At least 18 people have been killed in a major battle between US-led coalition forces and some 80 armed extremists near Afghanistan's south-eastern border with Pakistan, the US military said today.
US and Norwegian warplanes have been bombarding the barren Adi Ghar mountain north of the border town of Spin Boldak since yesterday, in what US military spokesman Colonel Roger King said was the biggest US confrontation in Afghanistan for 10 months.
Col King said between 250 and 300 US troops, accompanied by a small contingent of Afghan soldiers were today continuing to fight intermittently with the group. There were no coalition injuries.
The gunmen were suspected to be supporters of renegade former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's anti-government Hezb-i-Islami party, he told reporters at Bagram, a US base north of Kabul.
Mr Hekmatyar, who is in hiding and is being sought by US forces, has issued several calls for jihad against US troops, whom he calls "occupying forces."
Fighting broke out when US and Afghan troops came under small arms fire at about 11 a.m. (6.30 a.m. Irish time) yesterday north of Spin Boldak, 450 kilometers south-west of the capital Kabul, and 100 kilometers south-east of the main southern city of Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold.
AFP