NATO base in Afghanistan repels attack

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- The ninth anniversary of the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan Saturday was marked by numerous attacks, including one on a NATO military base, officials said.

Before sunrise, militants opened fire on the base near the airport in Jalalabad, in the eastern province of Nangahar with small arms fire, the BBC quoted NATO as saying.

The gunfight lasted two hours and at least eight insurgents were killed, the report said. Some of the dead were seen to be wearing suicide explosive belts. A Taliban spokesman said it had equipped 14 of the attackers with bomb belts, the BBC said.

There was no report of NATO or Afghan troop injuries or fatalities in the attack, the second in the area in six months.

Elsewhere, a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded in a crowded market in the province of Kunduz, officials said.

Initial reports said two police officers and six civilians died in the blast and 18 others were injured.

On Nov. 13, 2001, U.S.-led forces routed the fundamentalist Taliban regime from power in Kabul in response to the hijacked airliner terror attacks in the United States three months earlier. NATO now has more than 150,000 troops from more than 45 countries in Afghanistan battling Taliban and al-Qaida militants.