KABUL --- A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan border policeman's uniform blew himself up Thursday at a U.S. base near the Pakistani frontier, wounding five Americans, an Afghan official said. 

The spokesman for Paktia province, Roullah Samoun, said the attack occurred after sundown in a barracks at a U.S. facility in the Dand aw Patan district in eastern Afghanistan, about 35 miles (70 kilometers) east of Gardez.

He did not identify the base by name or say what kind personnel are stationed there.

A U.S. statement said "several" U.S. service members were injured in an explosion at a joint U.S.-Afghan outpost in Paktia but gave no further details.

On Dec. 30 a Jordanian believed to be a double agent blew himself up at a CIA base in another border province, Khost, killing seven agency employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer.

The attack reported Thursday occurred about 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Taliban town of Marjah, which is under siege by U.S. and Afghan troops. 

NORFOLK, Va. --- Lawyers for a Navy senior chief implicated in a hazing scandal in Bahrain say he's been smeared by "scurrilous allegations" and are mounting a vigorous defense in hopes that he can retire at full pay.

A three-member board convened Thursday to consider the retirement of Michael Toussaint, a master-at-arms who served as kennel master of the military working-dog unit in Bahrain from 2004 to 2006.

An investigation shortly after Toussaint left the unit documented more than 90 instances of hazing and abuse of junior personnel. Sailors told of being forced to eat dog treats, hogtied to chairs, locked into a feces-filled kennel and told to simulate oral sex during a training event.

The admiral who endorsed the investigation noted that the unit's senior enlisted leaders encouraged --- and in some cases instigated --- hazing. Toussaint received a nonpunitive letter of caution and was later promoted. He is assigned to Naval Special Warfare Group Two at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Virginia Beach.

Lt. Cmdr. Keith Lofland, one of Toussaint's two military defense lawyers, said Toussaint strongly denies any allegations of hazing, maltreatment or fraternization. 

"The only victim in this board is Senior Chief Toussaint," Lofland said, adding that Toussaint's accusers were disgruntled Sailors "who chafed under what can only be characterized as effective leadership."

Another Sailor implicated in the hazing killed herself in Bahrain as the investigation was wrapping up. Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Valdivia, who managed the kennel after Toussaint departed, died in January 2007, shortly after learning she might be disciplined for not reporting the hazing.

Last fall, after concerns surfaced about how the Navy handled the investigation and its findings, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead reopened the matter. Roughead rescinded Toussaint's re-enlistment, which would have had him serve through 2012. 

In October, the secretary of the Navy issued a letter of censure, and the Navy began processing Toussaint out of the service.

Officials decided not to court-martial Toussaint, citing the time that had passed since the original investigation and his being months away from qualifying for retirement.

The board --- two officers and a master chief petty officer --- spent Thursday reading hundreds of pages of background, including the original investigation as well as copies of Toussaint's awards, performance evaluations and letters of support from colleagues and family members. Today, the three men will hear testimony from witnesses.

The board will recommend at what paygrade Toussaint should retire, but the final determination will be made by an assistant secretary of the Navy.

One of the documents the board received was Toussaint's rebuttal to the secretarial letter of censure. In the 14-page letter, he denies directing personnel to participate in sexually explicit training exercises. He says he encouraged trainers to come up with realistic training scenarios and told them about situations he encountered as a master-at-arms.

"While I recall sharing a 'sea story' about a call that involved two Sailors involved in homosexual acts, I strongly deny ever dictating that any Sailor perform degrading or embarrassing acts of this kind," he wrote.
Toussaint also denied ordering someone to bend over a copy machine to get spanked.

"Under the circumstances, I doubt that I would have interfered if this event were characterized as modest 'birthday' spankings," he wrote. "However, if this occurred in an offensive or coercive manner, I would have taken action immediately to end it."

The rebuttal contains testimonials from more than two dozen Sailors, many lauding him for bravery during combat last year in Afghanistan. Some of them are expected to testify today. Also on the witness list: Sailors who say they were targets of Toussaint's abuse in Bahrain.

Although the hearing is in a Navy courtroom and will include testimony given under oath, it is not a court-martial. Only Toussaint's retirement pay is at stake.

Retiring as a senior chief would bring Toussaint about $25,100 this year. A newly retired chief petty officer would collect about $22,800, and a petty officer first class about $19,500.

The mother of Staff Sgt. Amy Seyboth Tirador, a Colonie native slain in Iraq in November, said Friday she believes military investigators are "leaning toward" ruling her daughter's death a suicide.

Tirador, 29, was killed Nov. 4, the victim of a gunshot to the back of her head while walking to an evening work shift on the U.S. military base Camp Caldwell in Kirkush, Iraq, near Iran.

The Army has attributed the fatality to a "non-combat-related incident." Tirador's mother, Colleen Murphy, said she suspects the investigation will find the bullet was self-inflicted.

"They seem to be leaning toward suicide in the questions that they have asked," Murphy said in a phone interview, referring to military investigators. She would disagree with such a finding.

"Amy -- in no way, shape or form -- took her own life," she said. "She was too strong a soldier and she had too much life to live ... no matter what pressures were on her, she knew how to deal (with them)."

Murphy said she has retained an attorney. She also said she would expand on her remarks at a news conference she plans on Feb. 4, the three-month anniversary of her daughter's death.

Tirador, a 1998 graduate of South Colonie High School, was the first female soldier from the Capital Region to lose her life in the Iraq war.

She joined the Army Reserves in 1999 and enlisted into active duty in 2001 as an Army combat medic.
Tirador met her husband, Michael Tirador, during her first overseas assignment in Germany. She won a Bronze Star during her second deployment for the rescue of a higher-ranked soldier during a combat situation.

In her last tour, Tirador was studying to be an Arabic linguist. At the time of her death, she was interrogating enemy combatants and interpreting interviews for Army intelligence at Camp Caldwell.

A spokesman for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command could not be immediately reached Friday.