US Joint Chiefs of Staff’s plane damaged in Afghanistan

August 21, 2012 - 10:15 am | Category: World

Gen. Martin Dempsey was not near the plane at the time of the overnight strike, officials say. It is not considered an intentional attack on the aircraft. Dempsey was in Afghanistan to raise the issue of ‘insider’ shootings by Afghan security forces.

Mortars or missiles fired by insurgents hit the plane being used by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff while it was on the ground at a NATO base, but the top American general was not in or near the aircraft at the time, Western military officials said Tuesday.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, who had traveled to Afghanistan to confer with senior Afghan and U.S. officials, was in his quarters at sprawling Bagram air base, north of Kabul, at the time of the overnight strike, said Lt. Col. Hagen Messer, a spokesman for the NATO coalition.