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U.S. military officials say 'several' U.S. soldiers also were wounded in the assault on the remote outpost in Paktika province. It's the same area where an American soldier disappeared on Tuesday. Insurgents armed with rockets, mortars and a truck bomb staged an unusual frontal attack Saturday on a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, killing two American soldiers and forcing the defenders to call in airstrikes to avoid being overrun. The assault, which came as thousands of American troops were taking part in an anti- Taliban offensive hundreds of miles away in the south of Afghanistan, pointed up the insurgents' ability...

Video from inside outpostPaktika Province, Afghanistan – After spotting Taliban forces on a distant ridge line, U.S. Army mortar teams engage with 60mm mortars. A simultaneous airstrike is called in which accidentally drops a 500 pound bomb on a U.S. Army infantry outpost, mistaking the position for Taliban fighters. Luckily there were no friendly casualties in this incident. It is still unclear what caused the pilot to target the wrong position. INTERVIEW: Q: What events led up to this bomb drop, and what was going through your mind after the bomb hit? A: We had been taking harassing sniper fire...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2006 – A joint Afghan National Army and coalition patrol struck an improvised explosive device and was subsequently engaged by extremists with small-arms and rocket-propelled-grenade fire in the Waza Khwa district of Afghanistan’s Paktika province yesterday, military officials reported. One Afghan soldier was killed, and one coalition vehicle was damaged in the attack. The extremists fled the area in two trucks identified by coalition ground forces, and this information was relayed to coalition aircraft overhead. The fleeing trucks were traveling off-road in an attempt to avoid detection. Overhead aircraft observed 10 to 15 people and heavy weapons...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2005 – A former Taliban sub-commander of the Paktika province has renounced violence against the government of Afghanistan, further fragmenting the Taliban command structure in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said. Mullah Hajji Jalani formally joined the Program Takhim-E-Sohl Aug. 4. A ceremony honoring his decision will be held Aug. 9. The terrorist cell he was formerly associated with has been accused of conducting and planning a variety of attacks against the Afghan people, the Afghan government, and Afghan and coalition forces. "The fact that Mullah Hajji Jalani has joined with the government of Afghanistan is a positive...

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan's eastern Paktia province this week on the same day two servicemen died in neighboring Paktika, the U.S. military said on Wednesday. The U.S. military earlier announced the deaths of the two soldiers in fighting near the Pakistan border on Monday. It said a third soldier had died in a separate incident on the same day. Paktia and Paktika are both heartlands for Taliban militants bent on disrupting Afghanistan's first-ever direct presidential elections scheduled for Oct. 9. In addition to the three deaths, 14 U.S. soldiers had been...

AP Exclusive: U.S. forces set up base in Afghan mountains for al-Qaida hunt ON THE AFGHAN BORDER (AP ) -- Using bulldozers to slice bunkers and a helicopter landing pad out of a mountainside, U.S. special operations forces dug in on a peak overlooking Pakistan - fortifying the area for the intensifying battle against al-Qaida and Taliban forces. Special operations forces - including the Army's Green Berets, the Navy SEALs, and CIA operatives - are playing a secretive but leading role in the battle against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects believed to be hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan's...

Attack on US-Afghan border base From correspondents in Kabul, Afghanistan 20mar04 US and Afghan forces repelled a major attack on a base on the Afghan-Pakistan border, leaving at least three suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters dead, an Afghan military commander said today. Afghan Militia Force commander Zakim Khan said the militants had fled from the Pakistani tribal belt where the military has launched a major operation to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives, cornering up to 400 fighters. "This group had came from Pakistan and fled back to Pakistan after the fighting," he said. "Three al-Qaeda fighters were killed and...

A chief town of district of south-east under control taliban since one month The talibans and their allies of organization Al-Qaïda took control in August of the chief town of a frontier district of Pakistan in the south-east of Afghanistan, exerting since an intense military pressure on all the zone, according to local persons in charge's for safety questioned by the AFP. The Afghan pro-governmental forces "were driven out of Barmal in mid-August after an attack of several hundreds of talibans and members of organization Al-Qaïda come from Pakistan", affirmed with the AFP the head of provincial safety Daulat...

— 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...