HIGHLIGHTS: Operation 'Champion Strike' Aims to Deny Qaeda Remnants Ability to Operate in the Area||Secrecy Engulfs Duration of Military Action & Details of outcome so far||Local Population in the Bermal Valley, Theatre of 'Champion Strike' Operation, Increasingly Vocal in Opposition to Presence & Tactics of American Troops in the Area|| STORY: Hundreds of U.S. soldiers launched a major operation in eastern Afghanistan in the rugged hinterlands near the Pakistani border in search of al Qaeda remnants, U.S. military officials said Monday.

Maj. Richard T. Patterson, U.S. spokesman at Bagram Air Base just north of Kabul, said that elements of the 82nd Airborne Division had been conducting "large scale operations" in the Bermal Valley in the Paktika province near the village of Shkin.

Shkin, which has been the focus of U.S. special forces operations in recent months, is linked by easy transport routes to the Waziristan region of Western Pakistan where many senior Qaeda members have possibly taken refuge.

The operation, code-named "Champion Strike," has been undertaken "to capture or kill al Qaeda (members) and deny them the ability to conduct operations in that area," he said.

It is the latest in a series of U.S.-led missions in the east and southeast of Afghanistan which have yielded mainly stockpiles of old weapons, some dating back to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. There have been a small number of arrests.

Battles with remnants of the ousted Taliban regime, and the Qaeda network it sheltered, have been rare. Many, if not most, of the survivors of the U.S. air assaults of late 2001 are believed to have crossed the porous Afghan-Pakistan border.

Patterson declined to specify when the operation had begun and when it was expected to end.

He said that U.S. troops had uncovered several arms caches and detained several people for "screening," but he declined to say how many.

U.S. troops were involved in one firefight with unknown attackers since the latest operation began, but there were no reports of any casualties on either side.

Patterson declined to specify why U.S. forces had chosen the valley for the sweep, noting only that all operations were based on "multiple intelligence sources."

Shkin is some 135 miles south of the capital Kabul.

The adjoining Paktia and Paktika provinces are among the most conservative regions of Afghanistan, and locals have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to the presence and tactics of U.S. troops in their area.

Fighting over the weekend in the city of Khost, part of Paktia, underlined the lawlessness and local rivalry in many areas of the country where central government control is weak.

More than 15 people were reported killed and more than 51 wounded in the clashes between a renegade warlord, who has rejected the leadership of President Hamid Karzai, and the local governor.

PHOTO CAPTION

International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, inspect a car for explosives with a sniffer dog at the entrance of a stadium where people gather for a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the slaying of Ahmed Shah Massood in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 9, 2002, Massood, a legendary Afghan commander, was killed on Sept. 9, 2001 by suicide bombers believed sent by Osama bin Laden. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
- Sep 09 11:57 AM ET