Afghan soldiers take mountain peaks in day of fierce fighting

QALAT, Afghanistan -- The U.S. military said Saturday that a weeklong campaign of bombing and intense ground battles on the craggy mountain ridges of southern Afghanistan have killed dozens of Taliban holdouts.

U.S. special operations forces and hundreds of allied Afghan soldiers were pressing their assault, taking several strategic peaks and laying siege to positions of the hardline Islamic militant group. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded in the fighting.

American warplanes operated during daylight hours on Saturday, in support of a joint U.S.-Afghan operation that has met stiff resistance.

This week's fighting follows a recent surge in military action by the Taliban, which has staged deadly attacks on Afghan forces, officials and aid workers in an apparent bid to undermine the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The assaults have created new doubts about how much progress has been made by the U.S.-led effort to secure and rebuild the war-battered nation. The violence also raised serious concerns that the increasingly well-organized Taliban are regrouping after their harsh Islamic regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001.

The joint U.S. and Afghan attacks have centered on the remote Dai Chupan district in Zabul. The U.S. military has called the area "a base of anti-coalition activity."

Col. Rodney Davis, spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said Saturday that at least 33 insurgents had been killed between Monday and Wednesday.

Hotak said 35 Taliban were killed Thursday and Friday, and the provincial governor said a similar number of insurgents were killed earlier in the week.

The battles in Zabul have been "at times, intense," Davis said, adding that two U.S. soldiers have been wounded but their lives were not in danger.

On Friday, a special operations soldier died in an accidental fall during a nighttime assault, the second American soldier to die in less than two weeks in Afghanistan.

Some 11,500 U.S.-led forces are helping Afghan troops in hunting down Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, mainly in the south and east.