Twelve Taliban insurgents have been killed in a battle with US and Afghan government forces in the volatile southeast of the country, police said.
Two soldiers from the US-led foreign force in Afghanistan were wounded in the fighting which also involved US aircraft. US military spokeswoman, Lieutenant Cindy Moore, said the two wounded troops were in stable condition.
"We collected 12 enemy bodies killed during the operation," Hai Gul Sulaimankhel, police chief of Paktia province told Reuters.
The insurgents were killed after they attempted to assassinate Kheyal Baaz Khan Sherzai, the former military commander of neighbouring Khost province, as he travelled on a main road near Gardez town.
US and Afghan forces responded with a joint ground and air attack in two areas to the east of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, Sulaimankhel said.
A Taliban spokesman confirmed the fighting but said only one Taliban fighter died while five Afghan government troops were killed, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.
The battle followed an increase in rebel attacks in parts of the south and east where the militants have been most active since their overthrow by US-led forces in late 2001.
The attacks have followed a lull over the winter after the guerrillas failed in a vow to derail an October presidential election.
Earlier, Khost's governor Mirajuddin Patan said five guerrillas had been killed after their failed attack on Sherzai, a prominent ally of U.S.-led troops hunting the Taliban when he was provincial commander.
"Sherzai survived the ambush and as a result of the American air attacks, five Taliban were killed," Patan told Reuters.
Lieutenant Moore declined to comment on Taliban deaths in the fighting. If confirmed, the toll of Taliban dead would be the highest in months.
Last week, the guerrillas said they killed a senior provincial official after kidnapping him in the southern province of Zabul, the third such murder of a local official in the south in less than a week.
The guerrillas killed five policemen in a clash in Zabul on Thursday.