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Allied Troops Pursue al-Qaida
Friday, March 15, 2002
(10:04 AM ET)
The Associated Press

Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck, the commander of all coalition troops in Afghanistan, said some of the 20 prisoners captured in the operation indicated that "second and third tier" al-Qaida leaders had been killed and he ordered the tests just to make sure that no senior figures were there too. "Even if it's a long shot that maybe one of these al-Qaida leaders (was there), we want to go through every means we've got available to us to try to positively identify them," Hagenbeck said.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- AP
U.S. and Canadian troops pursued four al-Qaida fighters through the mountains of eastern Afghanistan on Friday after the enemy slipped away following a gunbattle that erupted during the mopping up operations of the biggest U.S.-led offensive of the Afghan war.

Helicopters, commandos and ground troops scanned the valley passes to track stragglers after the brief exchange of fire Thursday. Coalition troops clearing caves and bunkers in the Shah-e-Kot valley also killed three enemy fighters after a separate 90-minute gunbattle as the remnants of al-Qaida fighters struggled to survive in the aftermath of Operation Anaconda.

"Today is March 15, so here's a sooth for the al-Qaida," said Maj. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the 10th Mountain Division. "If you come out of your holes, I'd say beware the Ides of March."

The search came after a separate incident in which coalition troops subdued a cell of suspected al-Qaida or Taliban fighters with anti-tank weapons, grenades, heavy machine guns and small arms fire. There were no coalition casualties, said the Canadian Press news agency, which has a reporter with the Canadian troops.
(More: The Orlando Sentinel News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan