Two US Marines were killed as they checked a cave pounded by warplanes in a five-hour battle in eastern Afghanistan that also left about 23 insurgents dead, the US military said today.
Meanwhile, with rebels suffering heavy losses in a string of clashes, a veteran Afghan official said Taliban leader Mullah Omar may be ready to make peace - and that the government should welcome him.
The military said yesterday's clash began when a unit of Marines investigated a report of militant activity in Laghman, a province in an opium-producing region about 60 miles east of the capital, Kabul.
Insurgents opened fire on the Marines with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades and then split into two groups, one of which fled to a village and the other to a cave on a nearby ridge, a military statement said.
"US Air Force A-10 aircraft engaged the insurgents in the cave and a squad of Marines went afterwards to assess the situation," the statement said. "The two Marines were killed while clearing the cave area."
Their names were withheld pending notification of next of kin.
"Two insurgents were confirmed killed and another 21 suspected dead," the military said. There was no word on any wounded from either side.
Militants opposed to the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai have stepped up their three-year-old insurgency after the melt of the winter's snow, carrying out a string of assaults and bombings.
Sunday's deaths bring to 143 the number of American troops killed in and around Afghanistan since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, according to US Defence Department statistics.
However, rebels have suffered massive casualties when American warplanes have caught them in large groups on open ground.
In the bloodiest fighting in nine months, US and Afghan forces including American warplanes clashed with bands of suspected insurgents in two southern provinces last week. Sixty-four rebels, nine Afghan soldiers and an Afghan policeman were reported killed, while six American troops were among the wounded.
American commanders insist they are grinding the insurgents down and persuading villagers in a belt of territory along the Pakistani border to stop sheltering them. They also suggest the 18,000-strong US-led force could be trimmed after September 18 parliamentary elections if a government reconciliation plan takes off.
President Karzai and US officials have said the process should be open to all "non-criminal" Taliban and members of other militant groups. Officials say several dozens former fighters had come forward and would be accepted back into Afghan life.
But the head of a peace commission supposed to oversee the process said today the offer even covered Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and renegade former Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, both wanted as terrorists by the US.
Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, a former Afghan president, said he would negotiate with any Afghans ready to lay down their arms and recognise Karzai and Afghanistan's new democratic constitution.
"Sometimes policies toward some people change, and this was the old policy toward Mullah Omar and Hekmatyar," Mujaddedi said at a news conference. "Our commission is independent and we want to deal with all individuals."
Mujaddedi said he had cleared his approach with the government, though officials in Karzai's office declined to comment.
US spokesman Colonel James Yonts said the military was studying his remarks, but suggested he had stepped out of line.
"Our position all along has been that those guilty of serious crimes must be responsible for their actions," Yonts told The Associated Press. "We believe the government of Afghanistan understands and supports that."
Mujaddedi said the commission didn't know where Omar and Hekmatyar were, but insisted the fugitives were growing tired of "fleeing from cave to cave."
"From what we understand, these two individuals regret fighting and are not interested in fighting any more," Mujaddedi said. "If they come and join the peace process, we will see what their conditions are. If they are acceptable for us and the government, we will accept them."
Separately, the US military said it had found no trace of a radio station which a purported Taliban spokesman claimed last month was broadcasting near the southern city of Kandahar.
"To date, we don't have any actionable intelligence that this radio station exists," spokeswoman Lieutenant Cindy Moore said.
AP