KABUL, 16 March 2004 — US-led soldiers killed three suspected Taleban during a search of a cave in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said yesterday, adding that the coalition had “intensified” efforts to capture Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants.

The search operation, part of Operation Mountain Storm announced on Saturday, took place in Qalat, the capital of troubled Zabul province in southeastern Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said.

“Coalition forces killed three anti-coalition militia and detained five south of Qalat,” Hilferty said. “And yesterday (Sunday) we detained eight more personnel in the same area.” The US-led coalition troops, working with US Special Forces, engaged the enemy in machine-gun and rifle fire on Saturday during a cordon and search of a cave complex in Qalat, he said.

The eight arrested Sunday were found in a nearby complex and were discovered to have “anti-coalition propaganda” material, Hilferty said, without elaborating.

While Operation Mountain Storm in south, southeast and east Afghanistan was a natural progression from past operations it was also more intense than previous military efforts, Hilferty said.

Suspected Taleban militants, meanwhile, attacked a police post west of the city of Kandahar yesterday, killing an Afghan policeman and wounding another in the latest guerrilla attack. A senior government commander also said that on Thursday, 12 Taleban fighters were killed in a US airstrike on their truck in Kandahar province.

The fresh US-led campaign comes after a surge in militant attacks on aid workers and foreigners, as well as against Afghan and US-led forces, raising concerns about security for elections due to held later this year. The latest attack, on a police post in Maymand district about 50 km west of Kandahar city, was carried out by militants traveling in two cars.

“One of the attackers was wounded in the exchange of fire, but they escaped,” Khan Mohammad, the commander of Kandahar’s second military corps, told Reuters.

Afghan officials complain that militants have been able to launch attacks and slip across the border to safety in neighboring Pakistan, the main backer of the Taleban when it was in power, but now a key ally in Washington’s “war on terror”.