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Subscribe to RSSUpdated at 8:10 a.m. ET: KABUL, Afghanistan -- Four rockets hit Afghanistan's Bagram airfield, destroying a helicopter belonging to the NATO-led forces and killing three Afghan personnel inside, a spokesman for the coalition said Tuesday.
The attack, which took place at around 10 p.m. local time on Monday (1:30 p.m. ET Monday), came on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Security across the capital, Kabul, was intensified.
Two personnel belonging to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who were also in the helicopter, were wounded, the spokesman said.
The helicopter, which was on a ramp in the airfield when the rockets hit, was destroyed by the ensuing fire, an ISAF official told NBC News.
The Taliban, in a text message to Reuters, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had fired rockets at the helicopter, which was on a ramp in the airfield.
Meanwhile, in the western province of Herat, a suicide attack on a meeting of village elders killed at least seven people and wounded six others, the local police chief’s office told NBC News.
Recent weeks have seen intensified violence across Afghanistan. This week's attacks come days after a young teenager detonated explosives near the heavily barricaded NATO headquarters in Kabul, killing six civilians including children.
That attack followed a suicide bombing of a funeral in eastern Nangarhar province, which killed at least 25.
Despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of Afghan and foreign troops fighting the Taliban-led insurgency, violence is at its worst since the Islamists were toppled by Afghan and U.S. forces in late 2001, five years after they took power.
Politics on the side? US marks 11th anniversary of Sept. 11 attacks
The United Nations says the Taliban are responsible for 80 percent of civilian casualties in the conflict.
Hoshang Hashimi / AP
More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.
Bagram handover
The Bagram attack came hours after the United States handed control of the controversial giant prison located at at the air base and its 3,000 suspected Taliban inmates to Afghan authorities.
"Today is a historical and glorious day for Afghanistan where Afghans are able to take charge of the prison themselves," acting Defense Minister Enayatullah Nazari told a large crowd, including U.S. military officials, on Monday.
NYT: Potential for a mining boom splits factions in Afghanistan
But in a move that has angered the Afghan government, the United States plans to keep at least one block at the prison, where any suspected Taliban fighters or terrorists captured in future raids will be held before being handed over.
Since the agreement on the handover was signed in March, a further 600 people have been jailed at Bagram. The United States has no time frame on when these new prisoners will be handed over, and how long they plan to keep future captives.
NBC's Atia Abawi reports from Kabul, where a Taliban source tells NBC News that they have a plan to either kidnap or kill Britain's Prince Harry, who is currently deployed in Afghanistan.
US: Records for $475M in Afghan fuel buys missing
The United States is also keeping another roughly 30 of the original group of detainees, amid concerns that Kabul might process them out instead of keeping them behind bars, as stipulated in the transfer agreement.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday he spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the need to "continue to detain those that are a threat to their country," pursuant to the handover agreement.
9/11 memorial to cost $60 million a year to operate
"I expressed to him that it was important to celebrate this day that we are transferring authority of a large number of prisoners to the Afghan government. It's an important step," he said. "We want to make sure that they in every way abide by the agreements that we work out with them."
Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com
Afghan officials maintain that detention without trial is illegal under Afghan law. Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, declined to comment on the possibility of detention without trial happening anyway, simply saying: "We are against detainees not being processed by Afghan law."
NBC News' Atia Abawi and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Of course someone of great importance will explain why the US of A is in Afghanistan after ten years?
Of course American politicians did not learn a thing from the ten years that Russian/Soviet troops tried to occupy this sand hill.
Remember... politicians start wars not citizens.
And finally, what is the real reason/purpose of the ten years in this hell hole?
Ooooh no one knows.. Figures. Another political endeavor to line someones pockets?
I agree that Afghanistan has been a wash. We were there because they were a breeding ground for Al-Qaida and the Taliban were modern-day Nazis. Like little kids after the teacher has left the classroom, they will revert to their true animalistic nature. There is no hope to drag these proto-humans into the civilized world.
Bet those 3000 Taliban are out of prison within a week.
Bet those 3000 Taliban are out NOW as we speak. Along with Chirst knows how many other Paki and Afghan thugs.
Mission accomplished.
They're going after any and "all" helicopters trying to take out Prince Harry. This was most probably their first attempt.
You go Harry! Take 'em all out brotha! Be safe with all our brothers and sisters over there.
Leave the "Snake Pit" to the snakes ... crawl in for a look ...and you surely will get bitten!
WOW... what progress we have made in 10 @!$%#ING YEARS!
THANK YOU BUSH/CHENEY/RUMMY/WOLFAWIZIRD
This just shows what happens when you announce when you are going to leave. They just sit back and wait for the time to arrive then attack. This is just a preview of what will happen in 2014 when we finally leave that waste of a country. Why delay the inevitable and leave now. If we are not going to go all out with the war and instead fight it with one hand tied around our balls and the other in our pockets there is no reason to be there.
Just more evidence that we never should have let bushwhacker bush take us into these lost wars that have cost us 1/3rd of our national debt and 7,200 wasted Americans lives for two lost wars. I'm glad bush has been in hiding in Texas since he left office. Maybe it is also the arrest warrants that the Hague has out on him as well for his war crimes? All republicans are war hungry warmongers. McCain now talking about Iran and Syria when he couldn't get Obama to go into Libya!
We should have made peace with Taliban after we have defeated them 10 years ago - we were in a very strong position to dictate terms. Instead we created a puppet government consisting of assorted crooks willing to sell themselves to us. That monumental stupidity has been bearing bitter fruit for the last 10 years.
"...suicide bombing of a funeral..."
No counting doubles.
Don't get fooled, I'm sure precious little Prince Harry has his own special Secret Service type deal following him around every where he goes. Him being over there is just for political and media purposes. He is not "in" with the regular ground troops, etc. He is privileged. He needs to just go home, for real. Before more people get killed messing around with him.
"I expressed to him that it was important to celebrate this day that we are transferring authority of a large number of prisoners to the Afghan government. It's an important step," he said. "We want to make sure that they in every way abide by the agreements that we work out with them."
Of course they will abide by the agreement. Have you ever heard of an agreement not being broken? Whoever drew up this agreement needs to be sent back to school for remedial training. Elementary school. Most 8 year-olds could have told you how this was going to turn out.
Josh Brogan:
Is it possible that today's date, 9/11, has something to do with us being there. Guess a lot of Americans are using that selective memory syndrome again!
Here's a crazy idea.. How about we get the @!$%# out of Afghanistan ... yesterday?
No Max, we should have wiped the Taliban out.
Charlemagne had the same problem with the Barbarians in Germany. He went up the first time to stop raids into his kingdom. After beating them silly, he made a standard treaty with tribute payments to pay for the war. In a couple of years, the Barbarians revolted. Charlemagne returned a put the rebellion down. A few years later, the Barbarians revolted again. This time Charlemagne crushed them and put people in charge that really meant business. Charlemagne never had to return again.
In the closing days of the Bush Adminsitration, George selected 1 of three proposed plans on how to run the Afghanistan surge. Obama asked Bush to not announce the plan, he would like to deal with it. The basics of the plans has already been pretty well flushed out by the media. What Obama did was delay his decision for over 9 months, and cut the Bush choice to 40% strength and put in place stricter rules of engagement. Because the surge wasn't working as Obama chose to do, Obama added 50% more to the surge.
In the meantime Obama pushed the Afghanistan government to make an agreement with the Taliban.
Based on the Taliban's past history, give them a couple of years and they will be the government of Afghanistan and El Qaida might have a new place to hide.
DB Akron,
Don't show your ignorance DB! The Taliban have been fighting for 180+ years to have their country free of foreign influence. First the British for 30+ years, then the Soviets for 30 years and now us for 11 years. I wish them success!
nojo, 9/11 has nothing to do with it! If it did we would be fighting in Saudi Arabia!
In my opinion we're in Afganistan because we want to be in Pakistan and Afganistan is an excuse. We want a base in Pakistan in order to have a base located in that area of the world because it's centrally located between Russia and China. Close enough to keep an eye on things.
I know, sounds like a conspiracy but think about it. Otherwise every other base we have is at least a couple of thousand miles away. Having drones, etc so close gives cover for other 'activities'. We have no real allies who will allow a friendly base hence this 'war'. Sad to say, but I would be very surprised if we ever pull out completely. We may pull most ground troops out but I'm betting we'll have some small force there for as long as we can manage it.
Certainly hope I'm wrong.
"Here's a crazy idea.. How about we get the @!$%# out of Afghanistan ... yesterday?"
Or May 2nd 2011. The whole point of going into that cesspool was to get Bin Laden. Mission Accomplished. Time to go.
When it comes to these never ending wars there are a lot of questions we should be asking. Not the least of is where are the Taliban getting these rockets ? They're not building them in a cave somewhere that's for sure. Maybe Iran ? Or Saudi Arabia ? Maybe Putin is having a little fun and getting a little payback for what we did to them in Afghanistan in the 80's ? I doubt that the Taliban has any old stock weapons left after 10 years of war. Could even be our own CIA ? There are many reasons why the CIA or Others who have an interest in continual war and influence within the CIA would want the war to continue and the money to keep flowing. ( Heroin ? )
Perhaps this is the reason you don't tell the enemy the exact date and time you are pulling out!
@DB - wiping out Taliban? LOL! Dude... you are so clueless... it is like trying to wipe out Southern Baptists in the Bible Belt - the more you throw at them, the more they come at you. We don't need to be in Afghanistan - period. It was US who helped to build up Taliban when Russians were helping the SECULAR and DEMOCRATIC government of Afghanistan to modernize that backwards country. We trained the Islamic fighters, gave them intelligence info, money and weapons. Now we reap the fruit of our own stupidity.
Let me simplify this for you; the only way to "win" this war is to kill every Pashtun man, woman and child. Is that what you are recommending? The Taliban are Pashtun and as the militant element of the Pashtun (Afghanistan majority), they will take control after we leave. What did you expect, a Jeffersonian Democracy? We are occupiers, they want us gone. Did everyone from Alexander the Great to the Russians fight with one hand tied around their balls? No one has successfully occupied Afghanistan. It's too much like herding cats.
Excellent! We now have a solution to violence in Afghanistan. All we have to do is tell the Taliban we're staying and they'll play nice. Great advice from another Neo-Con. A little like Iraq will greet us with candy as liberators and their oil will pay for the war. Interesting thing is that Romney has hired those self same Neo-Cons as his foreign policy and economics advisers. A vote for Romney is a vote for Bush on steroids.
The reason we are still in Afghanistan after 10 years is because instead of devoting our full military might to decisively ending that conflict, George W. Bush lost focus and went after Iraq at the same time, which diverted resources and attention for about 8 years, allowing the Taliban plenty of time to hang around and regroup after our initial barrage of attacks.
You full military might?? America can stick it where the sun does not shine. You ARE using your full military might on women and children you coward because your troops are too cowardly to go after their betters, they know they will have their asses handed out to them. Just look at your brave soldier who murdered more than 16 sleeping women and children because this is his full military might.
Get out of Afghanistan while you still have some might dork, that is your only option.
Finally, please do not tell me about leaving the place a sheet of glass, this will further prove your cowardice along with most of your brain dead countrymen.
Full military might? You mean like nuclear weapons against camel riding Talibs with AK47s? LOL!
Remember Vietnam and the fall of Saigon? Another stupid war that should have never happened that America lost and... still NOTHING HAPPENED? You need to pull your head out of your a$$ and start learning from your own history.
OMG, I am completely shocked that happened. Well, I wonder who could be responsible? Lets see, perhaps a newly trained Afghan soldier who was confused as to who was the enemy. I probably mistook us for Crusaders.
clwyd-2621393
Guess you forget that Bin Laden was leading Al Qaeda and the terrorists who performed the attack were trained in Afganistan, not Saudi Arabia.
Al-Qaeda's origins date back to 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Soon after the invasion, Osama bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan and helped organize Arab mujahadeen. Together with Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian-Jordanian who influenced bin Laden, they formed Maktab al-Khidamat in 1984, to provide support for Arab mujahadeen who came to join the jihad in Afghanistan. The attack and the 19 terrorists involved on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and attempted attack by Flight 83 were planned, trained and executed from Afganistan with the full support of the Taliban.
Bin Laden paid no attention to America until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 marked a point where bin Laden turned his attention toward the United States. He strongly urged the Saudi regime not to host the 500,000 American troops, instead advocating the use of a mujahidin force to oust the Iraqis. They did and he became an enemy to the Saudi's and America.
Read your history. Only this Saudi Arabia has to do with Bin Laden is his family lives there!
Handing over most of Bagram prison is another step closer to coming home for all of the US and Allied service members! Hhuurrrhhhh!
Densor Fortis
I dont think Arabs belong in this civilization, you are better off convincing a donkey to drink water....
Your tax dollars hard at work. I would really love to know how much money our wonderful government actually lost in all these years that we could have had to pay our bills.
The government lost....like the interest on our debt? That's more than both wars put together. Or, the money we used to pay off Wall Streets/big banks poker debts?
You're just not looking at it the right way. All that tax money went to creating jobs for Haliburton and the other contractors. :-)
The 3 Afghanis killed by the rockets (still unknown locations) were Security officers.Baghram Air Base will become a real trap for all NATO/ISIF forces- the prison complex just handed over to Afghanistan with 3,125 prisoner-detainees and the Taliban fighters released from Guantanamo by Obama as a precondition of talks with Afghan Taliban peace initiative seems to be following Leading from Behind Obama doctrine. How many armed forces personnel killed? wounded?monies wasted- what's a trillion here and there- teaching/tutoring Afghan military/police forces when green on blue is the password. Teaching/building schools- when burqas reign again and girls are verboten- listening to music/dancing-a crime benefiting beheading..warnings for entering sec.forces-beheading of their children.
Either that poor guy in the slideshow is the unluckiest person in the world and has been wounded five times in the last two weeks, or NBC is running out of pictures to post with their stories.
mimi -- If you're so worried about monies spent and personnel killed,you should have spoken out 12 or 9 or 6 or 4 years ago. As for leading from behind, this President got us OUT of Iraq and is doing the same by leading us out of Afghanistan (which is more then McCain or Romney would do). Even a moron like you must have noticed that Americans are no longer dieing in Iraq and soon we will say the same thing about Afghanistan. Try clearing the hate crust out of your eyes so you can see clearly.
If you go back and look at articles and posts during the Bush years, you'll see very little mention of cost or deficit spending... it was the farthest from our minds at the time. Why more attention wasn't given to the fact that this was the first war EVER not paid-for or somehow funded with war bonds or SOMETHING is absolutely amazing. But we continued... added the HUGE Homeland Security effort, a second war in Iraq, and since "deficits don't matter" (Cheney), we just went on and approved major legislation like Medicaid and tax cuts without funding them. Looking back, setting ourselves up for our current economic disaster.
And now we blame it on entitlements, the poor, and illegal immigrants... while continuing to fund tax cuts at the top so they can send record amounts to the Cayman Islands.
I'll quit here. You can only spell out so much stupidity before you get too depressed to post.
They need to level the whole compound
"Either that poor guy in the slideshow..."
He's the ABC Sports skier who crashed off the jump every Sunday - the agony of defeat.
LMarcT you have a point indeed. If America would pay less attention to who's winning America's Top Model and more to the real issues ruining our lives we would be in a much better place.
I hear ya brother.
DocHolliday-2979123
Man, you are a sick puppy. Every human from all walks of life and cultures have the right to live on this planet. To say what you commented above is from a demented psychopath. Are you a serial killer per chance?
The only people I feel should not deserve to live are the terrorists, whether they be Arab, Pakistanie, Home Grown USA terrorists, neo nazi's and the KKK. There are many others but you get my drift!
Not saying it's the reason or a viable source but I've heard we were in Afghanistan for the lithium that was found there. Below is an article at least confirming they found it there and knowing the government they knew about it long before the nytimes would have reported on it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?pagewanted=all
1946 survey listed all the minerals including lithium and there's plenty of lithium right here in US of A- in States that could truly use the money. (an old book from 1946 by one of the scientists involved in Manhattan Project)
Was anyone expecting anything else. We cannot fix the world. These people are going to fight FOREVER.
They are born hating not only each other and the rest of the world and with the religious nuts who rule, really, was ANYONE expecting any thing else?
Was this another 20 Million Dollars the U.S. lost........ And the U.S. thinks, it has not lost this encounter with the Osama Bin Laden Strategists....... They have bankrupted and ruined the standard of life in the United States and the world; leaving the U.S. unable to protect its Southern Border
It seems the U.S. Strategist success of making Osama Bin Laden an Ally to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, would make Caligula of ancient Rome look like a genius......... These War Strategist had to have at least a 6th Grade education in assessing all facts for going forward in the future....
Afghanistan is just another little 3rd world dung heap. The handful of Afghanis who are educated are smart enough to know how to loot the country from end to end. The rest are childlike, 2nd grade educated (at best), sheeple who will blindly follow their Imams without question.
It wasn't worth the cost of a single American, certainly not one more. Trying to stabilize that $hithole is as useless as trying to plug a hole in a dike with your finger. The Afghanis love to fight, mindless, senseless violence is their first love (after fundamentalist Islam, of course). They'll fight anyone they can find to fight with. If they can't find someone outside the country to fight with, they'll turn on each other.
Leave them alone to kill one another if that's what blows their skirts up. If they venture out of their borders and try to export their senseless violence, squash them like a bug and move on. Otherwise, let them kill each other.
Yes, but it seems according to reports that Karzai pays the Lobbyists massive amounts of money who pay off selected Politicians.............. The normal American if they complain are ruled anti American.
Afghanistan and Karzai are synonymous with CORRUPTION and they are doing it with OUR money, which means our tax dollars or more correctly our national debt.
"Afghan officials maintain that detention without trial is illegal under Afghan law. Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, declined to comment on the possibility of detention without trial happening anyway, simply saying: "We are against detainees not being processed by Afghan law."
But it's legal to grow opium, assault women and children, take bribes and kill people that don't believe in the government's religion.
The entire country is corrupt and they obviously don't want change. Those that do live in fear for their lives if they go against the govt dictates. Let's pack up our gear, don't leave them a SINGLE ROUND OF AMMO, and get out. Our tax dollars can be used in much better ways on this side of the ocean. It is not the USA's job to save the world.
Im worried when we leave Afghanistan that we will get a bunch of Afghanistan refugees immigrating here, unlike Vietnam refugees these folks will bring with them Muslim fanatics, also the last thing we need is more Muslims immigrating here. We can all see what happens when Muslims are the majority in a population or even a large minority and I dont want to see that happening to our country. Look whats happening to France and England.
If I could find the faucet for those 30 cent US Dollars pouring out overseas, I'd turn it off.
Okay, that first picture in the slideshow is on here every day on some article.... next!
You want to know why we are in A'stan? The war on terror is a side-show to the war on drug's.
Bring the troops home NOW. You can not win this war.
Many ask to bring the troops home. That is a great idea but only if we secure our borders. Both of which are not likely to happen. We will stay engaged in other countries but not in our own.
Instead we will protect you from cave dwellers and yourself.
Gee whiz! Who could have predicted this?
And we are going to cut and run in 2014 whether we have won or not. What is the purpose of these political wars. We haven't done anything in Afghanistan.You have the @!$%#e and the Sunni groups who will come in and make it a civil war. In Iraq the minority religion was in power. It is no wonder that free elections were not looked favorably upon by the minority in power since they knew there would be payback for all the years they had inflicted misery on the other. The Muslim religion was split 1400 years ago. You have the same thing there that we had with the Catholic Church during the Protestant revolt. Get out now.
The last paragraph is precious. "Detention without trial is illegal under Afghan law". Of course the Justice Dept. can here as of January 1, 2012. So who has more freedom and rights???
*SHRUG* Not our problem any more. Let them kill each other.
That can't possibly be true! Just last week President Obama bragged that, "We’ve blunted the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan"
2,000 million dollars a week spent on this war.....Enough money to buy two brand new aircraft carriers every week, and no one even mentions it.
How much could 2,000 million dollars EVERY week do for education, health care, etc for us?
Instead, we spend it for NOTHING.
And NO political party even mentions it.
Am I the only one that finds this strange?
And Romney COMPLETELY ignored even mentioning the brave military....Of course his sons aren't there...What a surprise that is !
Perhaps if Batman and his boy Robin get elected, they will gets us out... HA HA HA....Right !!!.
Aircraft carriers are upwards of 4 BILLION apiece and that doesn't include the aircraft but, we get you're point.
Does anyone in the world believe the Afghan forces are going to hold off the Taliban after we leave? I mean it's a joke, what the heck are we doing, if we're just going to run then just run and save lives and money. The Afghan forces have as much chance of holding Kabul as the ARVN had of holding Saigon.
Quite true....and probably even less desire to do so. Half the Afghan Army are closet Taliban and the half that aren't are afraid of the half that are.
It's time to flush our great Afghan nation-building adventure. Let them have the dung heap and do what they want as long as they keep it inside their own country.
Yes, let's all act surprised... this is how these humanoids act. This is just their way of feeling like "they win", and of course, if there's some damage afterwards, then all the better.
Should have left some leaky vials of ebola behind as well.
Despite the fact that, just last week, Obama bragged that, "We’ve blunted the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan," it looks like the Taliban are already anticipating NATO's departure, so they can take their country back ... into the dark ages. The Taliban will once again establish their brutal tyranny over Afghanistan. They will once again provide a safe haven for Muslim terrorists. And they will once again build their suicide bombs and plan yet more attacks on the civilized world. What a waste.
It is, perhaps, small comfort to realize that the citizens of the country who refused to fully support the NATO forces will be back under the oppressive boot heel of the Muslim extremists. Maybe they will regret their cowardice.
I'm sure their women will.
Is that all?? This story is not worth printing about!! We want more blood and gore.
Those Neanderthals have been continuously fighting over who's in charge for thousands of years. They ain't gonna quit now. This $#!t will continue until Iran has nukes, then something will set them off and the whole middle east will be a smoldering hole in the ground that glows in the dark. The best we can do is to get out of there and beef up our defense of our own country. Let the rag-heads destroy themselves. We have oil here, we ought to be using it. We should give them NO more technology, aircraft, weapons, etc. Let 'em go back to throwing rocks at each other.