney, a mile away, was not harmed. ||||| Enlarge By Ahmad Massoud, AP Afghan policemen look at the mangled remains of a vehicle after a suicide attack in Kabul on Tuesday. RISING DEATH TOLL RISING DEATH TOLL U.S. death toll in Afghanistan war: Note: 2010 numbers through May 18 Source: Defense Department Insurgents launched a brazen pre-dawn assault Wednesday against the giant U.S.-run Bagram Air Base, killing an American contractor and wounding nine service members in the second Taliban strike at NATO forces in and around the capital in as many days. At least 10 insurgents were killed as Taliban suicide bombers attempted to breach the defenses of the base north of Kabul, while others fired rockets and grenades inside, according to a statement issued by U.S. forces. The attack started around 3 a.m. Blasts and gunfire only subsided around midday, said Master Sgt. Tom Clementson, a spokesman for U.S. forces. No insurgents managed to get into the base and none were able to detonate their suicide vests, the statement said. The Bagram attack came a day after a suicide bomber struck a U.S. convoy in Kabul, killing 18 people. The dead included five American troops and a Canadian, making it the deadliest attack on NATO in the Afghan capital in eight months. The deaths put 2010 on a pace to become the deadliest year of the war. Tuesday's attack in Kabul also killed 12 Afghan civilians and pushed the U.S. death toll to 992 for the 9-year-old war, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Pentagon data. Capt. Chris Sukach, a U.S. spokeswoman at Bagram, said a "non-critical building" had been hit. The attacks on the air base and the NATO convoy come as the U.S. military prepares to launch a major operation in the southern Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold, in the coming weeks. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both the Kabul bombing and the attack at Bagram, 30 miles north of Kabul. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said 20 suicide attackers were involved. An Afghan provincial police commander, Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhail, said the attack began when U.S. guards spotted would-be attackers in a car just outside the Bagram base. The Americans opened fire, triggering a gunbattle in which at least one militant triggered his suicide vest. Running gunbattles broke out as U.S. troops hunted down the other attackers. Four of the killed insurgents were intended suicide bombers, the U.S. statement said. The base was undamaged except for "minor" damage to one building, it added. Spokesmen had previously said the building was not strategically important. In February 2007, a suicide bombing killed more than 20 people at a Bagram security gate while Vice President Cheney was inside the base. Cheney was unhurt but the Taliban said he was the target. The Bagram assault occurred following the deadliest day of the year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan with seven Americans dead including two who died in separate attacks in the south. Twelve Afghan civilians also died in Tuesday's blast many of them on a public bus in rush-hour traffic along a major thoroughfare that runs by the ruins of a one-time royal palace and government ministries. The attacks followed a Taliban announcement earlier this month of a spring offensive "Operation Al-Fatah" or "Victory" which would target NATO forces, foreign diplomats, contractors and Afghan government officials. NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan said that Taliban attacks like those in Kabul and in the south have not delayed the Kandahar operation or any of NATO's key goals over the next few months. "The overall campaign is on track," Mark Sedwill told reporters. He stressed that the Kandahar operation will not be a quick-strike offensive like this past winter's push into the town of Marjah in neighboring Helmand province. There's been a steady increase in the U.S. death toll over the past two years after the Taliban resurgence in much of southern Afghanistan. The U.S. death toll in 2010 is more than double what it was for the first five months of 2009 — the deadliest year of the war — and triple what it was for the first five months of 2008. The U.S. military is in the midst of a 30,000-troop buildup in Afghanistan. The upcoming months will be bloodier as U.S. troops attempt to push the Taliban out of Kandahar and other areas, said Caroline Wadhams, director of South Asia Security Studies at the Center for American Progress. "I think it's inevitable we're going to see more violence, because there are going to be more targets," she said. Tuesday's attack involved a suicide car bomb, but the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device (IED), has increasingly become the weapon of choice for the Taliban, Pentagon records show. There has been a 16% increase in IED incidents from January to March, and many of those bombs were placed in Helmand province, site of a major U.S. offensive this year, according to a recent Pentagon report. Contributing: Aamer Madhani, Paul Overberg and The Associated Press Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more |||||
Output:
Seven US soldiers were wounded this morning as the Taliban staged a bold pre-dawn attack at one of the largest US bases in Afghanistan that also killed 10 insurgents. Though details are still murky, an American official told the New York Times that as many as 30 insurgents fought their way toward the heavily fortified base. The military downplayed the attack. "At no time were Bagram defenses breached,” a rep says. It is the second attack on NATO forces around the capital in as many days. Yesterday, a suicide bomber rammed into an American convoy, killing 18. The attacks come after the Taliban announced a spring offensive called "Operation Al-Fatah" or "Victory," notes the Wall Street Journal, and as NATO forces prepare to push south to Kandahar, the Taliban's stronghold.