AFGHANISTAN: The US has suffered its worst losses in the five-month Afghan war, when helicopters were forced down by al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the mountains of Paktia province, killing nine soldiers.
Fierce fighting continued yesterday in heavy snow and thin air of the 11,000-ft mountains around the remote village of Shahi Kot. It is the biggest pitched battle the US has had in the conflict to date, with more than 1,000 US soldiers involved in combat. They are trying to root out an enemy which appears to have used a three-month lull in the fighting to regroup in the caves and crags of Paktia's forbidding peaks.
US military officials said they had observed al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters regroup in the area over the past few weeks before striking over the weekend in an operation codenamed Anaconda in a reflection of the US intention of preventing anyone escaping.
Nine US soldiers have been killed in the first three days of the battle, and more than 40 wounded, according to the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld. Pentagon officials said at least three Afghan militiamen fighting alongside US forces had also been killed.
The Pentagon said a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter had been forced to land after being hit by small arms fire. A ferocious gunfight ensued between the survivors and forces loyal to al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies. Six or seven American soldiers are reported to have been killed, but it was not initially clear how many soldiers died in the crash and how many in battle.
Another US soldier was killed in the same area when a rocket or missile hit the Chinook helicopter carrying him from the battlefield. The projectile did not explode but according to Mr Rumsfeld, the shock of the impact threw the soldier out of the helicopter.
A US special forces soldier was killed on Saturday in an exchange of fire in the mountains. In the five months of the war before the Shahi Kot battle, the US had only lost one soldier in combat. It was also the first time a US aircraft had been brought down in Afghanistan by hostile fire.
Small contingents from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and Norway also took part, but there were no reports of casualties in their units by late yesterday.
The al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are thought to be well dug in, amid the crags and tunnel complexes in the Shahi Kot area, and may be accompanied by their families.
After US and Afghan forces were ambushed and driven back in fighting on Saturday, US B-52 and F15 planes saturated the area with about 300 bombs. On one occasion a newly-developed 'thermobaric" bomb was used, which creates a huge cloud of solid fuel and then ignites it in a fireball. The bomb is intended to send a lethal shock wave deep into cave complexes.
The US Central Command has sent 1,000 American troops into the fight, including - for the first time - regular army troops. In earlier battles in the campaign, the fighting had been done by America's Afghan allies, US and British special forces.
The Pentagon said it had been monitoring the build-up of al-Qaeda fighters in Shahi Kot for several weeks, before deciding to strike hoping to capture or kill as many as possible.
However, Mr Rumsfeld rejected suggestions that this might be al-Qaeda's last stand.
"It's very easy to blend into the countryside into the villages and then come back and reconstitute, he said. "We have to expect that there will be other sizable pockets, and other battles."
Meanwhile, a checkpoint near the coalition base spearheading the assault on diehard al-Qaeda fighters came under mortar or rocket attack last night, as foreign journalists escorted by Afghan troops attempted to enter Gardez town.
The checkpoint on the road two kilometres before Gardez manned by Afghan government troops came under attack at about 10.30 p.m. (1800 GMT), with four loud explosions and small arms fire heard. Troops at the post returned fire from the unknown attackers.
The attack started just as the first vehicle in a five-car convoy of Afghan troops, three journalists, a photographer and translators reached the checkpoint. All of them dived out of the cars to take cover by the roadside and no one was hit in the attack.
After the attack they returned to the base, where helicopters, mainly Chinooks, were taking off continuously.
• Some 150 people were believed dead in a remote part of northern Afghanistan as a massive earthquake triggered landslides, burying houses, state media said yesterday.
The earthquake, which struck on Sunday in the Hindu Kush mountains and was felt as far away as New Delhi, measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, according to the US Geological Survey.
State television said 150 people were killed at Dahani Zoa in the Khuram Sarbagh region of Samangan province, about 200 kilometres north of Kabul.
A hotel and about 100 houses were destroyed, while debris blocked a river in the area, flooding another 400 homes. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said people interviewed on the ground put the death toll estimate at 100. "I would not say they have seen 100 bodies, but they have seen some bodies," a WFP spokesman said in Islamabad.
Afghan television said only 10 bodies had so far been recovered from under tonnes of rubble and rocks.