Abilities: Special, Extraordinary, Spell Like, Supernatural, Natural, get 'em here.

[nyjastul69]

Please note the Mummy Lord in MM1. It's just a Mummy with 10 Cleric levels. Its spells are a Special Attack, just like everyone else's. See also the Troll Hunter, a Troll with Ranger levels. Again, Special Attack.

So even for spells gained only by class levels, the ability to cast spells is a Special Attack.

Note that there is one funny exception to this... some later books place spells as a Special Quality. That's a bit strange, but irrelevant for our purposes, because Special Qualities and Special Attacks are just subcategories of Special Abilities. So the same necessary rules apply.

JaronK

I understand your point here. I just don't think it's a definitive statement about class abilities. The PH is the primary source for class abilities, not the MM. It seems to me spellcasting was put in that section because it didn't fit anywhere else. But that's only an opinion of course. I honestly have read the arguments. I just don't agree with your conclusion.