12 killed in shootout ‘were escaped al-Qaida’

A DOZEN gunmen killed in a shootout with Afghan soldiers were Pakistani members of al-Qaida who had escaped from intelligence service detention in Kabul just hours earlier, the Afghan foreign minister reported yesterday.

Three of the group killed themselves by detonating grenades as soldiers closed in on them on Wednesday morning, Foreign Minister Abdullah said. A 13th man killed in the clash was from the former Soviet central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, he said.

Abdullah's report on the firefight, the worst violence in the Kabul area in months, appeared to clarify confused initial reports from Wednesday, including Afghan military statements that "Arab and Pakistani" gunmen had attacked an army position on the capital's southern edge.