Attack on Afghan Base Injured 2 U.S. Soldiers, Army Reports

Gunmen came within 50 yards of U.S. positions on the main American base in southern Afghanistan in an apparently well-organized attack that left two soldiers slightly injured, an Army spokesman said Thursday.

The attack Wednesday night sparked a 15-to-20-minute firefight, with U.S. troops shooting back with machine guns, dispatching helicopter gunships and sending up flares. It was the most intense attack on the heavily guarded airfield at Kandahar since Jan. 10, when gunmen opened fire as a transport plane carrying 20 Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners took off for the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.S. military had said Wednesday that no casualties occurred and that the base was not penetrated.

Flares were again fired from U.S. positions in Kandahar late Thursday after troops spotted a vehicle with three passengers about a mile southwest of the airfield, Army spokesman Maj. A.C. Roper said. Two other people were seen near the vehicle. One flare started a large fire near the perimeter.

“Nobody was caught, and no shots were fired,” Roper said. “I can’t say there is any connection between the vehicles seen tonight and the ones observed yesterday.”

The two soldiers slightly injured Wednesday were back on duty Thursday, said Maj. Ralph Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. One suffered a slight wound to a hand, and the other was grazed in the neck by a bullet, Mills said.

Capt. Tony Rivers, quoting troops on forward positions, said the attackers came within 50 yards of the U.S. defense lines “and appeared well organized.”

The identity and number of attackers were unknown.

The base houses more than 4,100 troops and a detention facility for Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.

Also on Thursday, the Defense Department identified a U.S. soldier who was killed Wednesday at another airfield. Army Spc. Jason A. Disney, 21, of Fallon, Nev., died shortly after a piece of heavy equipment fell on him at the Bagram air base, north of Kabul. He was assigned to the 7th Transportation Battalion at Ft. Bragg, N.C.