Two Americans Injured In Attack In Western Afghanistan

[May 28, 2014]  HERAT Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two Americans suffered light injuries when a U.S. consulate vehicle came under attack in Afghanistan's western province of Herat on Wednesday morning, the U.S. embassy said.

The embassy statement gave scant details of the attack but an Afghan official in Herat said a rocket-propelled grenade had been fired at the vehicle.

"Two men attacked a foreign vehicle with a RPG and then ran away," provincial district chief Haji Bashir Ahmad told Reuters by telephone. The U.S. embassy statement said both of the injured were taken for treatment at a Spanish-run hospital in Herat.

Hours earlier, President Barack Obama announced plans to reduce the number of American troops in Afghanistan from 32,000 to 9,800 by the beginning of next year, and gradually reduce the force to a smaller embassy presence by the end of 2016.

Last Friday, Afghan security forces in Herat killed at least three gunmen and suicide bombers following an attack on the Indian consulate in Afghanistan's third largest city and main gateway to Iran.

(Reporting by Jalil Ahmad, Hamid Shalizi and Jessica Donati; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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