September 6, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 8, 1424

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DAYCHOPAN, Sept 5: Hundreds of US troops were Friday hunting down fleeing Taliban fighters in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan after a bloody offensive left around 100 militants dead, a US military spokesmen said.

“Our mission was to come in and destroy the Taliban sanctuary here in the southern part of Afghanistan,” operation commander Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Dichairo told AFP at Karky valley camp five kilometres south of Daychopan, in violence-wracked Zabul province, 300 kilometres southwest of the capital Kabul.

American troops killed two more Taliban and arrested two others as the US military said they had killed between 70 and 100 suspected militants so far. Afghan officials put the toll as high as 124.

Up to 1,000 Afghan soldiers supported by 300 US troops and aircraft have been engaged for more than a week in the major operation against suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in the mountains of Daychopan district.

Dichairo said the assault in the Karky valley had driven Taliban fighters, armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, further into the mountains.

“Based on intelligence we estimate there were between 200 to 300 Taliban. In our best estimate they have run away back to the higher ground. They are experts in this (terrain), they know all the roads,” he said.

US troops have set up camp under almond trees to provide some shade from the sun in the poverty-stricken valley where most villagers scratch a living from growing wheat and corn.

Other fields are filled with opium poppies, to which the Americans are turning a blind eye while they pursue bigger prey.

Villagers said Taliban fighters had killed two locals who worked for the government just before the soldiers arrived and had forced others to give them food.

“The Taliban accuse us of helping the government and government troops accuse us of helping Taliban,” said one villager, explaining their dilemma.

“The Taliban were coming to this valley all the time. They are living in the mountains,” said another named Habibullah, who was working under the hot sun tending his opium poppies.

“When they need food they come down and get it from us, they force us to give it to them,” said Habibullah, 40.

Dichairo agreed that resurgent Taliban were using the valley as a “feed-point and cross-roads” to launch attacks against coalition and Afghan targets in Daychopan district.

US troops however said there had been little fighting since the Taliban fled into the mountains.

Afghan military and intelligence officials said up to 124 bodies had been recovered after the fighting in the remote and mountainous area.

The Taliban force in the Zabul province, some 1,000 strong, was the largest concentration of the Islamic militia’s fighters since it was ousted from power in late 2001, and the battle, which began on August 25, the biggest in at least 18 months.

“We believe we have been very successful, we believe we have the enemy on the run,” Colonel Rodney Davis told reporters at Bagram air base, headquarters of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan.

“From what we can determine they have withdrawn to some extent. There has been relatively light resistance in the last 24 hours, but we’re not going to stop, we’re going to press on.”

“We can confirm coalition and Afghan militia forces have killed somewhere in the range of between 70 and 100 enemy personnel,” Davis said. —AFP/Reuters