Suspected Al Qaeda terrorists attacked a contingent of US and Afghan troops in eastern Afghanistan, sparking a firefight in which five militants were killed, a spokesman for the US military said Monday. The attack occurred Friday in the Barmal district of eastern Paktika province, US military spokesman Maj. Bryan Hilferty told The Associated Press. âAnti-coalition forces attacked US and Afghan National Army forces in the Barmal area,â Hilferty said. âWe returned fire and killed five Al Qaeda terrorists,â he said, adding that eight Afghan army soldiers were wounded in the clash and evacuated to a coalition hospital. Hilferty strongly denied allegations by Paktika police chief Daulat Khan that US forces had killed six civilians in the area on the same day. âWe take our rules of engagement very seriously and I can assure you that these terrorists were not peaceful civilians,â the spokesman said in an e-mail response to a written request for information about the incident. Khan had said six civilians were killed when US warplanes dropped a bomb on their vehicle on a road in Barmal on Friday. Paktika Governor Mohammad Ali Jalali also said six civilians died in US bombardment in Barmal. âSix civilians lost their lives,â Jalali said. âI donât know if they were all members of the same family or from different families.â Jalali has expressed frustration with US âfriendly fireâ incidents in the past, including in April when the US military admitted it killed 11 Afghan civilians by mistake in an air attack near Shkin.
| "Y'see, dem guys wid da turbans, dey wudn't no al-Qaeda. That wuz... ummm... my cousins from outta town. An' one o' my sisters." |
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