WASHINGTON, Oct 28: The CIA said on Tuesday that two US nationals working under contract with the intelligence agency were killed over the weekend in an ambush in Afghanistan while tracking “terrorists” near the border with Pakistan.

In a rare public acknowledgment, the agency identified the two as William Carlson and Christopher Glenn Mueller, civilian contractors assigned to the agency’s directorate of operations.

They were killed during an ambush near Shkin, the CIA said, adding that they “died while tracking terrorists in the region”.

CONFIRMED: US-led coalition troops and Afghan militia have killed 18 rebel fighters during a six-hour-long gunbattle in a border province, calling in airstrikes to help repel the attackers, the US military said Tuesday.

Six Afghan militia soldiers were wounded in the fighting that began on Saturday morning, the coalition said in a statement.

Coalition forces were patrolling 44 kilometres south of a base in Shkin in Gomal district of Paktika province when they made contact with as many as 25 anti-coalition fighters, the military said.

During an exchange of small-arms fire by the ground forces, A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft and Apache helicopters were called in for airstrikes. One vehicle was destroyed, and the rebels retreated, the military said.—Agencies