U.S. considering new offensives after Afghan ambush

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- The U.S. military said Sunday it is considering a wider offensive to root out terror groups in Afghanistan following an ambush by suspected Taliban rebels that killed two U.S. special forces soldiers and injured another.

The attack in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday was the sign of an "uptick" in rebel activity following the start of the Iraq war about 10 days ago, said U.S. Army spokesman Col. Roger King. He said U.S. forces would not let up in their efforts to hunt down rebel fighters.

"This helps paint the picture for future operations," King told reporters. However, the attack also "points out that it's a challenge to pick out enemy forces that are made up of local Afghans."

King said earlier that the U.S. military would try to find those responsible but would not elaborate.

"We'll probably make attempts to find out who did the ambushing," he said.

Three Afghan soldiers also were wounded in the attack, the first fatal encounter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since December. It occurred two days after a Swiss International Red Cross worker was killed in neighboring Kandahar province.

Links unclear

King said it was not clear whether there was any link between the two attacks, but U.S. forces and Afghan militia forces have been carrying out a new offensive against terror groups in Kandahar province -- and such offensives often spur more rebel activity.

"If we take aggressive, offensive actions, often times we get a reaction from the enemy forces," King said at Bagram Air Base north of the capital, Kabul, and the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition fighting terrorism in Afghanistan.

Hundreds of Afghan soldiers and U.S. special forces were scouring a rugged mountainous region in Kandahar on Sunday, according to Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for the provincial governor. Pashtoon said eight rebels had been killed and 13 captured in two days of fighting, including a suspected senior Taliban leader. He declined to give the suspects' names.

There have also been stepped up rocket attacks on U.S. bases in recent weeks, though the weapons rarely hit their mark and have caused no U.S. casualties. King has repeatedly said rebel forces had vowed to use the start of an Iraq war as a trigger for new attacks in Afghanistan.

Afghan authorities say Taliban, their al-Qaida allies and loyalists of renegade rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are behind the killings and the rocket attacks.

In one such attack late Saturday, suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters launched rockets at an air base housing U.S. and Afghan forces near the eastern city of Jalalabad, but there were no casualties, said Dr. Mohammed Asif Qazizada, a deputy governor of the region.

Training camps set up

In recent interviews with The Associated Press, Taliban loyalists hiding in neighboring Pakistan said training camps had been set up in the mountains of Afghanistan, and that anti-American forces had united.

In Saturday's ambush, a U.S. Special Forces soldier and an airman were killed and another special forces trooper wounded when their four-vehicle convoy was ambushed on a reconnaissance patrol 12-18 miles north of Geresk, King said.

The injured soldier was in critical but stable condition and had undergone surgery in the southern city of Kandahar. King did not identify the victims.

Geresk is in Helmand province, about 70 miles west of the city of Kandahar.

The U.S. military had recently finished an anti-terror sweep known as Operation Viper in the area.

Saturday's ambush "only shows that our intelligence that there were enemy forces in the area, which led us to go into Helmand valley, was probably correct," King said, referring to the operation.

Dad Mohammed Khan, the intelligence chief of Helmand, told AP the U.S. soldiers had been inspecting the construction of a school and a hospital that the Americans were funding when they were ambushed by four men riding two motorcycles. King said he was not able to confirm that.

Khan identified the assailants as fighters of the Taliban regime, which was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001. He did not explain how he knew they were Taliban.

The attack raised to 28 the number of combat deaths among the U.S.-led multinational coalition fighting terror in Afghanistan, King said. Another 34 have died in accidents or from other causes.