Afghan militants hit US military chief's plane

Kabul: Militants fired rockets into a US base in Afghanistan and damaged the plane of the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff while he was on a visit, but the general was not near the aircraft, a spokesman for the US-led military coalition said on Tuesday.

The attack on the plane of US Army General Martin Dempsey represented yet another propaganda coup for the Taliban after they claimed to have shot down a US helicopter last week. It also followed a string of disturbing killings of US military trainers by their Afghan partners or militants dressed in Afghan uniforms.

Two maintenance workers were slightly injured by shrapnel from the two rockets that were fired into Bagram Air Field outside Kabul on Monday night, coalition spokesman Jamie Graybeal said.

General Dempsey "was nowhere near" the plane when the rockets hit near where the aircraft was parked, Mr Graybeal said.

The spokesman added that General Dempsey had finished his mission in Afghanistan and had left by Tuesday morning, though it was unclear what plane he flew out on or how badly the targeted plane was damaged.

General Dempsey was in Afghanistan to discuss the state of the war after a particularly deadly few weeks for Americans in the more than 10-year-old Afghan war.