Saeed Ali Achakzai, Reuters  --  Arab News

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, 5 April 2004 — Afghan and US forces will soon launch an attack on Al-Qaeda militants who fled from an offensive in Pakistan’s tribal lands into Afghanistan, an Afghan official said yesterday.

Pakistani troops fought a 12-day battle against about 500 Al-Qaeda fighters and their Pakistani tribal allies on Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan last month. The Pakistani military said about 200 were captured or killed.

The governor of Afghanistan’s Paktika province, Haji Gulab Mangal, said a large number of militants had escaped from the fighting in Pakistan’s South Waziristan and taken refuge in Afghan mountains.

“Afghan forces have been told to be ready and soon an operation along with allied forces will be carried out against these elements,” Mangal told Reuters by telephone.

Pakistan has mounted its biggest ever campaign to pacify its lawless and largely autonomous tribal region on the Afghan border and clear the area of foreign fighters.

As Pakistani forces hunt on their side, US forces have mounted an operation on the Afghan side of the border in what the Pentagon has called a “hammer and anvil” action to catch Al-Qaeda leaders, possibly Osama Bin Laden.

About 2,000 US Marine reinforcements have been arriving in Afghanistan to intensify the hunt while Pakistan has been moving fresh troops up to its side of the border.

Mangal said the militants were in Saroza district. Uzbeks, Chechens, Tajiks and Afghans were among them.