A suicide bomber killed two Afghan guards when he attempted to detonate a truck bomb near the entrance of a heavily-guarded U.S.-run base in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, NATO's U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
"At 6:45am Afghanistan time, a suicide bomber attempted to drive into a US-run civil-military base in Gardez, Afghanistan," an ISAF statement obtained by Fox News said.
"The attempted bomber did not make it through the front gates and his vest-bomb did not go off. Two Afghan guards were killed; no other injuries or casualties reported."
The Taliban, the main militant group leading an escalating 10-year insurgency, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Gardez, the capital of eastern Paktia province, which borders Pakistan.
"A suicide bomber tried to attack the base with a truck bomb but he was encountered at the first gate by Afghan guards. He set off his bombs there," Paktia provincial police chief, Abdul Ghafar Sapai, told AFP.
Sapai did not mention any fatalities, saying that two local guards and a border policeman in a nearby police base had been wounded. He said the distance between the first barrier and the main gate was more than 300 feet (91 meters).
The police chief said "good security measures," including anti-blast concrete blocks, stopped the attacker from reaching his target and causing more casualties.
The base houses small groups of troops and civilian experts who are trying to help rebuild the war-torn country and enhance security. The groups are known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) and are assigned across Afghanistan, AFP reported.
The PRTs are run by various Western nations as part of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The Gardez PRT is run by the United States.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed, contacting AFP from an undisclosed location by telephone, said one of their fighters drove a bomb-laden car into the entrance of the base and detonated the explosives.
Mujahed said dozens of U.S. and Afghan troops were killed and wounded.
The Taliban are known to make exaggerated, sometimes false, statements when it comes to deaths caused in their attacks.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
