KABUL: US-led troops and Afghan militiamen launched a massive operation on Saturday against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda members along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, US and Afghan officials said.

The US-led coalition forces were transported today (Saturday) by air and ground to positions along the border to block the extremists' escape routes, US military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis said in a statement from the coalition airbase at Bagram.

"The Coalition forces and soldiers from the 1st Corps, Afghan military forces are conducting a cooperative combat and civil affairs operation in the Goshta and surrounding districts, Nangarhar province, east of Jalalabad," he said. Goshta is about 30 kilometres from the border with Pakistan.

Davis said that the operation was planned and conducted in close cooperation with President Hamid Karzai and the local governor. "Nangarhar province has historically served as an al-Qaeda stronghold," he said, while adding that recent attacks had been "harassing" rather than a real danger.

"Task Force Devil along with Special Operations Forces blocked designated border crossings in order to prevent threat elements from crossing the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan," Davis said, referring to Taliban and al-Qaeda and supporters of renegade Afghan militant leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. "We're hunting down their leadership and ultimately we will win the war on terrorism," he said.

Davis said a series of offensive operations, dubbed Operation Unified Resolve, had been launched in eastern Afghanistan from Wednesday to block border crossing points in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.

The US soldiers arrived on Friday night with helicopters and vehicles at the border, Nangarhar governor Haji Din Mohammad told AFP by telephone from the provincial capital Jalalabad, 120 kilometres east of Kabul.

The troops said that they would be taking control of the border and mountain areas rather than searching houses, he added. US soldiers were going along the Kabul river where it forms the border with Pakistan and were accompanied by Afghan interpreters.

Din Mohammad said that Pakistan had also sent troops and tanks to its side of the border. "Over the other side of the border thousands of Pakistani troops have arrived two days ago. They have tanks," he said.

The presence of Pakistani soldiers could not be immediately confirmed in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, insurgents fired a single rocket at a US military base at Orgun, in the south-eastern province of Paktika, but no casualties were reported, spokesman Rodney Davis said.

The latest operation comes just days after Afghan, US and Pakistani military and government officials took part in their first meeting of a new tripartite commission in Islamabad on Tuesday. --Agencies

Our correspondent adds from Ghalanai: Militia force has been deployed in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, as Islamabad plans to plug all the entry points towards Pakistan in Mohmand Agency.

Political authorities on Friday arranged a visit for the local journalists to the inaccessible parts of the agency spreading over some 40 kilometres of area, which has been brought under the government control for the first time since inception of the country.

Personnel of the armed forces and the Mohmand Rifles have been patrolling the area to man the porous border, as work on the construction of security check posts is in progress, Commandant Mohmand Rifles Colonel Muhammad Iqbal told the visiting journalists in a briefing held at Lwarh Ghakhey area on Pak-Afghan border.