WASHINGTON — The battle around the eastern Afghan town of Gardez is continuing with no sign Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters plan to surrender.
They are battling more than 2,300 U.S., Afghan and coalition troops, backed by additional jet aircraft and helicopters.
Washington says it believes the battle will be over by the weekend or sometime next week, but admits it could go longer.
The latest problem for the U.S.-led forces is the weather. Conditions are tough, with cold temperatures, strong winds and snow. And the fighting, in some cases, has been hand-to-hand.
Army Maj. Gen. Richard Cody says his troops were involved in "a short knife fight. They got right in there and took it to them."
Officially there are still hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters crawling through mountain tunnels. Exactly how many have been killed is either a guess, or a closely guarded secret.
Some are asking if Afghan civilians might be among those killed in the chaos of battle. "I can't guarantee that we have not hurt noncombatants," said military spokesman Maj. Gen. Frank Hagenbeck, "but I can tell you we work very hard and take a long time sometimes to engage a target, to make sure it's not a non-combatant."
Talking to reporters by phone, at least one soldier on the ground is much more emphatic. "There was no civilians at all in any of the villages, no civilians at all, its all al-Qaeda soldiers," said Sgt. Maj. Frank Grippe.
Talk from the Pentagon remains optimistic. American Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says he feels Operation Anaconda may soon be over. "I would think it would end sometime this weekend or next week," he said on Thursday.
But, no one at the Pentagon is suggesting this will be the last operation of its kind to root out what's left of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
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