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KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S. forces poured fire from artillery and warplanes onto militants launching rockets at an American base, killing more than 12 rebels in Afghanistan’s volatile southeast, the military said Thursday.

Meanwhile, an Afghan official said two former Taliban leaders had taken up a reconciliation offer from the government of President Hamid Karzai that American commanders hope will erode the 3-year-old insurgency.

The rebels were killed late Tuesday when U.S. troops responded to four rockets fired at the main American base in Khost province, close to the Pakistani border, a military statement said. There were no injuries or damage.

A-10 ground attack aircraft and an AC-130H gunship dropped two 500-pound bombs and fired more than two dozen rockets and cannon rounds, while ground troops trained artillery on the assailants, it said.

“We were able to see the launching point of the rockets and we brought everything we had to bear on it,” Maj. J.R. Mendoza, a U.S. Army official based in Khost, said in the statement. “More than a dozen insurgents were killed.”

Taliban militants have vowed to step up their campaign against the 17,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and have mounted a string of ambushes and roadside bombings along the Pakistani border.

But American commanders insist their insurgency is unraveling in the face of U.S. and Afghan military operations and the reconciliation offer from Karzai’s government.

Associated Press