© The NationalAfghan soldiers on guard as ambulances arrive.
Attackers rammed a captured military Humvee packed with explosives into a training center of the National Directorate for Security in Maidan Wardak province, west of the capital, Kabul. At least two gunmen followed up, spraying the compound with gunfire before they were shot down.
"We have information that 126 people have been killed in the explosion inside the military training center, eight special commandoes are among the dead," said a senior official in the defense ministry in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Local officials also said that scores of troops and NDS personnel were killed in the attack but there was no official confirmation of the casualty toll, with officials ordered not to talk to media for fear of damaging morale. "I have been told not to make the death toll figures public. It is frustrating to hide the facts," said a senior interior ministry official in Kabul.
Comment: How many US taxpayer dollars had been spent building and maintaining that base? And training, arming, and housing those Afghan army soldiers? And how much went into bribes? And kickbacks for defense contractors?
$50 million altogether?
Kaboom - All gone in the blink of a makeshift car-bomb.
Putting up this much resistance for this long, the Taliban can only have done so with the supported of a majority of the population.
After 18 years of this - and with the Taliban now in control (again) of two thirds of the country - it's perhaps time for the US to go home and redirect resources elsewhere?