U.S. Strikes After Bases Are Hit

American fighter jets pounded suspected enemy positions in Afghanistan after two U.S. bases came under rocket fire in the east of the country, the U.S. military said Friday.

In the first attack Thursday evening, nine 107-millimeter rockets were fired at a U.S. military base near Gardez. The rockets landed near the base but did not cause any casualties, the military said in a statement from its headquarters at Bagram air base, north of the capital, Kabul.

The military called in A-10 fighter planes, which dropped several bombs and fired about 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Troops found a suspected enemy vehicle and destroyed a rocket that had not been fired.

Several hours later, a U.S. base in Lwara, 110 miles southeast of Kabul, came under rocket and mortar fire, and at least one round exploded inside the compound, the military said. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division moved on the launch site, trading gunshots and mortar fire with the suspected attackers.

An A-10 plane fired rockets at the launch site and dropped a 500-pound bomb after three suspected enemy fighters were detected moving, and another aircraft dropped a 1,000-pound bomb shortly afterward, the military said.

There were no coalition casualties. The military said it believes that at least two of the attackers were killed.

Meanwhile, the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad came under fire Friday from suspected Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters, Police Chief Haji Ajab Shah said. Four rockets hit a high school, which was empty, and the airport, but caused no casualties. The airport’s runway and other key facilities were not damaged, Shah said.

Low-level attacks aimed at U.S. forces and other targets have become common in the restive border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where U.S. troops are hunting for Al Qaeda and senior Taliban fugitives. But the attackers’ crude rockets rarely hit their targets.