Afghan officer guns down 2 U.S. special forces

MAYDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan -- An Afghan policeman gunned down two U.S. special forces yesterday in Wardak province, less than 24 hours after President Hamid Karzai's deadline expired for them to leave the area where residents have grown increasingly hostile toward the Americans.

The officer stood up in the back of a pickup truck, grabbed a machine gun and started firing at the U.S. forces and other Afghan policemen at a police compound in Wardak's Jalrez district, about 12 miles east of Maydan Shahr, said the province's deputy police chief, Abdul Razaq Koraishi.

Two Americans and two Afghan policemen were killed and four others were wounded in the gunfight before the assailant was gunned down, Koraishi said.

A U.S. defense official in Washington and a coalition official in Afghanistan said 10 Americans, both special operators and regular soldiers who worked in a combined team, and at least 12 Afghans were wounded in the attack.

In a second incident, outside Kabul, U.S. troops fired on a truck approaching their military convoy, killing two Afghan men inside.

Despite Karzai's orders, the American special operations forces remain in Wardak, where villagers accuse them and their Afghan partners of intimidation through unprovoked beatings, mass arrests and forced detentions.

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan says it has found no evidence to support the claims of abuse. But infuriated by the villagers' allegations, Karzai ordered U.S. special operations forces two weeks ago to withdraw by midnight Sunday from Wardak province, 27 miles south of Kabul.