One Afghan soldier was killed and five wounded when their joint convoy with United States-led troops hit a roadside bomb in south-eastern Afghanistan, a US military official said on Monday. "There was a coalition convoy with Afghan National Army (ANA), it was hit with an improvised explosive device east of Qalat," US Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty told a news conference in Kabul. "One ANA soldier was killed and one ANA soldier was seriously injured and four were slightly injured," Hilferty said, adding that the US-led soldiers did not suffer any casualties in the incident on Saturday. Hilferty said the soldiers were patrolling as part of the ongoing US-led Operation Mountain Storm which focuses on the south, east and south-east of the country and is aimed at capturing Taliban and al-Qaeda officials including Osama bin Laden and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar. On Sunday, a senior Afghan military official in the border region said that about 150 al-Qaeda and Taliban had crossed over the border since early March. However, Hilferty said American soldiers had not noticed a large number of militants crossing the porous 2 400km border recently.
Afghan and American forces are preparing to attack some 150 militants hiding in mountains near the rugged Pakistani border, an Afghan commander said Monday.
Zakim Khan, the commander of the Afghan 822nd border regiment, said the gunmen were holed up in the Sar Hawza and Marzak areas of Paktika province, some 100 miles south of the capital, Kabul. Paktika adjoins a region of Pakistan where Pakistani troops fought fierce battles with al-Qaida suspects last month. Khan said he had no information on who the militants were or if they had crossed the porous frontier. "They have AK-47s, machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades," Khan told The Associated Press by telephone. "I can't say if they are Arabs, Chechens or Taliban."
| As long as they're all dead... |
Khan said his men were awaiting for orders from the Afghan Defense Ministry in Kabul to being a search of the area for the militants. He said he expected troops and aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition to join the operation. |