KABUL, July 24: A B-52 heavy bomber targeted “enemy fighters” after a rocket attack on a US base in northeast Afghanistan, a US military spokesman said on Thursday.

Two rockets were fired at Asadabad firebase in Kunar province 180 kilometres northeast of Kabul on Wednesday night, but caused no casualties or damage, Colonel Rodney Davis told reporters at a Kabul military compound.

“Mortars were fired at the suspected point of origin and close air support requested.

“A B-52 responded first, then two AV-8 Harriers. The B-52 dropped a Joint Direct Attack Munitions bomb and the Harriers dropped one 1,000-pound (450-kilogram) laser-guided bomb on enemy fighters observed at the suspected location,” Davis said.

It was not known if there were any casualties from the bombing and Davis said a “battle damage assessment” of the bombsite would be carried out Thursday.

The Joint Direct Attack Munition is a navigation guidance system that converts “dumb bombs” into precision “smart bombs,” allowing pilots to release bombs up to 24kms away without having to fly directly over the intended target.

The US military and the peacekeeping International Security Assistance Force have both reported a recent increase in attacks across the country by suspected Taliban fighters and their Al Qaeda allies or extremists of renegade former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

US forces in Asadabad, near the Pakistan border, have come under regular rocket attack and a US patrol was ambushed by gunmen near Asadabad on Tuesday night, but without casualties.

An Afghan handed two Soviet-made SA-7 surface-to-air missiles with launchers and firing mechanisms over to coalition forces in Asadabad late Tuesday, Davis said. It was not known how the Afghan came to possess the heat-seeking missiles, reportedly supplied by the United States to Afghan anti-Soviet fighters in the 1980s.

The United Nations has suspended work on the road from the eastern city of Jalalabad to Asadabad following explosions on the highway.

There were two blasts on the road near Narang district south of Asabad on Tuesday morning.

“This is the seventh security incident in the area in the space of 10 days. UN road missions on this road have been temporarily suspended,” UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told reporters, adding that a team would visit the area Thursday to assess the security situation.

The US-led coalition’s Ghecko base in Kandahar, meanwhile, came under rocket attack for a second consecutive night on Wednesday, but there were no casualties or damage, Davis said.—AFP