U.S. forces kill 18 Afghan rebels in heaviest fighting in months

Kabul - In the heaviest fighting in nine months, United States and coalition forces are fighting a pitched battle against a large group of rebel fighters in a mountainous region of southeastern Afghanistan.

Col. Roger King, a spokesman for the United States military, said today that at least 18 enemy fighters had been killed, while no coalition casualties had been reported.

The fighting, which broke out on Monday night, was still continuing this morning, he said.

As many as 80 rebel fighters aligned with the former Mujahadeen commander Gulbuddin Helmatyar were lodged in caves and mountain hideouts near the border with Pakistan and had fired on Apache helicopters that went to investigate their presence, Colonel King said.

The fighting is in the Adi Ghar mountain, just north of Spinboldak, the border crossing between the southern Afghan town of Kandahar and the Pakistani city of Quetta.

American forces responded with a rapid reaction force of the 82nd Airborne Division, backed by air support from B-1 bombers, F-16's and AC-130 gunships, Colonel King said. The bombers had dropped two 500-pound and 19 2,000-pound bombs on the area during 12 hours of fighting, he said. The AC-130's and Apaches were repeatedly engaged too, he said. The fighting began after a minor clash on Monday when American and Afghan forces were searching a compound in the area. They came under fire and in the ensuing firefight one attacker was killed, one wounded and one detained.

Under questioning, the detained man said there was a concentration of fighters in the mountains just north of the compound. Apache helicopters were dispatched to investigate and came under small-arms fire, Colonel King said this morning.

He said that the rebel fighters, while loyal to Mr. Hekmatyar, have sympathies and possible links to the ousted Taliban and Al Qaeda. The fighters are thought to be mainly Afghans who are opposed to the American military presence in Afghanistan, and to the government of President Hamid Karzai, who they see as an American puppet.

Islamic extremists, they are also reported to be backed by Arab and other foreign fighters who are now based in the tribal areas of Pakistan, along the Afghan border.

There have been persistent reports in recent months that Al Qaeda and Taliban members, together with Mr. Hekmatyar, have been planning new attacks on American forces and Afghan forces working with them. Infiltration from the Pakistan tribal areas, where many of them have been sheltering for the last year, has increased in recent months, United Nations officials have said, and Afghan security officials have been warning that new attacks are imminent.

Rebels have continued to launch small-scale attacks and fire rockets on American bases and personnel, but the United States military has stressed that enemy forces have not appeared capable of any large-scale operations. The rockets they fire rarely hit their targets, and grenade attacks and planted planted have usually been improvised devices with a small amount of explosives.

Today's fighting, though, is the heaviest since a battle during the American-led Operation Anaconda last March in mountains in eastern Afghanistan when some 2,000 United States troops were engaged. Seven American soldiers were killed and two helicopters were downed in that battle.

"It's the largest concentration of enemy forces since Operation Anaconda," Colonel King said of the latest fighting.

Some of the rebels were dug into caves, he said, a tactic that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters used in battles last year. Heavy bombing finally dislodged them then, but Afghans in the eastern border areas said many of the fighters survived the bombing and managed to withdraw across the border into Pakistan where they found shelter with the local tribal population, who are sympathetic to their cause. -- New York Times

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