KABUL - Snow swept over mountain fighting between US-led forces and Taleban-al Qaeda rebels yesterday, adding an unpredictable twist to the largest US-led battle of the Afghan War.
American forces returning from the high-altitude frontline in eastern Afghanistan reported sharp temperature drops, while Afghan soldiers worried they would lose crucial US bombing support as the bad weather closed in.
The American soldiers said temperatures had dropped by at least 10 degrees.
Before snow and high winds hit the Gardez area, 150km south of Kabul, B-52 bombers pounded rebel positions.
The US claims about 100 rebels were killed in battle.
In Washington, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the assault could be over as early as this weekend.
US military spokesman Major Brian Hilferty said that around 1000 Taleban and al Qaeda fighters had taken part in nearly a week of fighting, defending caves and bunkers in the snow-covered mountains, but estimated around half of that number were dead.
He said there could have been some civilians killed during the heavy bombing and fighting, with some of the Taleban and al Qaeda rebels thought to be holed up in caves with their families.
"We might have killed non-combatants," he said.
"But they certainly went in there knowing what they were going into. We have no indication, we haven't seen little kids in a yard and we've blown it up, or women walking around and then shot."
With around 2000 Allied and US-backed Afghan troops now on the ground in the mountains, their resupply was crucial, Hilferty said at Bagram Air Base, on the outskirts of Kabul.
"We are sending in by helicopter fuel, food, ammunition and other equipment," he said.
US military officials said they knew bad weather was approaching which added urgency to supply flights into the barren, windswept area.
Commander Abdul Muteen, who has about 135 fighters in the Afghan force of about 800, said before the bad weather arrived possible rebel reinforcement routes had been sealed and fighters were beginning to enter tunnel systems held by the diehard Taleban and al Qaeda fighters.
But he feared the besieged rebels might now try to slip away under cover of snow.
"The weather may ground some US planes and these Taleban know the area very well and might try to slip through our lines and escape."
The US military has ordered up to 300 extra troops, 17 attack helicopters and several A-10 ground-attack aircraft armed with rapid-fire cannon to to counter the rebels.
Rumsfeld said some of the besieged fighters had been trying to escape, but there was no sign that the hardcore al Qaeda and Taleban would surrender.
"We think that we have observation posts everywhere that one needs them so that people can get neither in nor out. But we can't be certain of that.
"We know for a fact that an awful lot of people have been trying to get out and haven't been making it," said Rumsfeld.
"There seems to be no inclination to surrender."
The battle twists along a 10km frontline of bunkers and caves up to the top of 3000m peaks around the village of Shahi Kot.
At least eight US troops and seven Afghan soldiers have died in the operation and about 40 American and 30 Afghan troops have been wounded.
There was no news of further allied casualties yesterday, but several US troops have been treated for altitude sickness after spending days in the thin air and freezing cold.
Washington launched its military campaign in October to topple the Taleban for harbouring al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden - blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States.
In Kabul an investigation is underway into the accidental death of two German and three Danish peacekeepers killed at a munitions site where they were preparing to destroy two Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles.
The tragedy cast a pall over the nearly 5000-strong International Security Assistance Force in which 1250 Germans and 10 Danes are serving.
In Brussels, a European Union special envoy said international peacekeepers should stay longer in Afghanistan than envisaged and extend their presence outside Kabul if the country was to be stabilised.
- REUTERS
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