The attack was launched early Thursday near a construction site in the northern province of Parwan where the South's provincial reconstruction team is to be based, a spokesman told AFP.

"Four rockets fell in and outside the site but no casualties have been reported," he said, adding there was no information on who fired the rockets.

The South's team, which currently numbers 49 civilian workers and eight police officers, plans to officially launch its aid mission Thursday.

It will be progressively expanded this year to about 100 reconstruction workers and 40 police who will train Afghan counterparts, according to Yonhap news agency. The defence ministry declined to give figures.

The Koreans will help strengthen the provincial government's capabilities and offer medical services as well as vocational and police training.

A South Korean army contingent is to protect them. An advance team of about 90 troops has been stationed in Parwan since mid-June and about 240 more troops are due to join them this month and in late August.

A purported Taliban spokesman last October warned that South Koreans "should be prepared for the consequences" if they dispatch a contingent, accusing Seoul of breaking a promise not to send troops back to Afghanistan.

The South, a close US ally, sent 210 engineering and medical troops to Afghanistan in 2002. It withdrew them in late 2007 after Taliban insurgents took 23 South Korean church volunteers hostage and murdered two of them.

Seoul said the withdrawal was already planned and not part of any deal with the kidnappers.

South Korea also sent non-combat troops to Iraq but withdrew them in December 2008 after four years.

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