U.S. soldier wounded in attack on convoy

KANDAHAR AIR BASE, Afghanistan (CNN) -- U.S. civil affairs and medical personnel were fired upon Tuesday as they were returning in a convoy of three SUVs from Kandahar to the air base outside the city.

One soldier, a male nurse in the last vehicle, was shot in his right ankle but was not seriously hurt, said Col. Michael Linnington, commanding officer for the joint task force.

The nurse, who was not identified pending notification of his family, was initially taken to the U.S. medical facility at the air base, which is about 30 miles from the city.

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He will be taken to Bagram air base Wednesday for a week or two of treatment, after which he is expected to return to duty, Linnington said.

A surgeon who was in the convoy's lead car said the gunfire occurred at 8 p.m. (11:30 a.m. ET), as the vehicle was exiting through the city gates, an area congested with pedestrians, kiosks, stores and traffic.

The attack sounded like three or four salvos of three or four shots each and may have come from one or two shooters, he said.

Local Afghan forces who were accompanying the convoy jumped out and cordoned off the area but did not return fire, the surgeon said. No one was apprehended.

The medical assessment team had just visited a hospital where 19 Afghan civilians had been taken after having been mistakenly fired on Monday by U.S. forces. (Full story)

"It's troubling that a unit that's performing a purely humanitarian mission at the request of President [Hamid] Karzai to assess our ability to help injured Afghan citizens would be fired on from ambush," said Col. Roger King, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

"I have no idea who they were," he said of the attackers.

-- CNN Producer Alphonso Van Marsh and Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr contributed to this story.