2 children, Taliban leader die in raid

An Afghan soldier opened fire inside a military base Monday, killing four Afghans and wounding 12 others, including an American soldier, while a U.S.-led coalition raid in the east killed a Taliban leader and two children, officials said.

Afghan authorities, meanwhile, showed off a captured 14-year-old boy from Pakistan whom officials said had intended to set off a suicide bomb against an Afghan governor.

During the coalition raid at a home in eastern Paktia province, suspected militants fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. and Afghan troops, forcing the soldiers to return fire. Two children were killed in the exchange, said Maj. Donald Korpi, a U.S. spokesman.

"When someone shoots at you with an RPG, you're going to return fire," Korpi said. "It's very sad and we hate to see any civilian killed, especially a child. ... We had no indication whatsoever there were kids in there."

The midlevel leader killed in the raid was identified as Commander Saleem, whom the U.S. accused of having attacked Afghan and foreign troops. A woman inside Saleem's house was also wounded in the crossfire and evacuated for treatment, the coalition said.

Civilian deaths in Afghanistan have been a recurring theme this year and have dented Afghan support of the foreign military mission.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly asked international forces to do all they can to avoid such deaths. U.S. and NATO commanders say they frequently withhold fire if they think their attack will cause civilian casualties, but they reserve the right to defend themselves.

Afghanistan's intelligence service showed off the 14-year-old Pakistani boy, identified as Rafiq Ullah, at a news conference also attended by the boy's father, Mati Ullah. The two shed tears and hugged in front of journalists.

The father said he had asked his son's teachers at the religious school he attends where his boy was but couldn't get a clear answer.

"I didn't know my son was going to carry out a suicide attack in Afghanistan," Mati Ullah said, his eyes full of tears.

The boy had been instructed by a Pakistani Muslim cleric to carry out the suicide attack, said Sayed Ansary, a spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service. Rafiq Ullah's target was the governor of Khost province, where the boy was caught on Saturday.

In brief comments to reporters, the boy gave the same account of his mission.

At a military base in the western city of Herat, an Afghan soldier killed three Afghan troops and a civilian and wounded 12 other people, said Lt. Col. David Johnson, a U.S. spokesman. Afghan officials said the wounded American _ an adviser training the Afghan military _ had been the target of the rampage. Johnson said the soldier was in stable condition.

Gen. Fazeluddin Sayar, an Afghan commander, said the gunman told authorities he had a dream telling him to start jihad, or holy war. "That is why I came to kill this American," Sayar quoted the gunman as saying.

In the south, Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol over the weekend, and the subsequent battle left six police and 12 militants dead, said Kandahar provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. About 20 Taliban fighters were wounded in the engagement, he said, and several police are missing.

Saqib said "a large number" of Taliban launched the attack, but he didn't give numbers.

Elsewhere in Kandahar province, Taliban fighters beheaded two civilians they accused of being spies for the government or NATO, Saqib said.

In the east, insurgents fired mortars at a village in Kunar province, killing a boy and wounding eight other people, including five NATO soldiers, a NATO statement said Monday.

The 10-year-old boy died after two mortar rounds hit a village in Nari district on Saturday, the statement said.

The attack also left five alliance soldiers and three Afghan civilians wounded, it said. NATO did not release the nationalities of the wounded soldiers, but most of the troops in that region are American. Violence has risen sharply in recent weeks. More than 3,100 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.