10 killed in bomb, gunfire attack in Afghanistan

“When we parked our vehicle, when they passed us, they opened fire on our vehicle,” said 15-year-old Mohammad Ishaq, who was hit by two bullets, in his left arm and his right ear. “It was a convoy of three American Humvees. All three humvees were firing around.”

Mohammad Karim, an 18-year-old employee at a hotel near the blast site, said he ran outside after the explosion and saw American forces fire a stream of bullets at a four-wheel drive vehicle.

“I ran to the vehicle to see how many people were inside. We found three dead bodies, and one wounded, but he was also in a very critical condition,” he said. “All four people were from one family. The one who was wounded was about 20 years old.”

An AP reporter at the scene said the vehicle was riddled by dozens of bullets.

U.S. forces later deleted photos of the vehicle taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire.

The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said an American soldier took his camera and deleted the photos, saying he didn’t have permission to take them. Gul said a soldier later said it was OK to take photos, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier then raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul.

The U.S. forces involved in the attack and ensuing gunfire were part of the U.S.-led coalition, not NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. An official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information said the troops were Marine Special Operations Forces.

A man claiming to speak for a breakaway faction of the militant group Hezb-e-Islami, a group he said is linked with the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the bombing and identified the attacker as an Afghan named Haji Ihsanullah in a telephone call to AP. The purported spokesman identified himself as Qari Sajjad.

Accetta, the coalition spokesman, said the attack demonstrated the militants’ “blatant disregard for human life” by attacking forces in a populated area. NATO officials repeatedly say that suicide bombs aimed at international and Afghan forces kill far more civilians than soldiers.

Khan Mohammad, who was being treated at the Jalalabad hospital for a shrapnel wound from the blast, said he was driving directly behind the suicide bomber’s minivan. The large blast shattered Mohammad’s windshield, and something hit his forehead, he said.

“The minivan that was in front of us was in small pieces on the road,” he said.

Elsewhere, two British soldiers were killed in a rocket attack in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province, the British defense ministry said Sunday. The deaths Saturday brought to 50 the number of British troops killed since a U.S.-led invasion overthrew Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in November 2001.

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