NATO Repels Insurgent Raids on Bases in Afghanistan

NATO says its forces in eastern Afghanistan have repelled insurgent attacks on a NATO base and a U.S. camp and killed 13 of the attackers.



NATO says insurgents opened fire before dawn Saturday with machine guns and rockets on its Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman in Khost province.



NATO says coalition and Afghan ground forces beat back the assaults and captured five members of the insurgent group, which it named as the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network. It says there were no casualties among NATO or Afghan troops.



Afghan police say they found the bodies of 14 insurgents after the fighting and seized two vehicles loaded with explosives and ammunition.



NATO says four of the insurgents killed in the battle were wearing suicide vests and three were hit by a NATO air strike as they tried to flee the Salerno base in a vehicle.



Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the militant group attacked with about 30 fighters, including suicide bombers.



NATO identified one of the insurgents killed by the air strike as Mudasir, a senior explosives expert who facilitated suicide bomb attacks from Haqqani sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan.



Camp Chapman was the scene of a suicide bombing that killed seven U.S. intelligence agents last December.



In another development, NATO says its forces mistakenly killed two private security contractors Friday in the central province of Wardak.



NATO says a coalition vehicle had just come under fire from insurgents when the contractors\' car approached the patrol at high speed. It says NATO personnel saw a man shooting out of the approaching car and fired on it, killing two occupants.



NATO says coalition forces later discovered the two people killed in the car were contractors. It says the contractors apparently had been returning fire against the same insurgents who attacked the NATO patrol and had been increasing their speed to break contact.



The alliance is investigating the incident.


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