Skirmish leaves two wounded

? Gunmen came within 50 yards of U.S. positions in an apparently well-organized attack on the main American base in southern Afghanistan that left two soldiers slightly injured, an Army spokesman said Thursday.

The attack Wednesday night sparked a 15- to 20-minute firefight, with U.S. troops shooting back with machine guns, dispatching helicopter gunships and sending up flares. It was the most intense attack on the heavily guarded airfield at Kandahar since Jan. 10, when gunmen opened fire as a transport plane carrying 20 al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners took off for the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Meanwhile, one of the new Afghan government’s top ministers was killed by a group of religious pilgrims at the Kabul airport angry over delays in traveling to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the hajj, or Muslim pilgrimage, government sources said on condition of anonymity.

The sources said Abdul Rahman, who was in charge of civil aviation and promoting tourism, was at the airport for a trip to India when the crowd swarmed around his plane after rumors that their trip would be further delayed because the minister had taken their plane, the sources said.

When he tried to calm the crowd, he was attacked and fatally injured. Several pilgrims were injured during the clash with minister’s bodyguards. The report could not be immediately confirmed independently.

In another development Thursday, the Defense Department identified a U.S. soldier who was accidentally killed Wednesday at another airfield as Army Spc. Jason A. Disney, 21, of Fallon, Nev. Disney died shortly 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.