Military reports Afghanistan fight

KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S.-led forces fought militants near Afghanistan’s unstable border, the military said Friday, just across from a Pakistani region where suspected al Qaeda fighters are believed to have found refuge.

The skirmish occurred Thursday near Shkin, a border town in Paktika province 140 miles south of the capital, Kabul, U.S. military spokeswoman Master Sgt. Cindy Beam said.

The U.S.-led troops were backed by warplanes in the fighting that was near a remote American base.

“Coalition forces reported troops in contact with anti-coalition militia near Shkin,” Beam said in an e-mail. “Air support with precision ordnance was called in during the engagement.”

She didn’t say if there were casualties or give any other details. Local officials said they had no information about the incident.

Shkin lies just a miles from the border with Pakistan and its semiautonomous Waziristan tribal region, where Pakistani officials say hundreds of foreign militants, including al Qaeda fighters, are holed up.

American commanders have said attacks by al Qaeda remnants who remained in the area after the defeat of the Taliban in late 2001 are concentrated around Afghanistan’s Paktika and Khost provinces.