KABUL, Jan 28: US and Afghan forces stormed a hospital in Kandahar and killed six suspected Al Qaeda fighters on Monday, ending a tense six-week siege.

Several grenade explosions were heard as the combined forces mounted the final assault, after an 11-hour exchange of gunfire in which the Arab guerillas had refused to surrender.

“The Mirwais hospital issue was finally solved. All six men were killed,” said Khaled Pashtun, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province, adding five Afghans were wounded in the raid.

Sporadic explosions and gunfire could be heard throughout the day, and witnesses said at last 10 grenade explosions were heard as the US and Afghan troops moved into the hospital around 2pm.

Pashtun claimed the Americans only had a “monitoring” role, but a photographer in the hospital throughout the operation said he saw US soldiers firing their weapons.

“They were carrying guns and took position around the hospital. They were shooting at the hospital, retaliating to firing from the Arabs,” he said.

“Some of them went inside with the local Afghan soldiers when the final assault was launched.”

Hospital staff and patients were in the building at the time of the raid but the Arabs, who were armed with guns and grenades, had been isolated in a separate wing.

The suspected Al Qaeda guerillas were injured in the US bombing around Kandahar last year and had been holed up in the Mirwais hospital since the Taliban evacuated their former stronghold last month.

They had refused to give up, fearing they would be handed over to American forces, and had managed to gain access to water despite orders from the local authorities to cut supplies.

“We had conducted negotiations with them for one and a half months and we promised them time and again that their lives would be saved if they surrendered,” Pashtun said.

“Even when two of them were killed early this morning, we asked them again to surrender but they did not listen to us.”

—AFP