06 March 2005	Sunday	24 Muharram 1426

KABUL, March 5: Three insurgents and two Afghan civilians were killed in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday after US-led troops came under fire from unidentified militants, the US military said in a statement on Saturday.

Three Afghan civilians and two members of the US-led coalition were also wounded in the ensuing gunbattle, the statement said.

No further information about the location or nature of the incident was currently available, Major Steve Wollman said. Meanwhile, the acting head of the US-led coalition said Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents are "down but not out" after failing to mount any significant attacks in recent months.

British Maj-Gen Peter Gilchrist, who is leading the 18,000-strong force in the absence of its American commander Lt-Gen David Barno, said in an interview that the ousted regime's hierarchy had fragmented.

"There have been attacks, we have had several, but they are not coordinated, they are not structured in the way they used to be," Gen Gilchrist said.

Two US soldiers have died in combat since the new year compared to nine in the same period a year earlier. Although the worst winter in over a decade accounted for part of the lull, Gen Gilchrist said the Taliban's command structure was unravelling.

"A year ago we were seeing large groups coming in and trying to attack us, and now you see smaller groups and you don't see any coordination between groups," he said.

"You don't see that there is a command structure able to coordinate and achieve anything of any major significance."

Taliban militants have been waging a bloody rebellion in the south and southeast since the fundamentalist Islamic militia was ejected from power by a US-led invasion in late 2001.-AFP