Two years after insurgents attacked the main U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters in the heart of Kabul, killing at least nine people in a battle lasting several hours as attackers fired from a partially constructed building, and one year after the infamous Benghazi consulate attack which resulted in the deaths of Americans, overnight yet another attack was staged against US property in Afghanistan, this time the US consulate in Herat, western Afghanistan's main city, where detonated a powerful bomb outside the front gates and launching a gunbattle with security forces. At least three people were killed, however none of them Americans. The attack began at about 6 a.m. (0150 GMT). A Reuters witness said he saw flames in front of the compound rising from the wreckage of the vehicle and could hear the gunbattle as the attack unfolded.
Reuters reports that while the circumstances of the attack were initially unclear, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul said all U.S. personnel in the consulate in Herat were safe and had been accounted for.
He described the incident as a "complex" attack that included a car bomb. A U.S. State Department statement later said the attack was over.
Herat police chief General Rahmatullah Safi said a police officer and a translator had been killed and two Afghan staff working in the consulate had been wounded.
Abdul Raoof Ahmadi, a spokesman for the main hospital in Herat, later said three people, including two police and a security guard, had been killed and 17 wounded.
Safi said Afghans and Americans had been trapped inside the consulate while fighting raged outside. "Taliban insurgents are in one compound fighting with Afghan guards and Americans are in another compound safe," he said.
The U.S. State Department statement said a truck carrying attackers had driven up to the front gate of the consulate and insurgents began attacking Afghan guards and other security contractors. It said the truck later exploded.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack in Herat.
"Our aim for this attack is to show the Americans that they are not safe anywhere in this country," Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said in a statement emailed to reporters.
Americans probably know that already. One wonders, however, just where the orders for this attack came from. With the US spoiling for a false flag in the aftermath of the Syrian debacle, which now needs a bigger and more dramatic "offensive" against the US to unleash nationalist anger and give Obama the carte blanche to bomb whoever, one can't help but be skeptical.