KABUL, March 4: US and Afghan troops have blocked all roads leading to the eastern border region of Tora Bora, where Osama bin Laden was lasted spotted, aid agency officials said on Thursday.
"It is reported by the local population from Pacher Agam that access to Tora Bora...has been restricted by international and national military forces," a non-governmental organization said in an advisory notice.
The organization warned other non-governmental organizations to suspend their operations in the area "immediately". "All NGOs and aid (agencies) are advised to suspend missions immediately to the area until further notice," the advisory said.
The warning comes as US forces step up their hunt for Osama around Tora Bora and other regions along the 2,500 kilometre frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The US military has expressed confidence of capturing or killing Osama this year. US military spokesman, Lt Col Bryan Hilferty, said he was unaware of any specific military operation involving US-led troops in Tora Bora.
"I don't know of any large scale US-led operation down there," he told reporters. The mountainous Tora Bora region, 50kms south of the eastern city of Jalalabad, was the scene of a major US-led operation in Dec 2001 to capture Osama bin Laden.
Tora Bora was believed to be the last stronghold of Al Qaeda fighters and the Taliban before the capture of Kabul by US forces in 2001. The neighbouring districts of Pachir wa Agam and Khgiani are known as rife opium-producing areas. Government forces last week destroyed a drug factory in the region.
SECURITY IN GHAZNI: US-led forces stationed a civilian-military team in the southern Afghan city of Ghazni on Thursday, taking to 12 the number of missions designed to bolster reconstruction and squash guerilla resistance.
The US military wants to establish a more permanent presence in outlying, volatile regions. "Wherever Provincial Reconstruction Teams go, security follows," said Lieutenant-General David Barno, commander of US-led forces in Afghanistan.
The formal opening of the Ghazni Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) coincides with a shift in US operations in Afghanistan away from large deployments in search of militants towards smaller teams spending longer in remote areas in a bid to improve intelligence.
"We have adjusted our military strategy to achieve closer cooperation between the coalition and local communities," US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said during a ceremony in Ghazni.
The change follows recognition that large-scale operations had failed to net important Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, while searches of towns and villages infuriated locals who complained of arbitrary arrests and physical abuse. -AFP/Reuters
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