Afghanistan News May 1, 2002

May 1, 2002

US forces launch large operation in Afghan mountains

Wednesday May 1, 4:32 PM(AFP)

Hundreds of coalition soldiers have launched an operation against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in eastern Afghanistan's Paktia province, the Afghan Islamic Press reported.

The operation began late Tuesday when US helicopters ferried hundreds of troops into the Mezai mountains, 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of the provincial capital Gardez, the Pakistan-based news agency said.

The Mezai mountains are south of the Shahi Kot valley and Arma range where US-led forces waged Operation Anaconda in March, the largest battle involving foreign troops since the war began in Afghanistan in October.

The area belongs to the Zadran tribe of senior Taliban military commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of the most wanted men on Washington's hit-list for Afghanistan.

US special forces and intelligence agents are understood to have participated alongside Pakistani paramilitary troops in a raid on a seminary linked to Haqqani in Pakistan's frontier tribal belt last month.

The reported operation in the Mezai mountains follows a clash between extremist fighters and Australian commandos in Khost province, neighbouring Paktia to the east.

An Australian defence department spokesman said the Special Air Service troops killed or wounded two al-Qaeda extremists after coming under machine gun and rocket fire on Monday morning.

US officers at the Bagram base north of Kabul said some 200 US airborne troops were sent to the vicinity early Tuesday to extract the coalition commandos and search a nearby village.

Colonel Patrick Fetterman, who commanded the troops from the 101st Airborne Division, said they came under fire as they entered the village and later saw signs that al-Qaeda fighters had been injured or possibly killed.

It is not known if the raid reported by AIP, if confirmed, is related to the earlier actions and US officers made no reference to it at a regular press briefing at Bagram on Wednesday

U.S. government arrests head of Muslim charity By Michael Conlon

Wednesday May 1, 1:21 PM

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. federal agents arrested the Syrian-born head of an international Muslim charity on Tuesday, saying he had long-time ties to Osama bin Laden and used the group's funds to support "terrorist activity".

Enaam Arnaout, 39, executive director of the Benevolence International Foundation, was arrested at his home in the Chicago suburbs and charged with lying under oath in documents his group had filed in U.S. federal court, the Justice Department and the FBI said.

The documents involved were filed to support a lawsuit the group brought against the U.S. government in January after its assets were seized as part of investigations into the September 11 attacks on America that killed approximately 3,000 people.

At the time, the group said it was a "faith-based humanitarian organisation that engages in charitable work around the world" and "does not engage in or fund terrorist activity". Its headquarters are in Palos Hills, Illinois, and it has offices in Pakistan, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Yemen, Bangladesh, Turkey, Georgia, China and elsewhere.

In Tuesday's announcement, the U.S. government said the foundation was "engaged in the support of various persons and groups involved in military and terrorist type activity", including Saudi-born extremist bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed by the United States for the attacks on New York and Washington.

It said al Qaeda has an "established practice" of using charities to fund terrorism.

Arnaout appeared in court briefly and was ordered held pending a hearing next week. If convicted on the two perjury counts, he could be sentenced to prison for 10 years and fined $500,000. The foundation, also named in two counts of perjury, could be fined $1 million.

INFORMANTS CITED

The government's court filing cited four confidential informants who provided information about links between the charity and terrorism, one of whom said that Arnaout was considering fleeing the United States.

According to the court filing, government wiretaps overheard a Pakistani representative of the charity calling Arnaout, who said he feared he might not be alive much longer and advised the representative to go to Kabul, Afghanistan.

Arnaout's attorneys said their client had planned to go to Saudi Arabia to visit a sick relative.

Peter Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, said the charity raised millions of dollars a year, ostensibly for needy causes, but diverted some funds to "support terrorist acts".

Fitzgerald said it was important to note that "donors (to the charity) have done nothing wrong. This is a prosecution aimed at fraud and perjury. It is not a prosecution aimed at charities".

The government said Arnaout had a relationship with bin Laden going back more than a decade, and that al Qaeda used the charity for "logistical support, including the movement of money to fund its operations." The charity also was accused of having contact with people "trying to obtain chemical and nuclear weapons on behalf of al Qaeda."

A search of the charity's offices in Bosnia in March turned up firearms, military manuals and a cache of documents showing ties between the charity and al Qaeda, including photographs of both Arnaout and bin Laden in Bosnia and correspondence between the two that dated to 1989, the government said. Other photographs showed Arnaout carrying rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The government said the foundation "has had direct dealing with representatives of the Chechen mujahideen (guerrillas) as well as Hezb-e-Islami, a military group operating at various times in Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. ... (The foundation) made efforts to provide the Chechen mujahideen with money, an X-ray machine and anti-mine boots, among other things."

The government complaint listed four men who it said were in contact with Arnaout and his headquarters office:

--Mamdouh Salim, a bin Laden associate charged with conspiracy to kill Americans who allegedly tried to get chemical and nuclear weapons for al Qaeda and whose 1998 visit to Bosnia was sponsored by the foundation.

--Mohamed Bayazid, who it said tried to get uranium for al Qaeda to develop nuclear weapons.

--Mohamad Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden's brother-in-law, who "has been closely linked to terrorist operatives who carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing" and was also involved in a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

--Wali Khan Amin Shah, "a key participant in the plot in the Philippines to bomb 12 airliners over American cities in 1994" and who asked Arnaout to funnel weapons money to an Afghan field commander in the late 1980s.

Australian and U.S troops kill up to four al Qaeda rebels By Michael Christie

Tuesday April 30, 9:49 PM

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Australian special forces, backed by U.S. troops, killed up to four al Qaeda rebels on the Afghan-Pakistan border, bringing into the open a shift of fighting to the sensitive frontier region, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.

In two clashes over a 20-hour period on Monday and Tuesday the troops also uncovered major weapons caches in caves and camouflaged mud huts on the ill-defined border where for days there have been conflicting accounts of whether U.S. and other troops were operating on the Pakistan side.

The location of the latest fighting added weight to reports that many Taliban and al Qaeda followers of Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States, had fled to Pakistan's lawless frontier tribal areas.

It also suggested U.S.-led forces were now concentrating their search for rebels in the border area where caves often start in Afghanistan and end in Pakistan.

The commander of coalition ground forces in Afghanistan, General Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, said intelligence showed al Qaeda had dispersed but remained a cohesive force of potentially hundreds -- but "not thousands" -- capable of suicide bombings, truck bombings and rocket attacks.

"I think there's still some mid-level al Qaeda leadership out there. I think that they still do have a command and control structure in place. From all the reports that I get from a variety of intelligence sources it tells me that they can still communicate," Hagenbeck said.

"It remains an open question whether they have the capability to bring together larger formations. We're on the lookout for that," the two star general told reporters at Bagram Air Base, the coalition's headquarters 50 km (30 miles) north of Kabul.

U.S. military spokesman Major Bryan Hilferty said the first exchange of fire in which two rebels were either killed or wounded took place on Monday morning as a non-U.S. special forces reconnaissance team tracked a larger group of militants.

At dawn on Tuesday, after 200 troops from the U.S. 101st Airborne Division were flown by helicopter to set up a cordon, the special forces group, identified in Canberra as Australians, ambushed an al Qaeda group killing two fighters.

The rebel group had been under surveillance for several days, Hilferty told reporters at Bagram.

In Canberra, Australian Defence Force spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said a small patrol of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) was involved in the fighting, first encountering four rebels who opened fire.

"Our soldiers returned fire, killing or wounding two of the terrorists," he told reporters.

"At that time it was decided to exploit the area for intelligence purposes and additional Australian special forces plus troops from the United States 101st Airborne Division reacted and were inserted into the area," Brigadier Hannan said.

"This was a successful operation demonstrating good coalition response in a contact with al-Qaeda terrorists."

U.S. spokesman Hilferty praised the Australians conduct.

"We had a special forces reconnaissance team, they were compromised, I mean people found them, and those people foolishly fired and the special forces fired back much more accurately, shooting and possibly killing two of them." Hilferty said.

RAPID REACTION FORCE

A couple of hours afer the first contact, the rapid reaction force flown to the area, found a complex of buildings and caves containing mortar bombs, grenades and machine gun ammunition.

Blood was found but the bodies of the wounded or dead had been dragged away from the site northeast of the town of Ghost, around one to two km from the Pakistani border.

Hagenbeck said in the second engagement before dawn on Tuesday at about 4:30 a.m. (0000 GMT) two rebels were killed in the same area when they ran into an ambush.

"We knew how they would react once the sun went down last night so we were ready for that and we killed two," Hagenbeck said.

Hilferty did not know the size of the group that had been under observation and acknowledged that some may have escaped.

"We're not perfect. We would love to be but we're not," Hilferty said. "It's impossible to seal a country the size of Texas and to survey every single person. We can't even make sure we have every criminal in Boston."

The run-in with the small number of enemy reinforced the perception that al Qaeda fighters have learned to hide from superior U.S. firepower since they were routed in March during the Battle of Shah-i-Kot, the biggest ground fighting of the war.

"I think that they most certainly have dispersed, they've gone to a variety of locations," said Hagenbeck.

"They are an adaptable enemy and I think they have learned not to mass their forces as a result of Shah-i-Kot but I can assure you we've got eyes on them wherever they are. What we're in the process of doing is to deny Afghanistan as a sanctuary."

Coalition forces 'kill' two al-Qaeda extremists

Tuesday April 30, 7:53 PM

Coalition special forces troops have killed or wounded two al-Qaeda extremists in a clash in eastern Afghanistan which sparked a major US military sweep.

Details of the fighting came as coalition troops were also checking reports of the discovery of a mass grave in the central Bamiyan region.

"Yesterday morning three al-Qaeda terrorists in eastern Afghanistan fired upon coalition special forces. The special forces responded, wounding or killing two of them," Major Bryan Hilferty told reporters at this air base north of Kabul.

There were no coalition casualties in the clash in the eastern province of Khost, near the border with Pakistan, where US troops have been searching for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters for several weeks, Hilferty said Tuesday.

He said no bodies were recovered but blood stains were found at the scene, although some 200 mainly US soldiers found caves and weapons in a sweep of the area after the incident.

"We decided to send in 200 soldiers. They found and searched several caves, discovering mortar, grenades, machine guns and ammunition," he said.

Hilferty refused to identify the nationality of the special forces, but the Australian Defence Force in Canberra earlier said Australian Special Air Service (SAS) troops shot two al-Qaeda fighters in a gunfight.

Spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said a small SAS patrol returned fire when four al-Qaeda fighters opened up on them with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

Hannan said none of the Australians was injured, but two of the al-Qaeda fighters were either killed or wounded in the engagement which happened on Monday morning.

The Australian troops were on a surveillance mission of a suspected terrorist site, in a mountainous area southeast of the capital Kabul, when they were fired on.

"Our soldiers returned fire, killing or wounding two of the terrorists," Hannan told reporters. "The Australian soldiers then withdrew.

"At that time it was decided to exploit the area for intelligence purposes and additional Australian special forces, plus troops from the United States 101st Airborne Division reacted and were inserted into the area."

In central Afghanistan, Hilferty said residents had found a mass grave believed to contain victims of the hardline Taliban regime.

"In Bamiyan villagers discovered a mass grave of 12 bodies in a well. The villagers said these people were killed by the Taliban," he said.

The report follows a United Nations investigation earlier this month into similar reports.

A UN forensics team has been deployed to three sites in the area following claims by local authorities that graves had been uncovered containing at least 35 adult and child victims of the Taliban.

Bamiyan, 100 kilometres (63 miles) north of Kabul, was the scene of brutal clashes between local ethnic Hazaras and the Taliban prior to the hardline militia's downfall late last year.

PRESS DIGEST - Asian Wall Street Journal - May 1
SINGWednesday May 1, 7:35 AM

APORE, May 1 (Reuters) - The following stories were reported in Wednesday's electronic version of The Asian Wall Street Journal:

* Hynix's <00660.KS> board vetoed a $3.4 billion asset sale to Micron that already had been endorsed by the South Korean chip maker's creditors. Hynix said it will seek to survive on its own.

* GM reached a final accord to take effective control of Daewoo's core assets, but not its U.S. sales arm, ending a years-long effort.

* Pakistanis voted in a referendum on whether to give Musharraf five more years as president. The general was expected to declare victory despite low turnout and opposition calls for a boycott.

* India's parliament was poised to go ahead with a vote expected to defeat a censure motion on sectarian violence in Gujarat state, officials said.

* APP's finance chief resigned from that post and as executive director. Hendrik Tee's move is likely to hinder the firm's debt-restructuring talks.

* U.S.-led troops killed up to four suspected al Qaeda fighters in battles near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said.

* U.S. consumer confidence fell in April, but optimism about the future remained strong. The Conference Board's bellwether index slipped to 108.8 from 110.7.

* The Bank of Japan expects the economy to shrink further over the next 12 months and says consumer prices will continue to fall. The central bank also left unchanged its easy monetary policy.

Almost 5,000 qualified Afghans ready to return home: IOM

Wednesday May 1, 2:38 AM

The International Organisation for Migration has registered around 4,800 Afghans in 32 countries who have professional qualifications and who are ready to return to their homeland to help with the country's reconstruction, the IOM said.

The UN body signed an agreement in January with the interim government in Kabul in January to launch a program of assisted returns of qualified Afghans.

Under the program, 168 people have already returned and have found jobs that fit their qualifications in the 14 ministries in the interim administration and in international non-governmental organisations. A further 272 have completed preparations for their return.

The IOM's fund for qualified Afghans has a list of 4,788 names, said spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy.

Each candidate is given a round-trip ticket and salary of 400 dollars a month under the program.

"We did not want to make the salaries substantially different from local ones, the idea being that people do not return for financial reasons but to use their skills for the benefit of the country," Chauzy said.

Each candidate must live in Afghanistan for a period of three months to one year, and can, after this period, decide to stay there permanently or return to the country that welcomed them," he said.

The head of the Afghan interim government, Hamid Karzai, recently launched an appeal to all Afghans living in exile to return and participate in the reconstruction of the country.

The IOM, in conjunction with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, also helps tens of thousands of penniless Afghan refugees and displaced persons to return to their villages.

There are an estimated one million internally displaced people in Afghanistan. Neighbouring Iran and Pakistan together host a further 3.5 million Afghan refugees who have fled years of drought and war.

A UN spokeswoman in Kabul said Tuesday that more than 400,000 refugees have returned home to Afghanistan in the past two months, far outstripping initial estimates

MOF Mizoguchi: Stable Forex Moves Desirable

Tuesday April 30, 8:41 AM

US Asks Japan For Ship,Aircraft For Afghan Campaign-Kyodo (Singapore: KYDA.SI - news)
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--The United States asked Japan on Monday to dispatch an Aegis-equipped destroyer and P-3C aircraft as part of its support for the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, a top Japanese ruling party leader said, Kyodo News reported.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz made the request in talks with the secretaries general of Japan's three ruling coalition parties - Taku Yamasaki of the Liberal Democratic Party, Tetsuzo Fuyushiba of the New Komeito and Toshihiro Nikai of the New Conservative Party, Yamasaki said at a news conference after the meeting, Kyodo reported.

The coalition group, which arrived in Washington earlier in the day, also held separate talks with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and top White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey Monday afternoon.

The meeting with Armitage is believed to have focused on the Middle East situation, including possible U.S. military action against Iraq, defense cooperation between Japan and the United States and legislation in Japan on how the country should respond to a direct military attack.

On Tuesday, the three ruling coalition leaders will travel to New York and hold talks with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Yamasaki alone will depart New York later Tuesday for a visit to Turkey. He will also visit Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia before returning to Japan on May 6.

Fuyushiba and Nikai have canceled their original plan to visit the Middle East due to party business, Kyodo reported

Pearl murder trial to shift venue after terror threats

Tuesday April 30, 9:09 PM(AFP)

The trial of four men accused of the kidnap and murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl is to move to a new venue after claims the court and prosecutors could face terrorist attack.

A Pakistani high court has ordered the trial be shifted from Karachi, the southern port city where Pearl was abducted, 160 kilometres (100 miles) north to Hyderabad, chief prosecutor Raja Qureshi told reporters Tuesday.

The trial is now set to resume on May 3 in Hyderabad's central prison and will be presided over by new judge Ali Ashraf Shah, Qureshi said.

Shah will be the third judge to hear the case since the closed-door trial commenced on April 15.

Prosecutors demanded a new venue after claiming their team had received telephone calls threatening attacks on lawyers and the makeshift courtroom inside Karachi prison.

"There was a definite plan to blow up the Karachi prison according to the intelligence reports. Now the shifting of the trial will make a difference," Qureshi said.

"The threats are of a serious nature, including intelligence reports that the jail could be blown up if this trial proceeds."

Defence lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpar said the change of the venue would have no impact on the case and dismissed prosecution claims as a stalling tactic.

"It will not make any difference to the defence as we have already succeeded in breaking the prosecution case and breaking the prosecution witnesses," he said.

"Wherever they will take the case, we will be there.

"The prosecutor just wants to delay the trial. They are coming up with all kinds of excuses. First, they wanted a change of the judge and now a change of venue as well," he told AFP.

Proceedings were halted last week when prosecutors filed a petition asking for the presiding judge to be replaced, complaining he had failed to stop defendants making "threatening gestures" to witnesses in court.

An earlier judge was replaced when defence lawyers questioned his impartiality.

The accused face execution on charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorist activities in connection with the Wall Street Journal reporter's January 23 abduction and subsequent execution.

All four, including alleged mastermind Sheikh Omar, a British-born Islamic militant, deny the charges.

Seven other suspects have been charged but remain at large. Pearl's body has never been found.

Pearl was researching a story on Pakistani Islamic militants when he was abducted on January 23.

The kidnappers demanded the release of Pakistanis captured while fighting with the Taliban or al-Qaeda network in neighbouring Afghanistan, but Washington refused to negotiate.

A video showing Pearl's slaying was later sent to the US consulate in Karachi, ending a massive search by Pakistani and American law enforcement agents.

Ex-Afghan king bids to end Paktia bloodshed

Tuesday April 30, 7:14 PM(AFP)

Former Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah told AFP he was involved in talks with tribal leaders in a bid to end bloodshed in the troubled eastern province of Paktia.

"I have had some contact with the tribal leaders in these areas and I am trying my best to calm down the situation and come to an understanding among them," Zahir Shah said Tuesday in his first foreign media interview since returning recently from a 29-year exile in Italy.

"What I have heard about this and what I know up until now I feel sorry that such things should happen even on a small level."

At least 115 people were killed or injured over the weekend when forces loyal to local warlord Padsha Khan fired scores of rockets at the Paktia capital Gardez in a bid to oust governor Taj Mohammad Wardak.

A temporary ceasefire was brokered Sunday but Wardak has given Khan a week to surrender or face an attack with central government backing.

It was the worst outbreak of factional fighting in Afghanistan since Padsha Khan last tried to storm Gardez in January.

The 87-year-old ex-monarch, who returned to Afghanistan in early April, said the trouble appeared to have been caused by "people with different mentalities and different intelligence".

Asked if he was prepared to travel to Gardez to mediate between the two sides, Zahir Shah replied: "I have come here to assist ... and if I can be any help, and those who accompany me can be of any help, we will spare no effort.

"I have just arrived and my contact with my people will continue and I will know what is the best form of help (I can give) to achieve peace and stability in the country."

Zahir Shah has said that he has not returned to Afghanistan to reclaim his crown but his intervention in Paktia indicates that he intends to play more than a ceremonial role in Afghan politics.

The ex-king can expect to wield particular influence in Paktia, where the majority of the population share his Pashtun ethnic origin.

Officially he returned to inaugurate a traditional Afghan grand assembly, or Loya Jirga, in June to select a transitional government to run the country for up to two years.

But he has been accorded no formal role beyond the Loya Jirga.

Wardak told AFP Monday that 35 people had been killed and 80 injured over the weekend in Gardez. His governor's residence was among the targets hit.

The local hospital was unable to treat victims after most of its windows were blown out by the force of the explosions.

Local shopkeepers have been reluctant to open for business until they can be sure that the temporary ceasefire is holding.

The truce was agreed after mediation from the US military which has a small forward operating base in Gardez, although spokesman Major Bryan Hilferty emphasised that it "was not involved in internal politics".

Interim leader Hamid Karzai, who accompanied Zahir Shah back home from Italy on April 18, has said that security was his administration's main priority and that warlords were continuing to harass civilians.

But Karzai's attempts to persuade the international community to expand the remit of Kabul's multinational security force beyond the capital have been rebuffed.

Bin Laden escaped with Afghan commander's help: rival warlord
Tuesday April 30, 2:45 AM (AFP)

Osama bin Laden was able to escape the clutches of US troops in Afghanistan thanks to a powerful military commander currently serving with the Afghan government, a rival warlord said.

Commander Hazrat Ali helped the alleged terrorist mastermind flee from the eastern Tora Bora mountains during an intense US-led offensive last December, strongman Haji Zaman told reporters in this northwestern frontier city.

Ali was recently appointed security chief and commander of the country's eastern zone by Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai, replacing the sacked Zaman.

Zaman said Ilyas Khel, another Afghan commander, had been appointed by Ali to guard the route by which bin Laden made his escape.

"Ilyas Khel was a supporter of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and Hazrat Ali knew it," he said.

He said he was unaware of bin Laden's current whereabouts and denied allegations that he was himself instrumental in the al-Qaeda chief's escape.

"This is a lie. I captured 55 al-Qaeda fighters during the operation in Tora Bora and handed them over to the government," he said.

Zaman also claimed he had been forced from his command post and out of Afghanistan by former members of the powerful anti-Taliban Northern Alliance because of his support for a forthcoming Loya Jirga grand assembly to select the country's next government.

"My only crime is that I support the Loya Jirga while my rivals from the Northern Alliance did not."

He added that bomb attack in the eastern city of Jalalabad during a recent visit by Afghan Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim was a plot to show that he could not maintain security.

US building up forces on Afghanistan eastern border: defense official

Tuesday April 30, 1:25 AM

US commanders are building up their forces in a border area in eastern Afghanistan while relaying intelligence on al-Qaeda and Taliban movements across the border in Pakistan to US military personnel with Pakistani forces, Pentagon officials said.

A Pentagon spokesman said that "over the last week or so" a small number of US military personnel have been embedded with Pakistani troops in the largely lawless tribal areas for the first time.

"We have people operating with Pakistani forces who are able to communicate directly with people on our side of the border. So if we get information about al-Qaeda or Taliban they can take action," said Marine Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who on Sunday confirmed for the first time the US military involvement in joint operations, said the Americans were not involved in fighting, only in communications and cooperation.

"The operation is being entirely conducted by Pakistani forces," he said. The number of Americans with the Pakistani forces in the tribal areas was "not even in double figures," he said.

Lapan also said the US troops were "mainly in communication and coordination." He said he was not aware that they had taken part in any raids with Pakistani troops.

The New York Times said US special operations forces were among the US commandos who took part in a raid by Pakistani forces on a religious school in Darpa Khel, a village about 20 miles from Afghanistan.

A second US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said US intelligence officials -- but no US military personnel -- took part in the raid.

Pakistani officials had said about two dozen US intelligence operatives joined Pakistani troops in operations in northwestern Pakistan last week.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who met with Afghan leaders over the weekend, warned last last week that al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters may launch guerrilla attacks as the spring sets in.

Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters retreated into the Pakistani tribal areas after major US offensives earlier this year against their mountain strongholds in eastern Afghanistan.

US and coalition forces have been beefed up over the past few days on the eastern border in the area around Zawar Kili, a former al-Qaeda training area whose caves were used to store weapons and ammunition, as well at other locations on the border, the US defense official said.

"There's been some increase in the forces there," he said, cautioning that the build-up should not be linked to "a hop across the border."

The official said US and Pakistani officials were still negotiating arrangements that under certain circumstances would allow US troops in Afghanistan to stage direct action raids in Pakistan in response to timely intelligence on al-Qaeda activity in the tribal areas.

Allies 'hit Afghan militants'

Wednesday, 1 May, 2002, 09:41 GMT 10:41 UK

Troops have been ferried by helicopter to the fighting

There are unconfirmed reports that hundreds of coalition soldiers have launched a large operation in eastern Afghanistan.
They are said to be targeting Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters in the mountains in Paktia province.

The operation began late on Tuesday in the Mezai mountains, 30 km (19 miles) east of the provincial capital Gardez, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said.

Afghan fighters have been backing the assault force

The area is controlled by the Zadran tribe of senior Taleban military commander Jalaluddin Haqqani.

The raid follows the killing of four al-Qaeda fighters in the Khost region, next to Paktia, early on Tuesday.

The latest clashes come amid fears that al-Qaeda may try to use the improving weather in Afghanistan to launch a spring offensive.

Power struggles

The location of the fighting has added weight to reports that many Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters have moved to areas near the Pakistani border.

US-led forces now appear to be concentrating their search in the border area where caves often start in Afghanistan and end in Pakistan.

The latest clashes happened in the same region where the last major battles against the Taleban and al-Qaeda were fought in March during Operation Anaconda.

There are now thousands of American, British and other coalition troops in Afghanistan.

The Paktia province is also riven by power struggles between Afghanistan's warlords

Thirty people died last weekend when 500 rockets were fired into the provincial capital of Gardez.

The Afghan Defence Ministry is trying to keep a lid on the fighting and on Wednesday rushed negotiators to area.

A spokesman said the battles appeared to be between forces loyal to deputy Defence Minister General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, and his long time rival in the area, General Atta Mohammed, an ethnic Tajik