Troops from the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment say the mission is part of the military's effort to cut off hiding places for al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives, and to win over the rural Afghans whose support is crucial to building a more stable future.

"We ask them if they have seen any al-Qaida or Taliban coming through the area, and we search for weapons," said Lt. James Kavanaugh, 25, of Clayton, N.Y. Kavanaugh and the rest of the battalion have been in Afghanistan since October, based at a military base in Khost. The battalion is normally based at Fort Richardson, near Anchorage, Alaska.

On Sunday and Monday, the troops searched through several villages southwest of Khost, near the border with Pakistan, using a translator to communicate with local Afghans. They were invited in for tea with village elders, and did not need to force their way into any homes.

The military asked that the names of the villages not be revealed to protect the ongoing mission. But the area is not far from Pakistan's tribal North Waziristan region, and about 60 miles north of South Waziristan, where Pakistan recently wound up a bloody crackdown on al-Qaida holdouts.

Taliban and al-Qaida militants are believed to hop back and forth across the border, using Pakistani territory as a safe haven and then crossing into Afghanistan to launch attacks. They frequently fire rockets at the U.S. base in Khost, though the crude devices mostly miss their mark.

Kavanaugh said the search missions can last as long as two weeks, with soldiers making camp in fields at night as they work their way through an area. By and large, Kavanaugh said, the locals are friendly and cooperative.

"They want us here because they know our presence is making it safer for them," he said.

The concrete results of missions like these are often difficult to see. Kavanaugh said the troops had found some AK-47s, a near ubiquitous weapon in Afghanistan's rural areas, but had not unearthed any significant caches or fought with any militants.

But Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman in Kabul, said the operations near Khost were typical of the military's new "area ownership" strategy, where small units are sent repeatedly to the same area to build relationships and make them safe for aid work.

"We realize we're not going to win this war by killing individual terrorists, but by winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and helping reconstruct their country," Hilferty said.

The strategy is also aimed at gathering intelligence on militants' movements that the military hopes will help them snare fugitives including Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

"It's paying off," Hilferty said, pointing to a string of tips about weapons caches, including three in the Khost area last Saturday.

"Generally, that's a result of intelligence. Often people lead us right to them," Hilferty said.

But attacks on U.S. forces continue, with the latest comprising of the attempted car bombing of an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan on Monday.

After a "pitiful explosion" in the vehicle, the assailant got out and ran toward the convoy with a pistol, Hilferty said. "He's dead now."

There were no reports of injuries among U.S. troops or civilians.

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