US troops and Afghan police raided a compound housing people with Al Qaeda links in eastern Afghanistan, killing three militants, the US military said on Wednesday. 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. Witnesses told Pashtun the US troops opened fire on the compound. US military spokesman Col Gregory Julian said the three people killed, one of them a woman, had been specifically targeted as 'known individuals with Al Qaeda links'. He said two of them fired directly on the troops and another attempted to fire. "These were known insurgents and they had weapons and they attempted to engage us and we beat them to it," Julian said, adding others were detained, including one person "believed to be in direct contact with Al Qaeda leaders outside of Afghanistan". The aim of the raid had been to capture the targeted people, Julian said. The incident occurred in Khost city, the province capital. At least one other woman was wounded and taken to a coalition medical facility.