At least 18 rebel fighters were killed in the fighting, which began
Monday, the military said. There were no coalition casualties.
"It's the largest concentration of enemy forces since Operation
Anaconda," U.S. military spokesman Roger King said from Bagram Air Base, a
reference to fighting in March in eastern Afghanistan (news
- web
sites) that involved the greatest number of American troops in the
Afghan war.
Another Bagram spokesman, Maj. Robert Hepner, said 200 U.S. Special
Forces troops were engaged in the mountain battle and that the number of
ground forces was likely to rise.
"More soldiers are on their way," he said.
American war planes were bombarding enemy positions, including some
entrenched in deep caves, with B-1 bombers, F-16s and AC-130 gunships,
King said.
"We've had reports of various numbers of armed men, groups of people
trying to gather in order to carry out attacks on the coalition," King
said. "We've been actively engaged in trying to develop intelligence that
would lead us to a precise location and yesterday (Monday) we did."
The fighting in mountains in southeastern Afghanistan � about 15 miles
north of Spinboldak and near the border with Pakistan � was triggered by a
small shootout nearby between U.S. Special Forces and armed attackers as
the Americans and their Afghan government allies were working to clear a
compound.
One of the attackers was killed, one injured and one detained, King
said. He said the detained suspect said under questioning that a large
group of armed men had massed in the mountain area.
King said the military sent Apache helicopters to investigate, and they
came under small arms fire. He said 82nd Airborne Division forces
responded with a quick-reaction contingent of fighter aircraft that are
continuing to pound the remote region with 500-pound and 2,000-pound
bombs.
"Our intelligence leads us to believe that they are most closely
aligned with the Hezb-e-Islami movement, which is Hekmatyar's military
arm," King said. "We've had reports over several months that he's been
attempting to consolidate with remnants of al-Qaida and Taliban."
Hekmatyar was a key guerrilla commander during the 1980s Soviet war in
Afghanistan. In the civil war that paved the way for the Taliban takeover,
Hekmatyar's men pounded the capital of Kabul with daily rocket barrages.
He lived in exile in Iran during the five years of the Taliban rule, and
returned after U.S.-led forces ousted the hardline militia. Western
intelligence agencies suspect he is getting money from Iran.
His following among ethnic Pashtuns is considered fairly significant.
Reports that Hekmatyar was training suicide squads to target American
and government forces surfaced in September, when one of Hekmatyar's
military commanders, Salauddin Safi, told The Associated Press that some
Taliban had formed an alliance with Hekmatyar's followers called Lashkar
Fedayan-e-Islami, or the Islamic Martyrs Brigade.
King would not speculate on what the rebel fighters were planning, but
he said that the largest contingent of coalition forces were stationed in
nearby Spinboldak. "That's an obvious target," King said.
King said that it is believed the rebel fighters, while loyal to
Hekmatyar, have sympathies and possible links to the ousted Taliban and
al-Qaida.
Many Taliban and al-Qaida suspects fled into Pakistan following U.S.
bombardment in late 2001. There have been a series of attacks along
Afghan's long border with Pakistan in recent months, including one in
December that resulted in the death of U.S. Army Sgt. Steven Checo.
There have been several other shootouts involving U.S. forces along the
border, and rockets are often fired at U.S. military bases in eastern
Afghanistan, near the border. The rockets rarely hit their target and
injuries from such assaults are unheard of.
U.N. and American forces have expressed concern about renewed training
by al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the mountains of Afghanistan near the
Pakistani border.
Operation Anaconda, from March 2 to March 18, was the largest ground
operation of the war. Its was to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts
in a mountainous area of southeastern Afghanistan and involved more than
2,000 U.S. and coalition troops. Seven Americans died.
