Five U.S. soldiers wounded in Afghanistan firefight

Posted 2:02PM on Saturday 27th July 2002 ( 22 years ago )

BAGRAM, AFGHANISTAN - Five U.S. soldiers were wounded Saturday and two Afghan militia members were killed when they were attacked during a mission to hunt Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives in southeastern Afghanistan, an army spokesman said. Initial reports said at least three of the attackers were killed in the 4 1/2 -hour battle, Col. Roger King said. One attacker was wounded and taken into U.S. custody, he said. The fighting occurred about seven miles east of Khost, King said. The U.S. soldiers were evacuated to the main U.S. military base at Bagram, 30 miles north of the capital Kabul. The injuries suffered by four soldiers were not life-threatening, King said. The condition of the fifth soldier, who was taken by stretcher from a helicopter at Bagram, was uncertain. The soldiers' names were not released pending notification of relatives. The Khost area, about 90 miles southeast of Kabul in Paktia province, is regarded as one of the most insecure in the country and forces of the U.S.-led coalition have repeatedly conducted operations there to flush out holdouts of the Taliban and al-Qaida. ``Our forces took fire from a walled compound,'' said Sgt. Matthew Davio, another spokesman. The attack was the fifth this month since Afghan officials said a U.S. plane fired on a wedding party July 1, killing 25 civilians. On July 13, a U.S. convoy was attacked while traveling along a road between Bagram and Kabul. No one was injured. Two days earlier, a U.S. Special Forces compound near Kandahar took grenade and small arms fire. Again, no one was injured. In a separate incident the same day, a U.S. soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division suffered a concussion when a bullet hit his helmet while on patrol near Kandahar. On July 2, a U.S. military convoy was fired on as it returned from a Kandahar hospital where Afghan victims of an U.S. air strike a day earlier were being treated. One soldier was shot in the foot. Fifteen U.S. servicemen have been killed in combat or hostile situations in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign began last fall. The last fatality occurred May 19. Also Saturday: -An Afghan provincial security chief said his forces seized dozens of rocket launchers, automatic rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition possibly belonging to Taliban fugitives. The arms cache was discovered Friday night in a hidden compartment of a pickup truck stopped during a routine check on a main road linking the eastern Jalalabad to Pakistan, said Haji Ajab Shah, security chief of Nangarhar province, where the truck was discovered. It was not known who owned the weapons, but eastern Nangarhar province is a volatile region of drug lords and possible hide-outs for Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives. -Afghan border guards closed a busy border crossing to block re-entry by 40 Afghan refugees deported by Pakistan, a witness said. The border at Torkham, a town on the main road linking Pakistan with the Afghan capital Kabul, remained closed throughout the day, local trader Jalal Khan told The Associated Press. He said officials from both countries were meeting to resolve the issue. Khan did not know why the guards refused entry to the returning refugees, but most are sent back for lacking proper travel documents. More than a million refugees poured into Pakistan, fleeing the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

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