Special forces suspect security leaks as Operation Mountain Sweep results in only modest success

NARIZAH, Afghanistan - Flying huge American flags atop their Humvees, U.S. Army Special Forces swept through villages in southeastern Afghanistan ( news - web sites) last week in search of al-Qaida and Taliban.



In most cases, however, the people and weapons the troops expected to find were gone, leading them to suspect that Operation Mountain Sweep, which ended Sunday, had been compromised by security leaks.

"I wouldn't say it wasn't successful," said Sgt. 1st Class Dwight Smith, a special operations soldier. "It's been going OK. We've recovered some caches. But it could be better."

More than 2,000 coalition troops, including U.S. special forces, paratroopers and civil affairs specialists, took part in the eight-day operation in the rugged mountain terrain along the border with Pakistan.

They found a ton of weapons, two caches of Taliban documents and took 10 people into custody. But main force al-Qaida and Taliban units were nowhere to be found.

Instead, they turned up cooperative village leaders and curious children — even though intelligence reports said the area is rife with Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers, some of them masters of guerrilla warfare learned fighting the Soviets in the 1980s.

Maj. Craig Osborne, an operations officer, suspects the enemy knew the Americans were coming.

"I have no firsthand knowledge of that but there is some speculation of that," he said.

The operations around Narizah, a mud-hut village in Khost province less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Pakistan border, were typical and underscored the frustrations of U.S. soldiers.

U.S. intelligence had reported an unusually large number of vehicles and armed men around the village. As paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division set up a security cordon around the area, troops from the 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group-Airborne approached the village.