By Martin Arostegui
From the International Desk
Published 3/15/2002 4:13 PM

GARDEZ, Afghanistan, March 15 (UPI) -- Hidden American commando teams pinpointing al Qaida positions with laser target designators guided in airstrikes against terrorist bases in the White Mountains for three days before Afghan troops moved into the area.

"Some of the bombs fell very near our positions. It was like being in perpetual earthquake," said one member of the 3rd Special Forces Group, who asked United Press International to refer to him only as Chris. "At one point a 2,000-pound bomb exploded so close that we urgently radioed our headquarters to make sure that aircraft had our location."

While Afghan Northern Alliance forces took a more direct combat role in the battle that expelled al Qaida and Taliban guerrillas from the mountains of Gardez than in any military operation since the fall of Kabul last November, U.S. forces were also on the front line.

"It's the very close cooperation between the Afghan army and the U.S. military that has allowed the eradication of al Qaida in the area," said Afghan Gen. Gul Haider, who led the ground offensive in Gardez.

"U.S. officers worked closely by my side," said the Tajik Northern Alliance commander, interviewed by UPI as he led a military convoy of tanks and supply trucks back to Kabul on Thursday. U.S. Special Forces as well as elements of the 10th Mountain Division and the 101st Airborne have now replaced Afghan forces holding positions captured from al Qaida and the Taliban just a few days ago.

Special units from other nations, including Britain and Canada, are also participating in Operation Anaconda following this week's success in Gardez. The two-day-old Canadian-led Operation Harpoon, for example, captured a strategic ridge near Gardez Thursday to cut off al Qaida and Taliban fighters who escaped Anaconda.

"This is very much of a coalition effort," said a U.S. Special Forces commander of a joint American-Afghan team holding destroyed villages in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, which served as al Qaida's center of operations.

Soldiers of a locally raised garrison headed by General Zia, troops who played a key role in the pincer movement to surround al Qaida in Shah-i-Kot, wore freshly delivered American green camouflage uniforms and boots when UPI interviewed them at their base in a medieval fortress overlooking the town of Gardez.

The unit's commander, Ekbal, said he doesn't believe that he is fighting his own people.

"They were mostly Arabs, Chechens and other foreigners on those mountains," he said, lounging with his battle-weary fighters in the broken down barracks, eating U.S. military packaged meals. 

	In the dusty courtyard outside, Jack, an American special adviser to the Afghan military, treated Afghan injuries, stitching a fresh bullet wound in one man's lower leg. Even without anesthesia the soldier was thankful for the treatment. As the Green Beret wiped the blood splatters from his face a dozen Afghan fighters looked on, they have never had this kind of support in 23 years of war.
Polaris Images "Jack" as he is known by the Afghans in the Northern Alliance, operates on a wounded soldier during the fight for Shah-i-Kot.  Low on medical supplies and faced with high casualties, Special Forces medics rarely slept during the battles.	The Pashtun unit suffered some of the most serious casualties in the fighting. Five were killed and 13 wounded, according to Ekbal.

He said that despite the incessant U.S. bombing of Shah-i-Kot, a number of al Qaida fighters survived among the 200 homes clustered beneath the mountains and continued to offer resistance.

Daoud, a lean, bearded, cold-eyed warrior, recalled a firefight with a group of al Qaida holed up in the ruins. "I located the position from where they were shooting at us with machine guns and a mortar as we came down the mountain," he said. "We engaged them from 300 meters and sent four of them to paradise. The rest ran away."

While the heaviest fighting is now over, efforts now focus on heading off al Qaida survivors escaping south toward Pakistan and north toward the neighboring province of Logar. Pashtun units recruited, trained and supplied by U.S. Special Forces are now reported to be taking a lead in ground operations.

"The Pashtun are our brothers," said Northern Alliance Maj. Ahmed Jan, who commands a Tajik unit that had just been relieved by American soldiers from an observation position on a ridge line just outside Gardez that was occupied by al Qaida less than a week ago. "All the nations of Afghanistan must now work together."

The new inter-ethnic cooperation is being closely fostered by American military advisers.

"Northern and Pashtun troops coordinated very well together during the offensive into Shah-i-Kot," said Jim, a U.S. Special Forces team leader.

The hundreds of Afghan troops who poured into Shah-i-Kot from the north and south on Tuesday night, however, appear to have failed to cut off the escape of important al Qaida and Taliban members. No actual figure has been released yet for prisoners taken in Operation Anaconda, but the number was believed to be small.

There was no word on the whereabouts of two fugitive Taliban leaders -- Zaifar Rahman, believed to be close with Pakistani and Iranian intelligence services, and the deputy head of the Taliban leadership council, Mulawi Abdul Kahir -- who were reported to be in Shah-i-Kot.

Soldiers found an abandoned Toyota truck with Saudi and Jordanian identification documents for a man and woman believed to an important couple in al Qaida. The man's identity card shown to UPI bore the title of doctor.

Other Arabic documents recovered from Shah-i-Kot included a military manual on the operation of various weapons and field radios. It included a long section of how to use rocket-propelled grenades as anti-aircraft weapons, according to Special Forces officers who read it.

The most serious U.S. casualties of operation Anaconda occurred when a Blackhawk helicopter was shot down by an RPG. There are reports that four other U.S. attack helicopters were also damaged by al Qaida's favored weapon.

The Pashtun soldiers at the fortress of Gardez had rested for barely 24 hours when orders came for them to load up in trucks and head south for Sarabza near the border with Pakistan, where escaping al Qaida had just been spotted by U.S. reconnaissance.

"We expect that Taliban and al Qaida collaborators will remain around corners of the country for the near future," said Gen. Gul Haider, "but if U.S. Special Forces continue their close cooperation with us and prevent Pakistan from aiding them, they will be totally eliminated."