January 2, 2002	Wednesday	Shawwal 17, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Jan 1: US Marines have launched an operation against a large compound in Afghanistan’s Helmand province to gather intelligence on the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, the CNN reported on Tuesday.

CNN said the Marines had not been involved in any combat and were working alongside anti-Taliban forces loyal to Kandahar strongman Gul Agha.

In a report from Kandahar airport, where the Marines have a base, the network said “a couple hundred” Marines were involved in the operation, which could last until Wednesday morning.

Their mission was to “find intelligence relating to Al Qaeda and the Taliban”, CNN said.

It said the target was a “rather large compound” in Helmand province “involving anywhere from 14 or possibly more areas or buildings”.

The network did not specify where in Helmand province the operation was taking place.

There have been reports Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar may be hiding in the Helmand province town of Baghran, but CNN stressed that the Marine operation was not targeting Baghran.

Baghran is located some 195 kilometres northwest of the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in a remote, mountainous region of southern Afghanistan.

CNN said Gul Agha has moved several hundred of his troops to the Baghran area, which is defended by thousands of Taliban sympathizers.

The Pentagon on Monday categorically denied reports that the Marines had launched an operation in the Baghran region to hunt for Omar.

ATTACK ON US FORCES: A vehicle carrying US special operations forces was attacked by unidentified assailants in Afghanistan, leaving one soldier wounded, a US military spokesman said on Tuesday.

“A vehicle carrying US special operations forces came under fire while conducting routine operations in the vicinity of Jalalabad” on Monday, said Commander Frank Merriman, a spokesman for the Florida-based US Central Command, headquarters of US military operations in Afghanistan.

“The forces returned fire and a special operations quick reaction team reacted from a nearby location in the region,” he said.

None of the US forces was killed, but one was shot in the leg, he said, characterizing the wound as “non-life threatening.”

The spokesman had no information on how many US troops were involved or the nature of the forces called in. The identity of the injured soldier or the assailants was not available, and that of the attackers unknown.

“The area was secured and the people that fired on the American forces apparently fled,” Merriman said.

The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported earlier that the attack took place as the US vehicle travelled toward the Afghan capital on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway, near where four journalists were killed by bandits in November.—AFP