Taliban launches mass assault on key Afghan army headquarters

Taliban fighters launched a surprise, complex attack Friday on a key Afghan army headquarters in the northern province of Balkh, leaving over 50 Afghan soldiers dead as fighting continues in the embattled territory.

No U.S. or NATO forces attached to Train, Advise and Assist Command - North, the main coalition hub for northern Afghanistan, were injured or killed in the assault on the headquarters of Afghan army’s 209th Corps, U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas said.

Roughly 10 Taliban fighters and suicide bombers, disguised as Afghan soldiers, opened fire on Afghan troops in the facility’s dining hall and inside the base’s mosque, with two of the bombers detonating their ordnance inside both facilities, Agence France-Presse reports.

Afghan special forces intervened and brought to an end the nearly seven-hour firefight at the base, Gen. John Nicholson, head of all U.S. forces in the country, said in a statement.

“The attack on the 209th Corps today shows the barbaric nature of the Taliban,” the four-star general said. “I want to praise the Afghan commandos who brought today’s atrocity to an end.”

Two years ago, Taliban fighters shocked U.S. and Afghan commanders in Kabul by briefly capturing Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh’s provincial capital and the country’s third-largest city. It was the first time Taliban forces held a major Afghan city since the initial U.S. invasion in 2001.

Friday’s attack was also the first major, high-profile strike against Afghan forces since a massive U.S. airstrike against insurgent targets in the eastern part of the country. Last week, American bombers dropped the so-called “mother of all bombs” on a Islamic State tunnel complex in the Achin district in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.

At 22,000 pounds with a blast yield equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, the GBU-43 — also known as the “mother of all bombs” — is one of the most powerful conventional weapon in the American armory, second only to those in the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal. The April 13 attack against the terror group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, in Afghanistan was the first time the weapon has been used in combat.

Over 90 members of an Afghan cell of the Islamic State — Islamic State in Iraq and Syria - Khorasan province, or ISIS-K — were killed, according to local reports.

Meanwhile, Central Command officials confirmed the death of Abdul Rahman Uzbeki, a “top aide” to Islamic State chieftain Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in Syria. Col. Thomas declined to comment on operational details of the mission, but did tell reporters at the Pentagon that Uzbeki’s death was not the result of an airstrike, indicating a ground operation possibly involving U.S. special forces.

The top Islamic State aid was part of the group’s operational planning cell, responsible for facilitating overseas attacks, including the deadly New Year’s Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub that left 39 dead.