Afghanistan. Shocking Taliban propaganda video of deadly suicide attack at U.S. base.
A suicide truck bomber calmly tells a cameraman of his plans to ‘take revenge’ moments before blowing himself up at a U.S. base in a chilling new Taliban video.
The documentary-style video was released this week by the al-Qaeda-friendly Islamist group.
The brazen assault was carried out on June 1 at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost, Afghanistan.
ABC News reported the details of the video on Monday.
‘Those who came here insulting Islam and the Koran, I will take revenge on them,’ the driver says from behind the wheel, waving to the camera before driving off.
The next shot shows the truck moving toward the base.
A chanting of ‘allahu akbar’ can be heard on the video as the truck moves forward before exploding in a massive fireball.
The same explosion is then seen from a two separate angles as the music plays.
Moments later, the camera focuses on a separate vehicle that pulls up to the base as the mushroom cloud from the explosion continues to rise.
A group of heavily armed insurgents wearing body armour are then seen getting out of the car in preparation to storm the base.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said: ‘They had suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and hand grenades.
The militants, however, were met with U.S. and Afghan forces inside Base Salerno, and were promptly killed, according to Nato.
Though details about casualties in the attack were sketchy at first, two Americans have now been confirmed dead.
John Kirkland, 55, a civilian contractor working in Afghanistan, was killed in the blast. Army Pfc Vincent J. Ellis, 22, died three days later.
Mujahid said that the suicide bomber targeted the base in an explosives-filled car that slipped onto the base near where coalition troops dine.
ABC News reported that the dining hall was levelled in the blast.
Mujahid also claimed that an airplane on an airstrip at the base was destroyed and that ‘tens’ of foreign forces were killed and wounded.
Forward Operating Base Salerno is a large coalition base that has a large Soviet-built airfield.
The area was a hotbed of insurgent attacks
Salerno is near Camp Chapman, where seven CIA employees were killed in a suicide attack in December 2009.
In the past few years, Salerno and its outlying fire bases have been the focus of repeated militant suicide, artillery and sniper attacks.
One of the most brazen of the war occurred in August, 2008, when about 100 Taliban fighters broke through the perimeter of the base.
After a two-hour firefight, helicopter gunships forced the guerrillas to retreat.
On May 19, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police checkpoint in Ali Sher district of Khost province, killing 13 people – 10 civilians, two Afghan policemen and an Afghan border police officer.
(dailymail)
