11 NATO soldiers wounded in Afghanistan

Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms attacked a remote NATO base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding 11 alliance soldiers, officials said.

A suicide bomber, meanwhile, attacked a provincial governor elsewhere in the east, killing four people and wounding eight others. The governor was unharmed.

The militants in Afghan army uniforms approached the NATO's forward operating base in mountainous Nuristan province before launching the attack, the alliance said.

The attack left two Afghan soldiers dead and 11 NATO troops wounded, it said. NATO did not identify the nationality of the wounded troops.

Most of the troops in the east are American.

Lt. Col. Claudia Foss, spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, denounced the Taliban militants for wearing Afghan uniforms.

"This is another example of the Taliban extremists ignoring international law of armed conflict," she said.

In Khost province, a suicide bomber attacked the six-vehicle convoy carrying Khost Gov. Arsallah Jamal close to the capital of the province, a region where Taliban and al-Qaida linked militants are believed to operate, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary.

"It was an attack on me," Jamal told The Associated Press via telephone.

Two of the dead were Jamal's bodyguards, while the other two were passers-by, the interior ministry said.

The attack happened hours after gunmen in southern Afghanistan abducted the mayor of Gereshk, a town in the opium-growing province of Helmand, said Abdul Manaf Khan, the Gereshk district chief.

Dur Ali Shah was traveling with two of his sons and another man to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah on a treacherous stretch of road, Khan said. Only Shar was taken, Khan said.

Authorities have launched a search and rescue operation, he said.

Abductions have become a key insurgent tactic in recent months in trying to destabilize the country, targeting both Afghan officials and foreigners helping with reconstruction efforts.

A group of 23 South Koreans and two Germans were taken hostage in separate incidents last month. Two of the Koreans were killed, two were released and the rest remain captive. One of the German men was killed, the other remains a captive.

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Associated Press writers Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report