Bagram, Afghanistan - Shots were fired at a US helicopter in Afghanistan, wounding a crewman in the foot, the military said on Saturday. The helicopter returned fire, killing one enemy fighter and wounding another.
The wounded American was taken to the U.S. base in Kandahar and was in stable condition after the shooting on Friday night, said Colonel Roger King, speaking for the US military in Afghanistan.
The special operations helicopter, a twin-rotor MH-47 Chinook, was hit by small arms fire north-west of Kandahar, King said. It was lightly damaged, but was able to return to Kandahar.
The crew of the helicopter saw the two suspected enemy fighters and fired back, but did not try to retrieve the dead man's body, King said.
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A 10-year-old Afghan girl injured by a land mine He did not identify the injured crewman, but said it was not the pilot or co-pilot. He would give no details of the helicopter's mission.
Troops also saw gunfire on Friday night in two places near the Bagram Air Base, the US military's headquarters in Afghanistan, King said. They caused no damage or injuries.
One or two rounds were fired south-west of the base near the village of Bagram. "There was a possibility that it was part of a celebration because they also heard loud music and dogs barking at about the same time," he said.
A few more rounds were fired north-east of the base's airfield.
Also on Friday night, a US helicopter brought a 10-year-old Afghan girl to the Bagram base for medical treatment after she was injured by a land mine near Asadabad. It also picked up an Afghan militia soldier who was suffering from complications caused by an amputation. Both were in stable condition, King said.
On Friday, the military said it had destroyed the largest cache of explosives found in Afghanistan - hundreds of 500-pound bombs found buried in a riverbed near Kandahar.
King said Saturday that the 417 bombs were Soviet-made and that they were found in April. A booby-trapped cache found in April caused demolition teams to scale back their work until July, creating a backlog that delayed the destruction of the bombs, he said.
The military had said on Friday that there were 420 bombs and they were discovered several weeks ago. - Sapa-AP
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