United States Military Assaults Afghanistan

Five hundred American and Canadian troops remained in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, looking for caves that might still be hiding Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters, as the U.S. military said its 16-day operation in the area was winding down.

Eight U.S. soldiers received Purple Hearts on Saturday for injuries suffered during an intense, 18-hour firefight on the first day of Operation Anaconda. "The men standing here . . . showed their mettle and their steel in the sense that they were wounded in the early morning hours and were unable to be extracted until the early evening," said Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck, commander of the coalition that waged the battle in eastern Afghanistan.

As missions go in this war, pumping gas from a big helicopter to a smaller one isn't among the more glamorous. But this is what Marines from the 13th Expeditionary Unit are doing in the high desert, seven miles west of the front line of the war's bloodiest battle. There is little sign of the enemy, though the Marines aren't so sure about the ragged-looking Afghan locals with Kalashnikovs, just a few hundred shimmery yards across the sand.

The U.S.-led Operation Anaconda has failed to produce any top Al Qaeda leaders, and an American commander said Thursday that the terrorist network's upper echelon might not have been in the Shahi Kot valley when the battle began. But even without apparently capturing its ultimate quarry--terrorist leader Osama bin Laden--the biggest U.S.

Shattered and empty, the mud-brick houses shone blood red in the sunlight. Beyond the village, a small truck sat twisted, black and bullet-riddled. On a hillside, two corpses of enemy fighters lay next to a clothing heap that was in fact the torso of a third--mute testament to the brutality of the battle. For U.S. and Afghan forces, who had waged an intense campaign to clear this mountain redoubt of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, it was a day to savor and declare victory.

Hardened Afghan soldiers with tanks, rocket launchers and mortars advanced to the edge of this valley Monday, vowing to clean out nests of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who might still be lurking in its labyrinth of caves despite more than a week of bombing and firefights with U.S. troops. No one knows how many enemy fighters might be in the valley after the U.S.

Weary and sunburned but proud, 400 American soldiers who fought tenacious battles with Al Qaeda and Taliban troops in eastern Afghanistan returned here Sunday, some of them telling bitter stories of being let down by an Afghan commander. The troops represent about a third of the U.S. force sent to battle Taliban and Al Qaeda holdouts in the mountainous Shahi Kot region in a campaign dubbed Operation Anaconda.

If geography is destiny, then the difficult battle by Americans to rid eastern Afghanistan of Al Qaeda members was probably inevitable. Mountains are made for guerrilla wars. And porous borders are made for guerrillas seeking sanctuary. Paktia province has both: Two-thirds of the land is mountain range, and it shares a long border with Pakistan's so-called tribal areas, where government control is limited and tribal leaders are generally willing to give refuge to the highest bidder.

A tearful President Bush, speaking to a crowd that included the families of two soldiers killed in Afghanistan this week, vowed Friday that the United States would remain "relentless and determined" in fighting terrorists. "So long as I'm president, we're going to be after them, without blinking," he said, while cautioning that more American troops might die in the effort. Bush came to St.

The six soldiers stood at attention in the old Soviet airplane hangar Friday to receive Purple Hearts, the medal reserved for Americans wounded or killed in combat. One was a helicopter pilot grazed in the head by shrapnel when a rocket-propelled grenade shattered the cockpit of his aircraft. Others were infantrymen caught in a terrifying 18-hour mortar assault on the first day of Operation Anaconda in eastern Afghanistan.