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Missiles do little damage, but militants say more attacks coming to the Afghan capital.
KABUL — Taliban militants unleashed a wave of rockets at Kabul’s international airport and government buildings Tuesday in an attempt to shatter the sense of security in the Afghan capital less than three weeks before presidential elections.
The rockets missed their targets, lightly wounding a girl and a man with flying glass, but a Taliban spokesman said the group would soon launch more attacks in Kabul, which has been largely spared the violence roiling the south and east of the country.
Incumbent President Hamid Karzai made a rare campaign appearance in the heavily Pashtun east to appeal for votes from the ethnic group that provides most of the support for the insurgents. He told a crowd of several thousands in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, that Western forces must release suspected Taliban supporters and fighters held without charge for months and even years.
The U.S. military holds about 600 prisoners at a detention center at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul as “unlawful enemy combatants” denied the right to legal representation. Their status is a growing source of tension between the U.S. and Karzai, who has been increasingly criticizing American forces for the detentions, along with raids on homes and airstrikes that kill civilians.
He also called for the Taliban to negotiate with the government and participate in the election but said the two sides remained too far apart for talks to be successful.