Six Afghan fighters died in an exchange of fire at a maternity hospital as US soldiers tried to arrest a local military commander in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, witnesses said.
US soldiers blocked access to the hospital after the clash, but people who said they saw the incident said four of Commander Esmatullah's bodyguards were killed along with two soldiers from Jalalabad's militia force.
A Reuters reporter later saw five bodies, three of them in military uniforms and the other two in civilian clothes, on the floor of a nearby hospital where another Afghan fighter was being treated for his wounds.
Hospital doctors said the bodies were brought there from the maternity hospital, but declined to say who they were or if they had died in the fight with US soldiers. Minutes after the clash, an explosion went off outside the Indian consulate close by the maternity hospital, residents said, adding there was no damage or any casualties.
Jalalabad police chief Haji Ajab Shah said earlier there had been casualties among the Esmatullah's bodyguards, but said he did not know if any U.S. soldiers were wounded.
US soldiers in Jalalabad refused to give details about the incident, and there was no immediate comment from the US military headquarters at Bagram air base, north of Kabul.
Shah said the clash happened when the US soldiers arrived at the hospital in an attempt to arrest Esmatullah, who commands pro-government forces in the neighbouring province of Laghman. About 11,500 US-led forces are based in Afghanistan, chasing remnants of the former Taliban regime overthrown from power in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda militants.