The quick strike came in the Nuristan province in the country’s east. The NATO-Afghan force pushed Taleban fighters back after they seized control of half of the district, kicking them out of the government building just a few hours after they overran it, Gov. Jamaludin Badar said. As coalition forces came under fire, they called in airstrikes, killing at least 10 Taleban fighters, NATO said. Though NATO declined to comment on the troops used in Wednesday’s battle, they likely were US soldiers, as NATO’s eastern regional command is comprised mostly of American forces.

An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said 100 commandos flew there with NATO forces and planned to remain on the ground through the fighting.

NATO said the battle was still going on. Taleban fighters, who used mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to seize control of Duab district, fled into the surrounding mountains and continued to fire down on NATO forces, Badar said.

Eight Taleban fighters have been killed in the last several days of fighting there, Badar said. Three police officers also were killed during that time, he said. The Taleban and other insurgent groups control large swaths of Nuristan, Kunar and other northeastern provinces near the Pakistani border. Insurgents have safe havens in Pakistan’s neighboring lawless tribal regions and regularly cross the border into Afghanistan to attack NATO troops.

No Afghan military or NATO forces patrol Nuristan, leaving only lightly armed police to defend the province. NATO and Afghan soldiers have flown there in the past to put down fighting. During the last major Taleban assault there May 11, an Afghan military helicopter crashed as it ferried reinforcements to stop hundreds of militants assaulting four outposts just south of Nuristan’s capital Parun. The Afghan military did not give details of casualties from the crash.

The Taleban also controls the capital of Nuristan’s rugged Waygal district, which they overran with more than 300 fighters on March 29. The insurgents there raised the white flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — as the country was known when it was under Taleban control before the 2001 US invasion.

Near the capital Kabul, the Taleban shot dead the principal of a boys’ only high school in Logar province. Taleban fighters on motorcycles cut off the principal’s car on his way home from school Tuesday and killed him in front of his son, police chief Gulam Roghlewanai said.