KANDAHAR, Dec 24: Shooting broke out at a hospital in Kandahar late on Sunday when Afghan fighters backed by US soldiers tried to flush out eight wounded Al Qaeda members holed up there with grenades, witnesses said.

They said forces loyal to city governor Gul Agha opened fire on the second floor ward of Kandahar’s Chinese Hospital after a failed attempt to trick the foreigners, believed to be Yemenis loyal to Osama bin Laden, into leaving the building.

Hospital security guard Haji Abdul Razzaq said the firing went on intermittently for two hours until around 1am.

“Nobody was injured and all the other patients were fine,” the guard said.

He said Gul Agha’s men had showed up at the hospital, run with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), along with up to 40 US soldiers on Sunday night. The Americans had not opened fire, he said.

Nineteen wounded foreign fighters were brought to the hospital a few days before the southern city fell to Afghan tribal fighters on Dec 7.

Residents say the 19 were the remnants of a community of Arab radicals who lived in Kandahar under Taliban rule. They say many of them trained at a key Al Qaeda camp called Lewa Saradi — Wolf’s Frontier — near the city airport.

Most of the 19 wounded, apparently injured in US bombing raids, have escaped but those still there have barricaded themselves in part of a ward behind a single brick wall.

They are armed with guns, grenades and other explosives and have threatened to blow themselves up if anyone tries to capture them, according to security guards and hospital staff.

FAILED RUSE: Abdul Razzaq and other witnesses said Gul Agha’s men had sent a male nurse who enjoyed the trust of the Arabs up to the ward to tell them he could smuggle them to Pakistan.