"The Afghan citizen died at the scene," the statement said. "The US soldier was wounded in the attack and . . . died a short time later at the airfield."
The dead soldier was the first US combat casualty this year and at least the 117th in Afghanistan since Enduring Freedom, America's antiterrorism operation, began in late 2001. The soldier's name was withheld pending notification of family members.
The military also did not identify the dead Afghan or say whether he was a suspected militant or a bystander.
But a local militia commander, Akhtar Mohammed Husseini, said the compound belonged to a former militia leader named Mullah Dost.
"There was fire from both sides. Mullah Dost was killed along with his wife, and two of their children were injured," Husseini told reporters by telephone. "The Americans wanted to search his house, but we don't know who fired first."
Ziauddin Mahmoudi, the provincial police chief, gave a slightly different account, saying Dost and one of his daughters were killed in the predawn shoot-out.
Mahmoudi said Dost was a veteran of Afghanistan's war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s who later aligned with the Taliban. He said Dost also served briefly as police chief in Shindand District last year.
US military spokesman Major Mark McCann said he had information about only two fatalities but no further details.
The soldier's death was the first since Operation Lightning Freedom, the latest phase of the American military operation in Afghanistan, began after Hamid Karzai's inauguration last month as the country's first directly elected president.
US and Afghan government forces have been stationed at Shindand Airfield, 400 miles west of Kabul, since intervening in August to halt bloody factional fighting in the region near the Iranian border.
Dozens of Afghan militiamen died in the battles, which resulted in the ouster of local strongman Ismail Khan as governor of Herat Province. There were no American victims.
McCann said the "routine" search yesterday was part of the military's effort to create a stable environment for parliamentary elections expected in April or May.
In the attempted kidnapping yesterday, gunmen tried to abduct an American aid worker in the Afghan capital but gave up when he resisted, the victim and Afghan police said.
About four men confronted the American in a quiet back street in Kabul, snatching his bag and trying to force him into a waiting car, local police official Sher Hussein said.
The victim said the men "wanted to put me in the car." He said he was unhurt and his bag contained only a few documents and some food, but he declined to give his name or further details.
The US Embassy in Kabul said its officials were investigating.
The attempted kidnapping followed the Oct. 28 abduction of three foreign UN workers in Kabul. The trio were released unharmed a month later, and it remains unclear whether a ransom was paid.
