Strike near Afghan border kills 4 militants: US

Islamabad, May 9 : A US air strike killed four suspected Taliban or al Qaeda fighters close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on Monday, the US military said.

US ground troops later found the guerrillas dead and captured a fifth, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick said at the US military base at Bagram outside Kabul.

The attack was launched after US and Afghan forces spotted a group of suspected militants loading a truck with rockets stored in a cave in the Bermel district of Paktika province, less than 1 km from the border with the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan.

The air strike came on the heels of criticism by a senior U.S. official of Pakistan's efforts to stop Taliban fighters crossing into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and Afghan forces.

''We called in air support and struck that truck,'' Fitzpatrick said. ''We sent a ground force to the cave and found four dead enemy combatants and captured one combatant.'' Pakistani security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, had earlier said the attack had taken place inside Pakistani territory, but Fitzpatrick said the US forces used satellite positioning data to confirm the target's location.

''It was close, it was within a kilometre or so of the border, but it was clearly within Afghanistan,'' he said ''During this operation we were in contact with Pakistani military forces on their side of the border. They knew what we were doing,'' he added.

However, three men wounded in the U.S. airstrike were brought for treatment to the Pakistani bordertown of Angoor Adda, and according to the Pakistani officials' version they had been mining for minerals in the nearby mountains.

Pakistani military and government spokesmen could not be immediately contacted.

Pakistan does not allow foreign forces to operate inside its territory, and the government is sensitive to criticism that it has already gone too far in helping the United States.

It has deployed close to 80,000 troops in the border areas and they have killed more than 300 militants in neighbouring North Waziristan since mid-2005. It has lost more than 50 soldiers in the fight against foreign al Qaeda militants and their supporters among the local tribes.

Henry Crumpton, the U.S. State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, said in Kabul on Saturday: ''Has Pakistan done enough? I think the answer is 'no'.

''Not only al Qaeda, but Taliban leadership are primarily in Pakistan, and the Pakistanis know that,'' Crumpton said, adding that eliminating militant safe havens in Pakistan's tribal lands was crucial.

Crumpton's comments were a rare public admonishment of Pakistan by a member of the US administration, and were a sign of growing frustration with the Taliban's resurgence since late last year. A Pakistani spokesman dismissed his remarks as ''highly irresponsible''.

Reuters

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