This Time, the Taliban Attacks Bagram

Yesterday, the Taliban successfully killed at least 18 U.S. servicemembers and Afghan civilians a suicide car-bomb attack. Today, less successfully, Taliban forces attacked the nearby Bagram Air Field, an extremely secure and massive base. They didn’t make it beyond the outer perimeter — where, it’s worth noting, civilian trucks and taxis packed with Afghan civilians seeking to supply the base are often backed up the length of a football field — but an ISAF press release says “nearly a dozen” insurgents were killed, giving an indication of how big the attack was.

That attack used “rockets, small arms and grenades” and sought to use four operatives as suicide bombers. They were killed before they could detonate.

One U.S. contractor is dead. Nine U.S. servicemembers are wounded. Two of those nine are said to have returned to duty, and the rest ”are currently in stable condition,” according to an ISAF press release. But it’s been a long time since there was an attack this large on Bagram. Coming a day after the Kabul attack, the message the Taliban seek to deliver is that there aren’t any safe areas for the allies of the Afghan government.