Teen Accused in U.S. Combat Death

OTTAWA —  U.S. forces in Afghanistan are holding a Canadian teenager on suspicion of killing a U.S. soldier in a combat operation, Canadian officials said Thursday.

The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs said Omar Khadr, who will turn 16 on Sept. 19, should get special consideration because of his age.

Foreign Minister Bill Graham said Khadr, who was wounded during a July 27 firefight with U.S. forces, was being held at Bagram air base north of Kabul, the Afghan capital.

According to Graham, Khadr allegedly killed a U.S. soldier, though the statement by his department said that U.S. investigations into the combat operation were ongoing and that no charges had been filed.

It also was learned Thursday that Khadr’s brother, Abdul Rahman, 19, had been detained in November by the Northern Alliance, which ousted the Taliban regime with U.S. assistance. He is still being held in Kabul.

The pair’s father, Ahmed Saeed Khadr, is a Canadian citizen arrested in Pakistan in 1995 in connection with a bombing at the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Fifteen people died in the blast.

Washington has linked the elder Khadr, who was freed shortly after the embassy bombing, to Al Qaeda, the terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden.