December 22, 2003	Monday	Shawwal 27, 1424

KABUL, Dec 21: The US military plans to focus increasingly on Afghanistan’s lawless south and east in a bid to counter resurgent militants who carried out their first deadly attacks on government forces in weeks.

Lieutenant-General David Barno, the new US commander in Afghanistan, said on Sunday civilian-military teams would be deployed in the most volatile regions near the Afghan-Pakistan border to ensure stability ahead of elections next year.

Barno put greater stress on reconstruction efforts, desperately needed in the war-shattered country but disrupted by chronic insecurity across much of the country.

“Over the next several months we’re going to be continuing to expand the number of PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) here, particularly in the area of the south and the east of the country,” Barno told reporters in Kabul.

“Our challenges down there clearly are with the terrorist groups. Extending these PRTs and rapidly expanding them in that part of the country will have a dramatic effect I think not only on security in that area but in accelerating development.”

Much of the south and east of Afghanistan is off limits for aid workers after a string of attacks blamed on members of the ousted Taliban regime, Al Qaeda and their militant allies.

Government officials blamed the Taliban for two raids late on Saturday in which at least seven Afghan soldiers were killed and several more wounded.

They were the first deadly strikes linked to the hardline militia for over two weeks and since the opening of a gathering in Kabul of elders, clerics, warlords and women to debate the country’s constitution.

The final document will pave the way for presidential elections next June which incumbent leader and US favourite Hamid Karzai is widely expected to contest and win.

The 12,000-strong US-led force in Afghanistan launched its biggest operation this month to counter threats to disrupt the constitutional Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly.

Until Saturday it appeared to have reduced the danger, although two bungled assaults this month in which 15 children died angered ordinary Afghans.

Large operations focusing on small areas have been criticised by military strategists and failed to net many guerrillas who appear to be able to disappear with ease into rugged mountains and hills along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

At least five Afghan soldiers were killed on Saturday night in Shehroba, about 20 km from Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border. Taliban Commander Mullah Rehmatullah told Reuters all nine Afghan soldiers at the post were killed in a raid in which the rebels used heavy machine guns and hand grenades. But a deputy police chief in Spin Boldak said five Afghan soldiers died.

In a separate incident at around the same time, two government soldiers were killed when a vehicle in a military convoy was blown up by a suspected remote controlled device along the road linking Khost in the east to the capital Kabul.

The road had been used by US-led forces earlier that day, witnesses said.

Afghan authorities also arrested and handed over to US forces Mohammad Younis, a former Taliban official suspected of orchestrating deadly raids in the southern Helmand province.

In Kabul, 502 delegates at the Loya Jirga began winding up their review of a draft document that outlines a strong presidential system.—Reuters