About 2,000 Afghans protested outside the main American base in Afghanistan yesterday after the arrest of several villagers in what the US military said was an anti-insurgent operation.

US soldiers fired shots in the air after some protesters threw stones at military vehicles entering Bagram Air Base, north of the capital Kabul, witnesses said.

It was the biggest protest against the United States since 16 people were killed and scores injured in May following a Newsweek magazine article later retracted that US guards at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba desecrated the Koran, Islam's holy book.

Yesterday's protesters chanted anti-US slogans outside the Bagram base to demand the release of three men they said were detained when US troops entered a house in Bagram village without permission.

Lieutenant Colonel Jerry O'Hara, a US spokesman at Bagram, said US and Afghan forces had arrested eight people after a raid on a compound during which troops discovered improvised bombs of the sort used by Taliban and allied Islamist insurgents.

A US military statement said those detained were suspected of planning attacks on US-led forces.

Protesters banged with fists and sticks on the main gate of the base and burned tyres on the road leading to it.

Some protesters threatened to resort to arms if the military did not release those detained, who they said included a former factional commander, Engineer Hamidullah.

"We should fight these strangers until they stop going to our houses without our permission," said one demonstrator.

The protesters dispersed after Afghan police told them that the Americans will hand over the detainees to Afghan authorities.

Meanwhile, about 50 Taliban militants were killed on Monday night during the operation carried out by Afghan and Coalition forces in Afghan southern province of Uruzgan, an Afghan official said yesterday.

"The Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan National Police (ANP) together with Coalition forces carried out an operation against Taliban last night in Cia Choy District of Uruzgan. About 40 to 50 militants were killed, and 25 were captured in the attack," said Jan Mohammad Khan, provincial governor of Uruzgan.

"Two Coalition soldiers and two Afghan soldiers were also killed during the fight," he added.

The death of the two US soldiers brings to about 172 the number of US troops killed in and around Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001.

Cia Choy District is a big centre of Taliban to supply weapons and armaments to the militants in three important provinces of Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan, where Taliban often carried out attacks against Afghan and foreign troops, the governor said.

The purported Taliban spokesperson Latif Hakimi confirmed the attack, but said only four Taliban militants and 28 Coalition troops were killed, and Taliban also destroyed five US vehicles.

(China Daily July 27, 2005)