Los Alamitos-Based Soldiers Attacked in Afghanistan

Los Alamitos - A Los Alamitos-based Army National Guard convoy was attacked by Taliban gunmen in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, it was reported on Sunday.

No one was wounded, but most of the vehicles in a convoy of six were hit and one was got a flattened tire and a bullet hole in the windshield, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The soldiers, with the 40th Infantry Division, returned fire at two groups -- one in a cave on a mountain side, and the other across the Kunar River.

The U.S. Army estimated that 15-20 Taliban were engaged in the ambush, The Times reported.

Infantry from the 1st battalion, 32nd regiment were quickly ordered into the area and engaged in an hourlong firefight with the Taliban, again with no U.S. casualties, the Army reported. Artillery and aircraft also pounded the Taliban positions.

The California group is part of a Pentagon agribusiness development program to win support from rural villagers by helping them improve the yield of their crops and the health of their livestock, The Times reported.

Lt. Robert Parry, the spokesman for the California unit, who was in the convoy, told The Times the attack would not deter the agribusiness development team from going to other villages to help with irrigation, crop rotation, and livestock management.

"It's our intent to go where we're needed," Parry said by cellular telephone. "This is the not the first time we've been shot at."

The National Guard troops were returning from the village of Karay in Kunar Province to hold an inoculation program for 400-plus cattle, goats, donkeys and sheep, and the attack occurred along a winding, boulder-strewn 60- mile road, which follows the wide, fast-moving river.

Kunar Province has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting between U.S. troops and the Taliban -- including one attack on an outpost that killed eight U.S. soldiers.