A Taliban shadow district chief has been killed in fighting with security forces in Afghanistan's eastern Wardak province, officials said.

Two suicide bombers wearing police uniforms blew themselves up at an Afghan police headquarters today, killing at least 12 officers in a deadly border region that has long been a refuge for Islamist extremists from around the world.

The Pentagon today confirmed that an American soldier who went missing from his base in Afghanistan has been captured and identified him as a private from Idaho serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment.

A series of battles in volatile southern and eastern Afghanistan killed 14 suspected militants, a US soldier and an Afghan soldier, while suspected Taliban rebels fatally shot six civilians in a strong of assaults, officials said today.

One US soldier was killed and another eight were wounded in a mortar attack at a base in eastern Afghanistan today, the US military said.