Afghan Ally Killed in U.S. Firefight

Feb. 17, 2002 -- American Special Forces and allied Afghan forces on a routine patrol in eastern Afghanistan got into a firefight after they were fired upon at a roadblock, a U.S. official said.

One U.S.-allied Afghan fighter was killed and two or three were injured in the gunfight on Saturday, said Adm. Craig Quigley of U.S. Central Command. There were no American casualties.

U.S. warplanes bombed an enemy position on a nearby hilltop immediately after the attack, and on again on Sunday. According to the Pentagon, huge secondary explosions indicated a large weapons store at the site.

The firefight took place at about 1 a.m. ET on Saturday, Quigley said, adding that the bombings took place at 2 a.m. Saturday and 2 a.m. today.

Purposeful Killing?

The skirmishes came as the interim Afghan government and international peacekeeping forces in Kabul attempted to maintain order in the face of possible armed attacks against them.

A commander of the peacekeeping forces claims his troops were fired upon for the first time on Saturday, and Afghan interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai has said he believes last week's slaying of Abdul Rehman, the country's civil aviation and tourism minister, was a planned attack by officials within his administration.

Initially, it was thought the killing at the Kabul airport was a mob action in response to delays on transportation to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim holy pilgrimage to Mecca known as the hajj.

"It had nothing to do with the hajj, ladies and gentlemen," Karzai told a news conference today. "And we announced those names or the names of the people who have committed this crime and they'll be taken and arrested."

Karzai said Saudi Arabian officials have been given the names of individuals his government wants sent back to be tried for the killing. Asked if those allegedly responsible for the murder would be held up as an example and be severely punished, Karzai said, "We are trying to do justice, and if justice is considered an example, yes."

Peacekeepers Fired Upon?

Meanwhile, peacekeepers in Kabul said they were fired on early Saturday for the first time since they set up a base in Afghanistan's capital.

"The circumstances are not clear," Karzai said of the incident, which peacekeepers and the Afghan interim government continue to investigate.

Six British members of the international security assistance force, also known by the acronym ISAF, have said unidentified gunmen fired at them early Saturday morning. Authorities said the British paratroopers returned fire and were not injured.

ISAF Lt. Col. Neil Peckham said the peacekeepers and representatives of the interim Afghan government conducted an immediate search of the area.

"What they found in the vicinity was a car that had suffered bullet strike, and in a house nearby, one dead male and five injured persons," Peckham said.

Full at Camp X-Ray

In other developments:

The U.S. detention facility known as Camp X-Ray, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is at full capacity, as the recent arrival of a dozen more detainees has brought the total number held at the camp to 300.

The United States is still is investigating exactly who was killed when an unmanned Predator spy plane fired a Hellfire missile at a group of men in eastern Afghanistan earlier this month. There are reports that the missile killed civilians who were collecting scrap metal in the area, but U.S. military officials believed they were firing on members of al Qaeda. "Based on everything we know so far, we still think it was a proper target, but we don't know a great deal more than what we knew the day we took that shot," Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said on Fox News Sunday.

According to a government spokesman in Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban spiritual leader, could still be in the remote southeastern province of Oruzgan — the same province where American forces raided two compounds and killed at least 15 Afghans in error last month.

ABCNEWS' Jim Sciutto in Washington, Michael S. James in New York, Pam Coulter at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Hillary Brown in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.