Rockets hit US base at Bagram,kill 2 US troops

A rare rocket attack on the main US base in Afghanistan early today killed two US troops and wounded six other Americans,including two civilians,officials said. Bagram Air Base,which lies 40 kilometers northeast of Kabul,is surrounded by high mountains and long stretches of desert from which militants could fire rockets. But such attacks,particularly lethal ones,are relatively rare.

Two US troops died and four Americans were wounded,including four military personnel and two civilians,said Lt Cmdr Christine Sidenstricker,a US military spokeswoman. The top government official in Bagram Kabir Ahmad said several rockets were fired at the base early today. A spokesman with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said that three rounds landed inside Bagram and one landed outside. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t the office’s top spokesman.

The wounded personnel were taken to the main hospital on Bagram for treatment. ISAF said it wasn’t known if any Afghan civilians living near the base were harmed in the attack. In February 2007,a suicide bomb attack outside Bagram killed 23 people while then-Vice President Dick Cheney was at the base. The attacker never tried to penetrate even the first of several US-manned security checkpoints,instead detonating his explosives among a group of Afghan workers outside the base. The Taliban claimed responsibility.