Relations 'still strong' despite Kabul shootings

Afghan officials were today playing down a deadly shooting outside the American embassy in Kabul in which US Marines killed at least three Afghan troops.

Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said the incident would not undermine relations between the two allies.

“The relationship between Afghanistan and the United States has a very strong and solid basis,” he said in the capital.

“It is a partnership and neither side wants this partnership to be undermined by incidents like what happened yesterday.”

US embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez agreed: “The relationship between the United States and Afghanistan is strong and getting stronger.”

It remained unclear what sparked the five minute exchange of fire between the two sides. Jalali said Afghan soldiers were loading or unloading weapons from a vehicle across the street from the embassy.

US guards believed they were about to come under attack and opened fire, killing three Afghan soldiers – including a major and a sergeant, Jalali said. Two Afghan captains were also wounded.

“There was no intention of the Afghan soldiers to attack the American embassy, it was just a misunderstanding,” Jalali said.

International peacekeepers have given another version of the events, saying Afghan troops possibly fired on a passing car – perhaps because it failed to stop at a checkpoint.

The Afghan soldiers' bullets were fired towards the US Marine guards, who mistook it for an attack and returned fire, they said.

The US embassy has said very little about the shoot-out, saying only that it regretted the loss of life and that an investigation was underway.