US soldiers kill four Afghans

US troops shot dead four Afghan soldiers and wounded four others outside the US embassy in Kabul yesterday when they mistakenly thought they were about to come under attack, Afghan officials said.

The incident came just after Washington raised its terror alert status to high after recent bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and could prove an embarrassment for the main backer of the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai.

The US embassy said it regretted the incident. Amrullah Salihi, a senior Afghan intelligence official, said US Marines guarding the embassy opened fire when they spotted the Afghans moving weapons at a military compound opposite.

"It was a misunderstanding," Salihi said. Anotherintelligence official added: "The US soldiersthought the Afghan soldiers were aiming guns at them. They panicked and opened fire."

There were no US casualties, said Alberto Fernandez, a spokesman for the US embassy. Police earlier said one American might have been wounded when one of the wounded Afghans returned fire in self-defence.

"There was no firing from the Afghan side, except for one of the wounded soldiers who fired back after the Americans fired at him," Police General Abdul Rauf told Reuters. "Four Afghans have been killed, four others have been wounded."

Fernandez gave no details of the incident, but blamed "heightened tension".

"The US embassy regrets the loss of life," he said. The fortress-like embassy in central Kabul is guarded by heavily armed Marines in sandbagged watchtowers.

US soldiers blocked off the road in front of the embassy immediately after the mid-morning incident and Zalmay Khalilzad, President George W. Bush's special envoy for Afghanistan and Iraq, cancelled a news conference scheduled for later in the day.