— BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of U.S. soldiers launched a major operation in eastern Afghanistan in the rugged hinterlands near the Pakistani border in search of al Qaeda remnants, U.S. military officials said Monday. Maj. Richard T. Patterson, U.S. spokesman at Bagram Air Base just north of Kabul, said that elements of the 82nd Airborne Division had been conducting "large scale operations" in the Bermal Valley in the Paktika province near the village of Shkin. Shkin, which has been the focus of U.S. special forces operations in recent months, is linked by easy transport routes to the...