June 7, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1424

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KANDAHAR, June 6: Afghan troops are on high alert in country’s restive south Friday after a major clash with suspected Taliban fighters that left 49 dead near the ousted militia’s former stronghold.

“We are still on high alert mode and ready for any further Taliban attacks,” Kandahar military commander Gen Khan Mohammad said on late Thursday after the battle in southeast Kandahar province, near the Pakistani border.

Around 100 heavily-armed suspected Taliban fighters launched attacks on pro-government militiamen in Kandahar province’s southeast border region of Loikarez on Tuesday, the latest in a relentless campaign of rebel assaults believed to be mounted from lands bordering Pakistan.

The lack of any let-up in skirmishes prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to travel to Pakistan in May to ask Islamabad for more serious action in containing rebel groups, alleged to be operating from Pakistan’s remote western tribal areas.

The fighters are understood to be allied to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and renegade Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Forty Taliban died and nine Afghan militiamen were killed in this week’s battle.

Claims by Afghan officials that the heavily-armed fighters crossed over from Pakistan into Loikarez have sparked a dispute with Pakistani authorities.

Afghan authorities dumped the bodies of 22 of the slain fighters just inside Pakistani territory, insisting they had come from Pakistan. They were later forced to take them back following protests by Pakistani border guards..—AFP