transitive verb
Definition 1
Assault, fall upon, literally and figuratively; (of diseases, etc.) act destructively on (person, population, etc.).
Source: Invertext, from Concise Oxford Dictionary
Context: Ten Nato troops, including seven Americans, were killed [when] a team of suicide bombers attacked a police training base in Kandahar.
Source: Financial Times 08/06/2010 (Matthew Green in Islamabad)