KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. troops and Afghan police raided a compound housing people with al-Qaida links in eastern Afghanistan, killing three militants, the U.S. military said today.

People who were in the compound said the dead were civilians and that none of them had fired on the troops, according to Jahangir Pashtun, a spokesman for the governor's office of Khost province. These witnesses told Pashtun that the U.S. troops opened fire on the compound.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Gregory Julian said the three people killed, one of them a woman, had been specifically targeted as "known individuals with al-Qaida links."

"These were known insurgents and they had weapons and they attempted to engage us and we beat them to it," Julian said. He said others were detained, including one person "believed to be in direct contact with al-Qaida leaders outside of Afghanistan."