Back at Base, U.S. Troops Say Afghans Failed Them

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan -- Weary and sunburned but proud, 400 American soldiers who fought tenacious battles with Al Qaeda and Taliban troops in eastern Afghanistan returned here Sunday, some of them telling bitter stories of being let down by an Afghan commander.

The troops represent about a third of the U.S. force sent to battle Taliban and Al Qaeda holdouts in the mountainous Shahi Kot region in a campaign dubbed Operation Anaconda. But senior Bush administration officials gave conflicting accounts Sunday of whether the pullout meant the battle was winding down.

Maj. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the Army's 10th Mountain Division here, told reporters, "The major fighting of the battle is over." But Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, disputed the notion that the fight in rugged terrain south of Gardez, which began March 2, was subsiding. He said that it was evolving and that troops were being repositioned within the battlefield or on its perimeter. In some cases, he said, fresh troops were rotating in.