U.S. Base Attacked; Troops Return Fire

U.S. forces scrambled helicopter gunships and exchanged fire Wednesday with attackers who shot at the American base in southern Afghanistan, the Army said. No U.S. casualties resulted from the attack, but at another base, a U.S. soldier was crushed to death by falling equipment.

The firefight at the Kandahar airport lasted 15 to 20 minutes, and the shooting appeared to be coming from two positions north and west of the airfield, said Maj. Ralph Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. U.S. troops shot illumination rounds and returned fire with machine guns in the direction of the shooting, Mills said.

Apache helicopter gunships were dispatched “to try to find out where the fire was coming from and who was doing it,” he said.

Mills said seven people were held. Later, U.S. officials said the detainees turned out to be part of the U.S.-backed Afghan security force and were released. Mills said he did not know the size of the attacking force.

“I think it’s safe to say it was pretty ineffective because the airfield was not penetrated at all,” he said.

The base, which has more than 4,100 troops and a detention facility for Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, has come under fire before. On Jan. 10, gunmen in arid scrub north of the runway opened fire as a C-17 transport plane took off with 20 detainees bound for the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Two weeks later, an Afghan apparently under the influence of drugs tried to penetrate the base’s heavily guarded perimeter, touching off a security alert that briefly grounded a plane. The man was taken into custody.

An Army soldier based at the Bagram airfield, about 25 miles north of Kabul, died Wednesday of injuries he suffered when the heavy equipment he was working on fell on him, Mills said. The soldier, whose name was being withheld until his family had been notified, was pronounced dead at a local medical facility where he was taken for emergency surgery.

Eight U.S. soldiers were injured Tuesday evening when their Air Force transport plane crashed, said Maj. Brad Lowell, another Central Command spokesman. None of the victims, whose plane went down in a remote part of Afghanistan, suffered life-threatening injuries.

The cause of the crash was unknown, but it did not appear to be the result of hostile fire, Central Command said.

Lowell would not say what mission the plane was on or where it crashed. The $75-million MC-130P is used to refuel helicopters flown by special operations troops.

U.S. Special Forces troops and CIA operatives are leading the hunt in Afghanistan for fugitives who were members of the former Taliban regime and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

The interim Afghan government, moving to settle a violent power struggle in the eastern region, insisted to two tribal rivals who have fought for control of Paktia province that neither of them will be governor.

The government has said that Taj Mohamad Wardak, a former governor of several other provinces, would become Paktia’s governor.

Supporters of warlord Bacha Khan said the governorship belonged to him. “This should not be decided in this way,” said Khan’s brother, Wazir. “We shed blood for our rights, and we will never, never accept this.”

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

Beginning in stories published in 2006, the Afghan warlord Bacha Khan is identified as Pacha Khan Zadran. (Second reference is “Pacha Khan.”)

--- END NOTE ---