AFGHANISTAN - March 20 - US Launches New Operation.

The US military launches a new operation in the south of the country apparently to capture Al Qaida and Taliban members. US military officials at Bagram airbase say some 1,000 troops, understood to be from the Army's 82nd Airborne division, are involved in what is the largest operation in the country in more than a year. In recent weeks, US troops carried out raids in the south, searching for militant hide-outs. Unconfirmed reports also suggested that special operatives from the CIA have also arrived in the area, amidst suggestions that the US found fresh information leading to the recent whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. On March 21, thousands of US and Afghan soldiers combed caves and conducted house-to-house searches in the south of the country. The US forces arrested 12 people, including members of the former Taliban regime and members of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami movement. Abdul Razzaq, commander of the Afghan border force in the nearest main town of Spin Boldak, said: "The operation continues and we have arrested about 12 of the enemy's soldiers, while the rest seem to have fled".