Attackers fire on Kandahar airport

? Attackers opened fire late Wednesday on U.S. positions alongside the American base at Kandahar airport, the Army said. There were no U.S. casualties in that attack, but in a separate incident at the base, a U.S. soldier was crushed to death by falling equipment.

Details on the shooting incident were sketchy, but there were no casualties on either side, said Maj. Ralph Mills, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.

Mills said officials didn’t know exactly who fired, but were calling it “probing fire,” for now. That usually means shooters trying to find a weak point in the perimeter.

Seven people were detained by American troops, and three more who were seen near the airfield escaped in a vehicle, Mills said.

U.S. troops shot illumination rounds, then returned fire in the direction of the shooting with machine guns. They also send up helicopters to try and assess where the firing was coming from.

The Army soldier, based at Bagram airfield 40 miles north of the capital, Kabul, died of injuries caused when the heavy piece of equipment he was working on fell on him, said Mills. He was taken to a local medical facility for emergency surgery, where doctors pronounced him dead, Mills said.

The soldier’s name was being withheld until his family has been notified, Mills said, adding he had no other details.

Eight other U.S. soldiers were injured Tuesday evening when their Air Force transport plane crashed, U.S. officials said.

None of the eight aboard that MC-130P transport plane that went down in a remote part of Afghanistan sustained life-threatening injuries, and seven could still walk, said Maj. Brad Lowell, another Central Command spokesman.

The cause of the crash was not known, although it did not appear to be the result of hostile fire, Central Command said.

Lowell would not say what mission the plane was on or where. But the $75 million propeller-driven aircraft, nicknamed the “Combat Shadow” by the Air Force, are used to refuel helicopters flown by special operations troops, and operate mainly at night to avoid detection. They also can be used to drop leaflets and small teams of special operations soldiers.

U.S. special forces and CIA operatives are leading the hunt in Afghanistan for fugitives from the former Taliban regime and the al-Qaida terror network.

Air crashes and other mishaps have so far proved far more deadly to U.S. forces than enemy fire during the four-month U.S.-led war. In the worst accident, a KC-130 refueling aircraft crashed Jan. 9 in neighboring Pakistan, killing seven Marines. On Jan. 20, a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter crashed south of Bagram, killing two of seven Marines aboard.

In other developments, Afghan authorities are negotiating the surrender of some 15 Taliban leaders, who may include former Cabinet ministers, an Afghan official said. They could provide information to help the hunt for fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

U.S. authorities also said Wednesday that they gathered enough remains from the site of a U.S. missile strike to perform DNA tests to try to determine who was killed. Residents of the area had told reporters that those who were killed were innocent Afghans.

The 15 Taliban figures are negotiating indirectly with representatives of Gul Agha, governor of southern Kandahar province, said his spokesman, Khalid Pashtun. Speaking Tuesday evening, he said the surrender “might take a week or two or three or four.”

Pashtun refused to identify the Taliban leaders but said “it is possible” some were Cabinet ministers.

Asked whether they would be turned over to U.S. forces if they surrender, Pashtun said: “They are just talking with us… We haven’t reached that level yet.”

The most senior Taliban official known to be in custody is former Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who surrendered Friday.

He was being questioned at the U.S.-commandeered air base in Kandahar. Afghan authorities want him tried for crimes committed during the hardline regime’s five years in power.

The former Taliban figures might provide information on the whereabouts of Omar and bin Laden. In an interview published Tuesday, Afghanistan’s interior minister said both men still are alive.

Younous Qanooni said Omar is living in southern Helmand province, protected by his tribe, and that bin Laden is in the Afghan-Pakistani border region, the London-based Arab-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported. Pakistan has troops guarding the border and maintains there is no evidence that bin Laden has crossed over.

U.S. forces are also trying to thwart any escape attempt by al-Qaida and Taliban fighters into Pakistan.

On Feb. 4, a CIA-operated remote-controlled pilotless Predator aircraft fired a missile at group of men, whom the intelligence agency believed were al-Qaida, in east Afghanistan’s Khost region.

A U.S. military team sent to the site near Zawar Kili, about 2 1/2 miles from the border with Pakistan, gathered “enough material for us to make a DNA identification” of the people killed, an Army investigator, Chief Warrant Officer Paul Pierce, told reporters Wednesday at the U.S. base in Kandahar.

Pierce said the evidence would be used “to catch those responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks and to prevent people from planning future terror attacks.”

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said those targeted were picked out from among more than a dozen suspects the CIA had been watching for some time.