Hundreds of US, Afghan soldiers target Al-Qaeda

KABUL (AFP) - Hundreds of US and Afghan soldiers have launched an assault on Al-Qaeda fighters believed holed up in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan, the US military said yesterday.

The air and ground assault was launched about a day ago against carefully targeted positions in the Tora Bora region, military spokeswoman Captain Vanessa Bowman told AFP.

Fugitive Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was last spotted in the Tora Bora mountains in 2001.

"US and Afghan forces engaged Al-Qaeda and other violent extremist fighters in eastern Afghanistan during a combined arms assault using precision munitions," Bowman said in a statement.

The mountainous and remote region is an ideal environment to conceal militant support bases and training sites, as well as plan attacks, she said.

"The targets were carefully chosen to pinpoint enemy positions and eliminate the likelihood of harming innocent civilians," she said.

Afghan media reports said several Taliban had been killed in the operation, but this was not independently confirmed to AFP. Dozens of families had fled the area to escape the fighting, the Pajhwork Afghan New agency reported.

The mountainous Tora Bora region, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of the eastern city of Jalalabad, was the scene of a major US-led operation in December 2001 to capture bin Laden, whose headquarters were said to be based there.

The area, a complex of caves, in known as the last stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The 1996-2001 Taliban government sheltered Al-Qaeda and allowed it to operate training camps within Afghanistan.

The hardline regime was driven from power in 2001 in a US-led invasion launched weeks after the September 11 on the US attacks by Al-Qaeda.