A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, Dawlat Waziri, said that “37 people, many of them civilians”, have been killed since Tuesday.
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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.
The sprawling airport in Kandahar city, known as Kandahar Air Field has both a military and a civilian section, as well as a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation base.
The Taliban said in a statement 150 soldiers had been killed but the movement has often made exaggerated casualty claims in the past.
The southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces, both notorious for growing poppy and militancy, have been regarded as traditional hotbeds of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Rival Taliban factions also attacked each other in Zerko, with 30 insurgents wounded.
“The operation is going very slowly as the Taliban have taken six people hostage including two women and two children, so we have to act cautiously”, said Dawood Shah Wafadar, commander of the 205 Atal army corps in southern Afghanistan.
“It seems that the insurgents failed to get inside the base itself, so it’s not a security breach on the scale of the Camp Bastion attack in 2012”, the official said.
Pakistan, which has historically supported the Afghan Taliban, hosted a milestone first round of peace negotiations in July. It added that 37 people, including 17 army men, were wounded. By evening Wednesday, one remaining attacker was still battling security forces, the statement said.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military personnel, civilian contractors and Afghan forces are based there.
Despite Canada’s sacrifices in Afghanistan, Sajjan says the funding request will be reviewed in the same way as other calls for help in the fight against terrorism around the world.
The attack came hours before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited Pakistan to speak at a conference attended by regional leaders to discuss the country’s future.
The leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan jointly opened the conference, with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif saying Islamabad wanted to revive peace talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban that have been stalled since the summer.
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Afghan officials claimed late on Tuesday night that the insurgents had been subdued, but fierce fighting continued for several hours afterwards, reportedly trapping passengers in the airport overnight.
