U.S. Keeping Tabs on Eastern Afghan Region

American forces are closely watching volatile eastern Afghanistan but have not yet figured out exactly how many Al Qaeda and Taliban members are hiding there and what they are up to, defense officials said Tuesday.

They played down a report by Afghans of recent sightings of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and top aide Ayman Zawahiri in the area near the city of Khowst.

“The Khowst area is a tense situation. . . . It remains a dangerous place,” Air Force Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa Jr. said at a news conference.

“I think it would be premature to start trying to characterize what we’re seeing,” said Rosa, the deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

American forces have long focused on the region near the Pakistani border and believe that pockets of Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters are holed up there. But perceptions of what’s happening shifts as the enemy moves and new intelligence is received, defense officials said.

The Khowst region is a major land route into Pakistan to the east and borders the area where U.S.-led troops just conducted the largest land assault staged in the nearly 6-month-old campaign against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.

The city of Khowst is also saturated with weapons and has been the site of hostilities between competing Afghan warlords.

Rosa declined to answer questions about the number of enemy fighters believed to be in the area or how they were communicating and operating.

“But it’s always worth repeating, we expect and anticipate additional pockets of resistance,” Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said. “It is the MO of these people to try to regroup in some shape or fashion, so we fully expect it, and that’s one of the reasons we’re still there.”

Rosa said that although there had been no engagements with enemy fighters in more than a week, coalition pilots flew 150 mission over Afghanistan on Monday and continued to search the area of the recently completed Operation Anaconda, the large ground assault against other regroupings of Al Qaeda and Taliban forces this month.

The flights included reconnaissance planes, and bombers on standby in case enemy forces are sighted.

Zawahiri, 50, a personal physician to Bin Laden, was reportedly seen about a week ago near the site of Operation Anaconda battles in neighboring Paktia province.

Commanders have said that they expect to encounter fighters in smaller groups and that activity will increase as spring weather emerges and troops on both sides can move around better.

Rosa said coalition forces could face extra problems with smaller enemy groupings.

“Obviously, you’d like to have them in one big cluster and be able to mount an attack and do as much damage as you can,” he said.