SPIN BOLDAK, Jan 30: Dozens of armed rebels hiding in a mountain cave complex in southeastern Afghanistan may have escaped the heavy US bombardment this week, a senior local official said on Thursday.

US warplanes pounded a warren of over 100 caves in the mountains near the town of Spin Boldak on Monday, and at least 18 rebels are believed to have been killed in the largest battle involving US troops in Afghanistan for 10 months.

“It is possible some people have run away from the area,” said Saif Fazaldeen Agha, a senior government official in Spin Boldak, near the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“(Taliban commander) Hafiz Abdur Raheem had 60 to 80 people and we think 20 people were killed in the fighting, which means 50 or 60 people are left,” he said. “It is possible they have escaped or they may have gone underground in the area.”

The US military will be keen to round up as many rebels as possible, having faced criticism for failing to catch Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, despite a 14-month manhunt involving thousands of troops.

The appearance of an estimated 80 rebels, believed to be loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, served as a reminder to the US military and its allies that serious threats to stability in Afghanistan remained.

Agha said he believed the rebels hiding in Adi Ghar mountain, 23kms north of Spin Boldak, had been supplied with weapons and cash by Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami.

The 12-hour US military bombardment of the position followed a tip-off from a captured rebel who said he was linked to Hezb-i-Islami and that a group of fighters was hiding nearby.

Hundreds of US troops have been searching the cave complex since Tuesday.

According to Agha, nine weapons caches had now been destroyed, including three during the initial air assault and six subsequently. Some of the arms were left behind by the ousted Taliban and some had been added more recently, he said.

In Bagram, the US military headquarters in Afghanistan, spokesman Colonel Roger King told reporters that the search operation was continuing. “They have only cleared 12 caves and there are more than 100 caves.

“They (the rebels) might have escaped to other caves to try to get away or might have come down from the mountains. Either way we will continue to hunt,” he told reporters.—Reuters