Afghan officials say Taliban militants on Tuesday attacked the main U.S. military base in southern Afghanistan.

Officials say the attackers, wearing suicide vests, first launched rockets on the Kandahar airfield and then tried to storm the base.  The assault sparked an hour-long gunbattle, in which one international soldier was wounded and all of the attackers were killed.

Taliban insurgents previously tried to storm the Kandahar base in May.

Also Tuesday, NATO said one of its service members was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan.  

Elsewhere, Afghan police said robbers killed six security guards at a branch of the Kabul Bank in the northern province of Balkh.

The robbery took place in the provincial capital, Mazar-i-Sharif, and the robbers got away with at least $275,000.

In other violence Tuesday, NATO said foreign and Afghan forces destroyed a house rigged with wire links to homemade explosives in Kandahar.

And, a NATO statement said international and Afghan forces seized the last Taliban stronghold of Sayedebad in southern Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, French Defense Minister Herve Morin said French troops have no other solution but to remain in Afghanistan.  

In an interview Tuesday, Morin said if international forces, including the 3,500-strong French contingent, pull out of Afghanistan, the country would collapse.

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