Western forces in Afghanistan suffered their biggest losses in a single battle since 2001 yesterday when Taleban forces stormed a remote American base, killing nine US soldiers.

Nato said that the small American “combat outpost” in the Dara-I-Pech district of Kunar province came under heavy fire at about 4.30am. US forces called in mortars, artillery, Apache helicopters and fighter jets.

Nato confirmed the nine deaths in its ranks and said that 15 US soldiers and four Afghan soldiers had been injured. It also claimed that the Taleban had sustained “very heavy losses”.

A spokesman for the Taleban claimed that the insurgents had overrun the base. “From yesterday till now the fighting is going on,” said Zabiullah Mujahed. “We have destroyed the whole base. We don’t know how many Americans or Taleban have been killed.” Nato said that insurgents used homes, shops and the mosque in the village of Wanat for cover.

The governor of neighbouring Nuristan province, Hazrat Noor, said: “After the attack the US troops decided to move their base to the district centre of Wanat and they tried to build shelters there in the bazaar overnight. Now the Taleban have attacked again.” US strategy in Afghanistan has focused increasingly on the use of smaller and more numerous bases, called combat outposts. They aim to give US forces greater influence in local communities. However, American military commanders have privately admitted that such small bases could prove vulnerable if the Taleban was able to concentrate enough fighters and take the base by surprise, as apparently happened yesterday.

The terrain in Kunar and Nuristan, with steep valleys, few roads and dense pine forest, has proved ideal for insurgent movements and ambushes. One Afghan official said that 400 insurgents, including Arab and Chechen fighters, had crossed the frontier from Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas into Nuristan in recent weeks.

Afghanistan is experiencing a rising tide of violence this year, with a sharp increase in Taleban attacks, especially in the east, where Nato says militants have taken advantage of peace deals in Pakistan to cross the border.

The storming of the outpost was likely to provoke louder calls in the US for a change in strategy. Even before details of yesterday’s battle emerged, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, accused Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, of allowing his country to slip towards chaos.

“I think the Karzai Government has not gotten out of the bunker and helped organise Afghanistan and government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence,” Mr Obama said.

“A big chunk of the issue is that we allowed the Taleban and al-Qaeda to regenerate itself when we had them on the ropes. That was a big mistake, and it’s one I’m going to correct when I’m president.”

The battle in Kunar province comes as the Taleban’s summer offensive gathers pace. Heavy fighting was reported yesterday in a broad swath of southern and eastern Afghanistan.

In Helmand a US soldier was killed in clashes around the town of Sangin and along the Helmand river. “At least 40 militants have been killed in the last two days, while over 30 enemy boats and several . . . bridges were also destroyed on the Helmand river,” the US military reported.

A Hungarian soldier was killed in the northern province of Baghlan in a roadside bomb attack.

In the southern province of Uruzgan a suicide bomb attack on a police convoy killed 24 people, including four policemen, in a crowded bazaar in the town of Deh Rawood. Another 27 people were injured.

Nato accused the Taleban of using a child to mount a suicide attack in Helmand on Saturday when two Afghan soldiers and another child were killed.

Big losses

Jun 17, 2008
4 Britons, including Cpl Sarah Bryant, killed in Lashkar Gah

Nov 9, 2007
5 US soldiers die in attack at Aranus

Apr 8, 2007
6 Canadians killed west of Kandahar

Sept 2, 2006
14 Britons die in Nimrod crash near Kandahar

Jun 28, 2005
16 US soldiers killed when helicopter is shot down in Asadabad

Jan 29, 2004
8 Americans die in Ghazni

Mar 4, 2002
7 US Special Forces killed in attack on helicopters

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