US launches major Afghan assault

Hundreds of US soldiers launched an air assault in eastern Afghanistan today, part of a new operation the US military is calling its biggest since the fall of the hardline Taliban regime two years ago.

Soldiers from the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment stormed into an area east of Khost, a town along the border with Pakistan that has seen several recent attacks on coalition personnel, said Lt Col Bryan Hilferty, a US military spokesman.

“We came in with helicopters,” he said of the manoeuvre, part of the newly launched Operation Avalanche. Hilferty gave no further details.

US and Afghan officials have long claimed that Taliban rebels and their al-Qaida allies melt cross the mountainous border into Pakistan after launching attacks.

Operation Avalanche, which Hilferty said began on December 2, involves some 2,000 soldiers in four battalions and is the largest undertaken since the Afghan war that ousted the Taliban ended in late 2001.

The military has given few details of its scope, but it is concentrated on large swathes of the south and east of the country that have seen an increase in attacks in recent months.