Afghanistan ? U.S. and Afghan troops repelled attackers wearing American uniforms and suicide vests in a pair of simultaneous assaults on NATO bases near the Pakistani border, including one where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack last year.

The raids before dawn Saturday appear part of an insurgent strategy to step up attacks in widely scattered parts of the country as the U.S. focuses its resources on the battle around the Taliban’s southern birthplace of Kandahar.

Also Saturday, three more American service members were killed — two in a bombing in the south and the third in fighting in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. command said. That brought to 38 the number of U.S. troops killed this month — well below last month’s figure of 66.