US launches new Afghan attack

2003-11-10 14:16

Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan - US forces on Monday announced a fresh operation against militants in northeast Afghanistan's Nuristan province, two years after the fall of the Taliban.

Operation "Mountain Resolve" began with an air assault in Nuristan on November 7, Colonel Rodney Davis told reporters at Bagram Air Base, 50km north of Kabul.

"The purpose of Operation Mountain Resolve is to destroy and disrupt anti-coalition forces and deny sanctuary to them," he said.

Troops from the US 10th Mountain Division, Special Operations Forces and air forces were taking part in the operation in the remote and "tough terrain" bordering northwest Pakistan's Chitral district.

Davis said the operation was launched "to meet objectives in the war against terror," which were to "kill, capture or deny sanctuary" to anti-coalition forces.

"The coalition undertakes such operations in support of the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan," the colonel said.

But he refused to elaborate on why Mountain Resolve was launched.

Nuristan intelligence official Syed Omar told reporters that US troops had been deployed at Want and Watapo in central Nuristan's Waigal valley, 170km northeast of Kabul.

Local government offices were attacked a few days earlier by a commander of renegade Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, according to a humanitarian agency source.

Washington earlier this year declared former prime minister Hekmatyar a wanted terrorist for his attempts to overthrow the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Hekmatyar is believed to have formed a loose alliance with Taliban and al-Qaeda militants and his supporters have been blamed for attacks on international peacekeepers in Kabul.

Afghan officials say eight people were killed in a US-led coalition air raid in Waigal valley on October 30, but the US military has denied any knowledge of the incident.

Two years after the fall of the Taliban regime, about 12 500 coalition troops are still hunting remnants of the militia, their al-Qaeda allies and loyalists of Hekmatyar.

Around 150 suspected militants were killed during a major joint US-Afghan anti-Taliban offensive launched in southeast Zabul province in September.

- AFP