February 15, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 13, 1423

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BAGRAM, Feb 14: Suspected Taliban remnants fired rockets into a town in southern Afghanistan on Friday as US-led coalition planes carried out more raids on militant hideouts in a neighbouring province, officials said.

An Afghan security official said two rockets landed in the town of Spin Boldak, on the Afghan-Pakistan border, early in the morning, while another landed near a Pakistani border post.

He said Taliban remnants could have been responsible for the attacks, which did not cause any casualties or damage.

Late last month US-led coalition forces pursuing remnants of the Taliban and their allies from the Al Qaeda network launched a major attack on a cave complex in a mountain area northeast of Spin Boldak.

Coalition planes in a pre-dawn raid on Friday destroyed caves in the southwestern province of Helmand, where military officials said up to 100 men suspected to be linked to the Taliban were holed up.

A US military spokesman said an AC-130 gunship, B-1 bomber and A-10 aircraft attacked the caves in Baghran valley, in Helmand province, where an ambush of U.S. special forces this week triggered the latest bombing raids.

Afghan officials and residents in Helmand have said the coalition bombing had killed at least 17 people in Baghran valley since Sunday, but the U.S. spokesman said there was no evidence to back that.

“There have been no reports of civilian or coalition casualties based upon the searches that were done yesterday,” Colonel Roger King told reporters.

He said there could be 30 to 100 suspected enemy fighters in the area in what could be the biggest concentration since a group of rebels was attacked near the Spin Boldak mountains, in neighbouring Kandahar province, late last month.

“It is a relatively long valley, who knows, there may be more somewhere else,” he told reporters at coalition headquarters in Bagram, north of Kabul.

There has been an increase in rebel activity in recent weeks in southern Afghanistan.

U.S. military officials say an invasion of Iraq could trigger militant strikes in Afghanistan.

The province, like Kandahar, was a stronghold of the Taliban and officials say there is still some support for the hardline group. —Reuters