Shots fired at U.S. base in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Attackers who opened fire on the main American base in southern Afghanistan appeared well-organized and moved within 50 yards of U.S. positions, an Army spokesman said Thursday.

Two U.S. soldiers were slightly wounded when intruders fired on U.S. positions to the north and west of the base, the Army said. Late Thursday, flares were fired from U.S. positions after troops saw a vehicle with three passengers about a mile southwest of the airfield, Army spokesman Maj. A.C. Roper said. Two other people were seen near the vehicle.

Flares were fired to get a better look around, he said, and one landed and started a fire about 300 yards from the airfield.

"Nobody was caught and no shots were fired," Roper said. "I can't say there is any connection between the vehicles seen tonight and the ones observed yesterday."

In the Wednesday incident, U.S. troops of the 101st Airborne Division returned fire with machine guns and scrambled helicopter gunships to drive off the attackers.

1st Lt. Darren McDonough received a grazing wound to his neck and Spc. Timothy Bates received a minor hand wound. Both were treated and were back on duty Thursday, the military said.

Capt. Tony Rivers said the attackers came within 50 yards of the U.S. defense lines "and appeared well organized."

4,100 troops

The base houses more than 4,100 troops and al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners, the U.S. military said. U.S. forces fought back with machine guns and scrambled helicopter gunships to drive off the attackers.

Elsewhere, the Defense Department identified a U.S. soldier who was killed Wednesday in an accident at another airfield as Army Spc. Jason A. Disney, 21, of Fallon, Nev.

Disney died after a piece of heavy equipment fell on him at Bagram air base, 40 miles north of Kabul. He was assigned to the 7th Transportation Battalion in Fort Bragg, N.C. The accidental death Wednesday was the latest in a growing catalogue of accidents that have proved far deadlier for U.S. forces than enemy fire in the four-month U.S.-led campaign.

So far, 20 U.S. soldiers have been killed, just one from hostile fire, said Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. Eleven died in aircraft accidents, three in U.S. bombing and five in other accidents. A CIA agent also was killed in a prison uprising near Mazar-e-Sharif.

Of 79 soldiers injured, 37 were hurt in aircraft accidents, Lapan said.

In other developments:

Residents of an eastern Afghan provincial capital where factional fighting killed at least 61 people last month cheered and threw flowers Thursday to welcome their new governor, a veteran administrator named to replace a warlord who attacked the town after local leaders refused to accept him as governor.

Former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has opposed the presence of foreign security forces in Afghanistan, is ready to leave Iran if his departure would help Tehran ease tensions with the United States, his party said in a statement.

The U.N. health agency plans to survey levels of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases in Afghanistan and encourage testing of donated blood. Results will be used to create a national plan to control the disease.