KABUL, Afghanistan - Coalition troops have begun strengthening their presence in Afghanistan's lawless border regions in an attempt to crush Taliban and al-Qaida militants and gather intelligence on fugitives, including Osama bin Laden, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.
The buildup comes just weeks after the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, announced a change in tactics - from brief missions search of enemy fighters to extended stays in a particular area.
"That process is under way and is gaining steam," military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty told reporters during a news conference in the capital, Kabul.
The new strategy has the advantage, at least theoretically, of yielding closer ties with the community and better intelligence as well as giving troops more time to thoroughly screen an area.
Whereas before the military would send hundreds of troops into remote mountainous areas, now locally based troops do "a long patrol, spend some time in villages and then come back to their main base, but then go back out to that village again," Hilferty said. "So we have repeated visits to places and we have better face-to-face and personal contact."
Troops have already met with some success, including the destruction of a terrorist cell that had been plaguing American forces in the restive border region near Pakistan, said Lt. Col. Harry Glenn, the commander of a U.S. military base in the province of Khost.
One operation in January around a remote pass linking Khost with neighboring Paktia province led to several arrests in a stronghold of Jalaluddin Haqqani, apparently prompting him to flee.
"There has not been an attack in that pass since," Glenn told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday.
The number of U.S.-led troops has grown to 13,000 over recent months, including up to 1,000 in Khost.
U.S. forces plan to work closely with Pakistani troops on the other side of the border in what Barno has described as a "hammer-and-anvil" approach. Pakistani forces have poured into tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in hopes of pressuring fugitives to flee to Afghanistan - where American forces will be waiting.
U.S. officials say they expect these operations, plus the establishment of security teams in provincial capitals such as Qalat, to encourage reconstruction projects and undermine support for militants threatening landmark summer elections.
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