Rockets hit Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan

"Last night three rockets were fired at the airport and two of them hit the runway... Due to this all flights from the airport have been cancelled," airport chief Massoud Pashtun told AFP.Pashtun said work to repair the runway was underway and expected the airport to be operational later on Sunday.An official at the civil aviation authority in Kabul confirmed the rocket attack.Kandahar's air base is vital to providing the logistics and air support needed to keep the militants from overrunning Afghanistan's second-biggest city. The attack on the airport came as the Taliban inched closer to overrunning two other provincial capitals -- Herat in the west and Lashkar Gah in the south.The Taliban's significant territorial gains during the final stages of the US military withdrawal have largely been in sparsely populated rural areas.But in recent weeks they have brought increasing pressure on several provincial capitals and seized key border crossings.