KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan today, collapsing a guard post with American soldiers inside, an Afghan official said. Three NATO soldiers were wounded, a U.S. military official said.

Two Afghan policemen were wounded in the attack, said Lutfullah Babakarheil, a district chief.

The attacker in the eastern Khost province rammed the explosives-laden car into the gates of the U.S. military base in Yaqoubi district, said Babakarheil.

"There are American soldiers inside the collapsed guard room, but we do not know whether any are wounded or killed," he said.

Sgt. 1st Class Brian Lamar, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said three soldiers serving under a separate command — NATO's International Security Assistance Force — were wounded in the explosion and evacuated for medical care.

JEBALYA, Gaza Strip — Israeli ground troops pulled out of northern Gaza before daybreak today, following the first extended sweep in an offensive against Palestinian rocket squads that has left more than 100 dead and led the Palestinian president to call off peace talks.Overnight, Israeli airstrikes targeting weapons manufacturing and storage facilities, a Hamas headquarters and groups of gunmen killed five Palestinians, all of them Hamas militants, Hamas said. But Gaza militants continued launching rockets at southern Israel. Three rockets hit Ashkelon, a city of 120,000, this morning, Israeli rescue services said, with one striking an apartment building. No casualties were reported.Israeli infantry started withdrawing from the town of Jebalya after midnight following several days of fighting, the military said, but the government vowed it would continue its offensive against rocket squads.Palestinian medical teams found three more bodies in Jebalya after the Israeli troops left. At least one of them was a militant, they said. Residents trapped in their houses for days began emerging, and some collected equipment left behind by the Israelis: ammunition clips, food cans, two bloody stretchers and a helmet with a bullet hole in it.

BAGHDAD — At least 23 people were killed and dozens were wounded today when two car bombs, including one driven by a suicide attacker, blew up in Baghdad, police said.Neither of the attacks took place in parts of the sprawling city where visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was located.In an unrelated incident, the U.S. military reported finding a grave containing 14 people, believed to be members of the Iraqi security forces and thought to have been executed by al-Qaida in Iraq.In the deadlier of the two attacks in Baghdad, a parked car bomb killed at least 21 people and wounded 43 in central Baghdad's Bab al-Mudham area. The car was parked on a road leading to the nearby Housing and Municipality Ministry, police said.