BAGRAM AIR BASE, Dec 12: US troops killed four people who fired on them in Afghanistan’s main eastern city of Jalalabad, a US military spokesman said on Friday.

US Special Forces soldiers on Thursday killed four “anti-coalition forces” who fired on troops after they had captured “a couple of people” in Jalalabad, Lt-Col Bryan Hilferty told reporters at the coalition’s Bagram Air Base headquarters.

“The coalition troops returned fire killing four gunmen and wounding one,” he said, adding that nearly a dozen men were arrested by Afghan police.

He would not provide any details about the people captured by US forces but the Nangarhar provincial authorities said they included an Afghan militia commander and his men from neighbouring Laghman province.

They were arrested during a regional military meeting in Jalalabad.

“There are people in Afghanistan, I think, who are kind of working on both sides,” the colonel said without elaborating.

A Nangarhar security official on Thursday said fighting erupted when US troops tried to arrest Gen Asmatullah, Laghman brigade commander, during a regional military meeting near Jalalabad University.

Division and brigade commanders from Kunar, Laghman and Nangarhar provincial Afghan militia forces had gathered for the meeting when the fighting started.

Local officials said they did not know why the general was arrested.

Meanwhile, in Kunar, two US Special Forces soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was hit by a home-made bomb on Thursday.—AFP