KABUL — Eight Americans have been killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, an embassy official and NATO said on Wednesday.
The attack in Khost province was believed to be a suicide bombing, a Western military official told AFP.
A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said: "No US and no ISAF military personnel were killed or injured" in the incident.
The US embassy in Kabul confirmed that eight Americans had been killed.
"Eight Americans have been killed in an attack on RC-East," the official said, referring to the military region of eastern Afghanistan that includes 14 provinces.
No other information was immediately available, she said.
Suicide attacks are a hallmark of the Taliban, waging a virulent insurgency to topple the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The number of foreign civilians in Afghanistan is mushrooming as the war takes a turn away from concentrating on battlefield fighting amid a growing emphasis on development and aid.
As civilian teams arrive, they are being sent to provincial military bases, where many they are billeted to work alongside military reconstruction teams.
The attack on the Americans comes as the international forces in Afghanistan -- numbering 113,000 and set to grow to 150,000 next year -- are embroiled in controversy over the deaths of Afghan civilians in an operation on Saturday.
President Hamid Karzai has accused international forces of shooting dead ten unarmed civilians, including eight teenagers, though ISAF has disputed the findings of an Afghan government investigation.
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