A spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan says that a suicide attack on a major US base in Jalalabad had killed at least one other person.
Speaking in Kabul, Brigadier General Gunter Katz said that whilst the attack had been serious, the attacked had failed to breach the main part of the base.
"Our initial assessment is, our initial reporting shows that there was attack on Jalalabad airfield this morning. Again, initially what we found out was that there most likely three suicide attackers using vehicles to attack the base," he said.
"The pyramid of the base has not been breached so nobody was actually able to get inside the base. We got some ISAF troops who were wounded and, according to our reporting, one member of the Afghan national security forces has been killed during the attack," the general added.
A provincial government spokesman, Nasir Ahmad Safi, had said that three Afghan soldiers and two civilians had been killed in the attack.
Two suicide bombers died after blowing themselves up in their cars, he added.
Seven other attackers were killed in a gun battle with Afghan and coalition forces.
Local police officials said bodies in Afghan police and military uniforms were scattered around the entrance of the airfield in the eastern city of Jalalabad after a two-hour battle. A Taliban spokesman said the militant group had launched the 6am assault.
The Taliban, who have been fighting US-led Nato and Afghan forces for more than a decade, sometimes dress in uniforms for attacks.
The US and Afghan government are scrambling to stabilise Afghanistan before most Nato combat troops withdraw at the end of 2014 and hand over security to Afghan forces.
Some Afghans doubt government security forces will be able to defend the country against any Taliban attempts to seize power again after foreign troops withdraw. There are also growing fears that a civil war will erupt.
President Hamid Karzai's government say Afghan security forces have made good progress.
In February, a suicide car bomber killed nine people at the base, almost exclusively used by Nato and the U.S. military.
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