Report: Taliban attacks international airport in Kabul

Afghan police and military forces engaged with “an unknown number of suicide bombers” and Taliban fighters in a firefight that raged for hours, forcing commercial air traffic to be rerouted away from the airport, according to The New York Times. 

{mosads}At no time was the ISAF side of the airport breached, and no American or NATO troops were killed in the ensuing gun battle, a command official told the Times. 

The Kabul airport attack was the most brazen strike by the Taliban inside Kabul since the beginning of this year’s fighting season in the country. 

In May, insurgents detonated a car bomb outside the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an international group affiliated with the United Nations, in downtown Kabul.

After the explosion, which killed on Afghan police officer and injured 10, Taliban gunmen and Afghan security forces engaged in a nearly five-hour gun battle in the streets of the Afghan capital.

Taliban fighters strafed the IOM compound with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire until security forces beat back the insurgent attack, according to reports at the time. 

The IOM assault took place a week after a massive car bomb ripped through an American convoy traveling through downtown Kabul, killing 16 people, including six American military advisers.

U.S. and coalition commanders warned attacks like Monday’s airport assault would be the hallmark of this year’s fighting season, likely the last one for U.S. forces before they withdraw in 2014. 

Roughly 66,000 American troops remain in Afghanistan, with half of those forces scheduled to withdraw from the country this spring. 

The final 32,000 American forces remaining in the country will start coming home following the country’s presidential election in April 2014 — officially ending America’s combat role.

Top American military leaders have already begun coordinating that postwar plan with NATO. 

The United States, Germany and Italy committed to serve as “lead nations” for the training mission, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said after the conclusion of a NATO meeting in Brussels earlier this month. 

The U.S. military will be the largest contributor, taking the lead in the more volatile eastern and southern regions. Germany and Italy will serve as lead nations in the west and north.