BAGRAM AIR BASE, Aug 24: US special forces have come under grenade attack in eastern Afghanistan, a military spokesman said on Saturday.

Several rocket-propelled grenades were fired over a US base in Asadabad, in Kunar province along the border with Pakistan, on Friday, he said.

He did not report any casualties or material damage.

A unit was sent in the direction of the firing and four men were captured along with a grenade launcher. A further 12 people were detained near Asadabad on Thursday, the spokesman at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, said.

He added that US-led coalition forces, including local Afghan militia, uncovered two more weapons caches during their operations around the town of Zormat, in eastern Paktia province, on Friday.

The operation is the latest attempt by the US military to root out al Qaeda and Taliban fighters believed to be hiding in southeastern areas of the country not far from the Pakistan border.

But there have been no reports of engagement with the enemy during the latest operation, which has involved mainly house-to-house searches, disarming locals and a handful of arrests.

Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants have continually frustrated the US-led coalition by hiding in mountains, melting into the local population or fleeing into neighbouring Pakistan or Iran.

According to the US military, weapons recovered included mortar rounds, machinegun barrels, anti-personnel mines and anti-aircraft artillery.

It said seven women in the village of Nariza of Paktia were discovered carrying nine rocket-propelled grenade rounds under their traditional Afghan burqas.

A separate weapons store was found on Friday in the southern province of Zabul which consisted of mortar and RPG rounds and small arms ammunition.

The United States launched strikes on Afghanistan last year to flush out the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, its prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and punish his Taliban protectors.

girls’ school closed: A bomb attack blamed on remnants of the Taliban has closed the only girl’s school in the town of Ghazni, west of Kabul, residents said on Saturday.

Nobody was hurt in the blast, which the residents said happened about a week ago, but a few classrooms of the Jaan Maliks school were badly damaged, they said.

The residents said the blast took place about two days after unidentified attackers fired rockets at a US special forces base on the southern edge of the town, 120kms west of Kabul, apparently also causing no casualties.—Reuters