US troops storm Afghan caves

ACTING on new intelligence from radio intercepts, nearly 1,000 US soldiers stormed into mountainside caves and villages in southern Afghanistan yesterday in an intense search for Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives, US military spokesmen said.

The operation, named "Valiant Strike", focused on the mountainous area where Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was rumoured to have fled after the fall of Kandahar in 2001.

Operations began minutes after US forces delivered the first attack on Baghdad.

The timing of the new Afghan operation at least two months in the planning was "coincidence", Colonel Roger King said, adding it was one in a series of major operations.

However, he conceded that anti-US groups have threatened to intensify attacks on the multinational coalition in Afghanistan if war broke out in Iraq.

The attack, like recent high-level al-Qaida arrests in neighbouring Pakistan, may have the effect of disrupting any attempts by the Taliban or al-Qaida to organise terrorist attacks against Western interests.

Anti-American rebel fighters hope that a strike on Iraq will stir public anger with the United States, army officials said, and it is hoped that this offensive will dampen their ability to retaliate.