The attack against Kandahar Airfield (KAF), about 30 kilometers south of Kandahar city, began shortly after sundown on December 8 with fighting continuing into the early morning hours of December 9.
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Taliban fighters stormed Kandahar’s global airport around 6:00 p.m. local time, sparking a fierce battle with security forces, according to Pajhwok, an Afghan independent news outlet.
At about midnight, Afghan officials said the fighting seemed to have been contained.
Gen. Daud Shah Wafadar, commander of Afghan army corps headquartered in Kandahar.
A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation spokesman for the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said there were no coalition casualties in the Kandahar assault.
Mansoor established the timing of the recording by referring to a battle between Afghan forces and the Taliban in Wardak province on Friday which killed a number of civilians.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi said the insurgents were still attacking Afghan forces and had killed many soldiers and destroyed vehicles and helicopters.
Taliban has launched an attack on Kandahar airport little while ago and clashes are still underway.
“The militants have also taken some civilians hostage”, he added.
“The insurgents managed to breach the first gate of the complex”, the spokesman said.
The event comes as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visits Pakistan to get a regional summit attended by the US, India as well as Pakistan where they may be likely to discuss peace talks with all the Taliban.
The gunmen were targeting residential blocks housing govt employees & the joint Afghan-NATO military base at the airport.
In recent months the Taliban have regained control of much of Afghanistan, with vast swathes of rural areas slipping beyond the control of the central government.
Sources said the insurgents also attacked nearby apartment buildings and houses, where families’ of military and high-ranking officials lives. The Taliban have been met with heavy resistance at the bottom, still no USA personnel have been involved within the fighting, the official stated.
The insurgents are regularly known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
On Monday night, two militants were killed and five security personnel wounded after Taliban attacked a police station in Kandahar city.
The attack underscored the ability of the Islamist insurgency to undertake high-profile attacks at will. Taliban attacks have intensified and expanded in Afghanistan this year in the absence of direct support from global combat troops who pulled out from the country last year.
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Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stressed his commitment to “an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process”, a reference to the talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, hosted by Pakistan, that foundered after one round in July after news leaked that Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar had been dead for two years.
