AP reports that the Taliban fired rockets into the American Bagram Air Field outside Kabul in Afghanistan Monday night, damaging the plane serving the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey. The general was out on a visit at the time of the hit, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said on Tuesday.
Two maintenance workers were lightly harmed by shrapnel from the two rockets, coalition spokesman Jamie Graybeal said.
The attack on the plane is considered a propaganda coup for the Taliban, after having shot down an American helicopter last week.
The past few weeks have also seen a series of killings of U.S. military personnel by their Afghan partners, killings that have become so frequent that Army units now appoint one soldier each as “guardian angel” to serve as lookout in case the “partners” are taking aim at our side.
Dempsey “was nowhere near” the plane when the rockets hit near where the aircraft was parked, Graybeal said.
The spokesman said Dempsey had finished his mission in Afghanistan and was on his way to his next destination Tuesday morning, but it is not certain which plane he was using, and how much damage the original plane sustained.
Dempsey was in Afghanistan following a particularly deadly few weeks for Americans in the 10-year+ old Afghan war.