War Is Real

3 Pages 837 Words

The U.S. moves coincide with reports from Afghan officials in the border area that the United States and its allies were readying another major operation against members of the al Qaeda network and Afghanistan’s Taliban militia, which was ousted from power last year. The United States has blamed al Qaeda for the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and New York.
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U.S. military officials yesterday reported two firefights in the area, in which U.S. and Australian special forces troops killed four al Qaeda fighters. Army Maj. Gen. Franklin L. “Buster” Hagenbeck, the U.S. ground commander in Afghanistan, said the two fights occurred northeast of Khost, about a mile from the Pakistani border.
In the first incident, Australian forces were attacked with mortar and rocket-propelled grenades, and returned fire, killing two, according to Australian military officials. In the second clash, Hagenbeck said, U.S. and Australian troops ambushed fighters who were moving near Khost before dawn yesterday, killing another two.
The operation that appears to be looming promises to be smaller and more diffuse than the offensive against al Qaeda fighters by U.S. and allied forces in the Shahikot region west of Khost in early March.
In that battle, which the U.S. military refers to as Operation Anaconda, al Qaeda fighters had dug-in positions with heavy weapons, such as long-range mortars and machine guns configured to shoot down aircraft.

TRACKING HANDFULS OF FIGHTERS
Cement was poured in some areas to provide firing platforms for the mortars. A communications wire ran from an entrenched position atop a 10,000-foot-high ridge to a nearby bunker serving as a command center, which was powered by a solar collector with a back-up car battery.
In the border area, by contrast, U.S. intelligence has not detected massed groups of al Qaeda and Taliban members with prepared figh...