Five U.S. Soldiers Injured in Battle

WASHINGTON —  Five U.S. soldiers were wounded and two Afghan militia members were killed Saturday in a four-hour firefight that erupted as the allied units approached a compound in southeastern Afghanistan, U.S. military officials said.

Only one of the Americans was seriously wounded, and none sustained life-threatening injuries, said Army Lt. Col. Jim Yonts, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., the military headquarters for the war in Afghanistan.

The soldiers were part of a “small unit conducting reconnaissance of a suspected enemy stronghold,” Yonts said.

“What resulted was an ambush,” he added. “They were approaching the compound when they were fired upon.”

U.S. troops who entered the compound after the battle subsided reported finding three enemy fighters dead, Yonts said.

Another enemy fighter was wounded and taken into U.S. custody.

The incident was one of the bloodiest encounters for U.S. troops since seven Americans were killed in March at the outset of Operation Anaconda, a major battle in eastern Afghanistan.

U.S. officials did not release the names of the wounded soldiers. All were evacuated to the U.S. air base at Bagram, north of Kabul, the capital.

Officials said the fight erupted around 1 p.m. at a walled compound 12 miles east of Khowst, a city near the Pakistani border.

U.S. units nearby joined the battle, although a military spokesman at Bagram said fewer than 100 coalition troops were involved on the ground.

U.S. troops also called in close air support from Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Air Force A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft and F/A-18 fighter jets.

The aircraft used cannon and machine-gun fire against the attackers, a spokesman at Bagram said.

U.S. and Afghan units have been regularly patrolling the rugged and largely lawless region in an effort to root out remnants of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network and the deposed Taliban government.

Allied units exchanged heavy fire with the enemy fighters inside the compound for about four hours, officials said.

It was not clear how the fighting concluded, how many enemy fighters escaped or whether those inside the compound were Al Qaeda or Taliban operatives, Yonts said.

The shootout offered fresh evidence that there are still pockets of well-armed enemy fighters in Afghanistan, even though U.S. officials say most Al Qaeda operatives in the region have fled to Pakistan.

The fighting came on the heels of stepped-up attacks on allied units after a July 1 incident in which a U.S. warplane strafed a wedding engagement party, killing 48 Afghan civilians. All but three were women and children.

That attack is still under investigation by the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reiterated last week that military leaders believe that the U.S. plane was taking antiaircraft fire--not merely encountering celebratory gunshots, as Afghans have reported.

But the episode has angered many Afghans and prompted a string of apparent reprisals. One day after the attack, a military convoy was fired upon and a U.S. soldier was shot in the foot. On four occasions since then, U.S. units have encountered small-arms fire, grenade attacks and mortar rounds.

The last American killed in Afghanistan was a National Guardsman, Sgt. Gene Arden Vance Jr., 38, of West Virginia, who was killed May 19 after his unit came under heavy fire while on patrol in the eastern part of the country.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.