KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) — Four civilians including two children were killed Sunday when militants from inside Pakistan fired rockets at NATO bases in eastern Afghanistan, the alliance force and police said.
Some 20 rockets slammed the area in two separate incidents, with five of them coming from inside Pakistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
Afghanistan's defence ministry said in a statement 13 rockets were fired from across the border on NATO and Afghan army bases in Khost.
ISAF in a statement said the military "responded in self-defence" with artillery fire on the launch site, which it said was "located about 300 meters (985 feet) inside Pakistan."
The force also responded by artillery and an airstrike to an earlier rocket barrage fired from a location inside Afghanistan.
Islamabad was notified about the rebel attack on its bases, ISAF said.
"The Pakistan military was immediately notified when ISAF forces came under fire," it said.
The attacks come days after President Hamid Karzai threatened to target insurgent leaders on the Pakistani side of the lawless tribal region where Afghan and NATO officials say Islamic militants maintain training camps.
"This is another reason why the international community must pressure Pakistan to stop militant activities within it's territory," Karzai's chief spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, told AFP.
"President Karzai was right when saying those threatening the security of Afghans and the international forces must be dealt with by force in their hideouts, wherever they're," the spokesman added.
The dead included two Afghan children, a doctor in the city's hospital said.
"Two dead children and ten people including women and children were admitted to our hospital," the doctor, Abdul Majid Mangal of Khost hospital, told AFP.
The latest attack came a day after another NATO military outpost and an Afghan army base came under rocket attack in the neighbouring Paktika province but there were no casualties.
In separate incidents linked to the Taliban insurgency a suspected would-be suicide bomber detonated himself up after a security guard fired at him in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday, a police commander said.
The bomber was trying to climb up a wall into the house of a pro-Kabul tribal chief, Mohammad Hussein Andiwal told AFP.
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