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US troops kill 3 militants in overnight Afghan raid

US troops and Afghan police killed three militants in an overnight raid on a compound housing people with Al Qaida links in eastern Afghanistan, the US military said Wednesday.

  • AP
  • Published: 11:22 December 17, 2008
  • Gulf News

Kabul: US troops and Afghan police killed three militants in an overnight raid on a compound housing people with Al Qaida links in eastern Afghanistan, the US military said Wednesday.

People who were in the compound said the dead were civilians and that none of them had fired on the troops, according to Jahangir Pashtun, a spokesman for the governor's office of Khost province. These witnesses told Pashtun that the US troops opened fire on the compound.

US military spokesman Col. Gregory Julian said the three people killed, one of them a woman, had been specifically targeted as "known individuals with Al Qaida links." He said two of them fired directly on the troops and another attempted to fire.

"These were known insurgents and they had weapons and they attempted to engage us and we beat them to it," Julian said. He said others were detained, including one person "believed to be in direct contact with Al Qaida leaders outside of Afghanistan."

The aim of the raid had been to capture the targeted people, Julian said.

The incident occurred in Khost city, the province capital. At least one other woman was wounded and taken to a coalition medical facility.

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