Gunmen in firefight identified as Pakistani al-Qaida members

The Associated PressKABUL, Afghanistan -- A dozen gunmen killed in a shootout with Afghan soldiers were Pakistani members of al-Qaida who had escaped from intelligence service detention in Kabul just hours earlier, the Afghan foreign minister reported Thursday.

Three of the group killed themselves by detonating grenades as soldiers closed in on them Wednesday morning, Foreign Minister Abdullah said. A 13th man killed in the clash was from the former Soviet central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, he said.

Abdullah's report on the firefight, the worst violence in the Kabul area in months, appeared to clarify confused initial reports of Wednesday, including Afghan military statements that "Arab and Pakistani" gunmen had attacked an army position on the capital's southern edge.

The foreign minister said at a news conference that two soldiers also were killed. Initial reports had said two or three soldiers were killed, along with a civilian caught in the crossfire. The person identified as a civilian may have been one of the escaped Pakistanis

At one point, Abdullah said the 13 were "high-ranking members" of al-Qaida, but he offered no support for that, other than saying it came "from the investigation."

Afghan authorities were still investigating whether the prisoners had help in escaping from the National Security Department's Third Directorate detention center, he said.

Wednesday's violence was the bloodiest in the capital since a U.S.-led military campaign drove the Taliban government from power in Afghanistan last December. It was the latest in a series of incidents to put the city on edge -- including the assassination of a vice president in early July and the foiling of an alleged car-bomb plot in late July.

In Wednesday's deadly episode, the 13 detainees cut through the bars of a window at the detention center and escaped around 2 a.m., said Abdullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

After the nightly curfew was lifted at 3:30 a.m., they apparently walked to the south -- in the direction of Pakistan -- and around 6 a.m. were approached by soldiers from a nearby army post. The men opened fire and killed the two soldiers and wounded another, Abdullah said.

Soldiers at an adjacent army post -- on a hill in the Bagram-i district in Kabul's southern outskirts -- then fired on the attackers, who fled into a nearby village, where they took hostages but also met armed resistance from some villagers, Abdullah said. At some point, the men headed for a nearby mountain.

It was not clear how long they held hostages, but Abdullah said none were harmed during what military officials said was a three-hour running gunbattle.