The assailants also took some families hostage, using them as “human shields” after storming the complex as an attempt to slow down the military’s advance.
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It was a major air base which plays a a central role in the years long military campaign in the country, for American military and intelligence forces as well as the Afghan Army.
A Taliban assault on Afghanistan’s Kandahar International Airport has so far left 37 civilians and Afghan security forces dead and another 35 injured.
Taliban fighters stormed a perimeter section of the heavily fortified site which contains both a civilian airport and the joint Afghan-NATO military base.
The assault underscores the Taliban’s strength as Afghanistan’s government and USA forces aim to bring the group back to peace talks 14 years after an invasion that has killed more than 2,200 American troops and cost taxpayers more than $700 billion.
As of late Wednesday morning, nine civilians and Afghan troops had been killed, in addition to nine attackers, said an officer with the Afghan army’s Kandahar-based 205th Corps, who asked for anonymity to speak about operations.
Meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, said in a statement to media that the insurgents were still attacking Afghan forces and had killed “many soldiers and destroyed vehicles and helicopters”.
The Taliban, fighting to re-establish hard-line Islamist rule after US-led military intervention toppled their regime in 2001, have been struggling to settle a leadership dispute which has seen scores killed in fighting between opposing factions.
“I escaped unhurt but a bodyguard was killed while another was wounded”, he said. “Today…our security forces have tactically retreated from Khanishin district center, after three days of clashes, resulting in the death of 16 Afghan security personnel”, said Helmand police spokesman Mahmood Ashna. One image showed 10 young men with short beards, armed with Kalashnikovs and dressed in smart, identical military uniforms.
The attack comes as Afghan and Pakistani officials meet at this week’s Heart of Asia conference in Islamabad, where reviving peace talks with the Taliban is expected to be a key topic of discussion.
“I strongly reiterate our commitment to lasting and just peace within which all movements that resort to arms convert themselves to political parties and participate in the political process legitimately”, Ghani told reporters as he landed in Islamabad.
Pakistan hosted rare face-to-face talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban last summer, but the negotiations collapsed after Afghanistan announced that longtime Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died in a Pakistani hospital two years earlier.
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In September, Taliban fighters briefly captured the northern provincial capital of Kunduz.
