Insurgents in American uniforms attack Afghan NATO bases

KABUL - U.S. and Afghan troops repelled attackers wearing American uniforms and suicide vests in a pair of simultaneous assaults before dawn yesterday on NATO bases near the Pakistani border, including one where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack last year.

The raids appear part of an insurgent strategy to step up attacks in widely scattered parts of the country as the U.S. focuses its resources on the battle around the Taliban's southern birthplace of Kandahar.

Also yesterday, three more American service members were killed - two in a bombing in the south and the third in fighting in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. command said. That brought to 38 the number of U.S. troops killed this month, compared with last month's 66.

The militant assault in the border province of Khost began about 4 a.m. when dozens of insurgents stormed Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, according to NATO and Afghan police.

Two attackers managed to breach the wire protecting Salerno but were killed before they could advance far onto the base, NATO said. Twenty-one attackers were killed - 15 at Salerno and six at Chapman - and five were captured, it said. Three more insurgents, including a commander, were killed in an airstrike as they fled the area, NATO said.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said two Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in the fighting. Four U.S. troops were wounded, NATO officials said.