Afghan attack damages U.S. general's plane

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An insurgent rocket attack damaged the plane of the top U.S. military general as it sat parked at a coalition base in Afghanistan yesterday, dealing another blow to the image of progress in building a stable country as foreign forces work to wind down the 10-year-old war.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the two rockets that landed near the C-17 transport plane that U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew into Bagram Air Field north of Kabul a day earlier.

Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the U.S. military and the international coalition, said Dempsey was in his staff quarters and was unhurt in the attack. But the damage to the plane forced Dempsey to use another aircraft for his flight from Bagram to Iraq yesterday.

Dempsey was in Afghanistan for talks with military leaders about the war as well as a disturbing rash of killings of U.S. military trainers by their Afghan partners or militants dressed in Afghan uniform. -- AP