Insurgents armed with rockets, mortars and a truck bomb staged an unusual frontal attack on a US base in eastern Afghanistan, killing two US soldiers and forcing the defenders to call in airstrikes to avoid being overrun.

The assault, which came as thousands of US troops were taking part in an anti-Taliban offensive hundreds of miles away in the south of Afghanistan, pointed up the insurgents' ability to take the fight to a location of their choosing, in this case a remote outpost in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan's tribal areas.
The attack on a small base in Zerok district, which lasted several hours, took place in the same area where a US soldier disappeared on Tuesday. The US military said two days later that the missing man was believed to have been captured. A search is under way.

American military officials said "several" US soldiers were wounded in addition to the two killed in the base attack, but declined to provide a more precise figure. Military officials said at least 10 insurgents were killed in counterstrikes by US and Afghan troops, including artillery fire and airstrikes by assault helicopters. A spokesman for the governor of Paktika province, however, put the number of militants killed at more than 30.
The attackers fired at least one shell containing white phosphorus, a highly incendiary agent, said NATO's International Security Assistance Force sources. Western military officials have accused insurgents of using white phosphorus in several previous attacks.

A spokesman for the Taliban movement, Zabiullah Mujaheed, claimed responsibility for the attack, and said more than 100 insurgents took part in it. His statement could not be independently verified. The number of US and Afghan troops inside the base at the time was not disclosed, but the installation in question is a relatively small one.

With warmer temperatures and the advent of the traditional summer "fighting season," violence across the country has been creeping upward. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said seven policemen were killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar province, in the south, and two Afghan army soldiers died in a roadside blast in Helmand province, also in the south.