from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2978723.stm
Last Updated: Saturday, 26 April, 2003, 18:05 GMT 19:05 UK
US bodies leave Afghanistan
A repatriation ceremony took place at Bagram airbase The bodies of two American servicemen killed in an attack in south-eastern Afghanistan have been repatriated to the United States. At a ceremony at Bagram airbase, 50 kilometres (31 miles), from Kabul, hundreds of troops lined the route of the coffins to pay their last respects.
The coffins were put aboard a C-130 Hercules for the flight back to Dover, Delaware, via Uzbekistan.
The clash with suspected Taleban fighters occurred on Friday near a US position at Shkin in Paktia province, near the border with Pakistan.
A military spokesman at Bagram air base, Colonel Roger King, said two American soldiers wounded in the attack were being flown to Germany for medical treatment.
An Afghan Government soldier was also injured in the clash.
Taleban threat
The BBC correspondent in Kabul, Catherine Davis, says the porous nature of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan is a source of concern to the Afghan authorities and US forces.
The attackers, who are thought to have numbered about 20, fled towards the Pakistani border.
Afghans are being trained in an embryonic national army "We've made no secret of the fact that the border region is our highest probability of contact," said Colonel King.
"The more active you are, the more possibility you have of running into enemy elements."
Friday's attack - the latest in a string of clashes in the border area - is a reminder that in Afghanistan there is still an ongoing military campaign.
Local officials in southern Afghanistan say that a group of suspected Taleban fighters have captured a district in the north of Zabol province.
A spokesman for the governor of Kandahar, Khalid Pashtun, told the BBC that 200 government troops had been sent to Zabol to reinforce soldiers already there to recapture the Deh i-Chopan district.
Afghan officials have blamed the spate of attacks on forces based across the border.
Border security was high on the agenda during talks last week between the Afghan and Pakistani leaders.
Colonel King said the American military was working with Islamabad and its forces to try to get closer co-operation.
The colonel said despite recent attacks there were no plans to boost the coalition's presence in the border area.
US commitment
Afghan officials have reported an upsurge in activity by Taleban fighters who, they say, are attempting to regroup following their defeat by US-led forces.
Karzai is struggling to impose his rule beyond Kabul
Last month, two US special forces soldiers were killed and another wounded in an ambush in the south of Afghanistan said to have been carried out by Taleban members.
A US military spokesman said the number of battles between Afghan forces and suspected Taleban members had increased since Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked provincial governors to use their militias to eliminate Taleban forces in their territory.
About 11,500 US-led coalition troops are in Afghanistan, pursuing remnants of the former Taleban government and the al-Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden.
The latest incident comes as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is poised to visit the region.
Diplomats are reported as saying that Mr Rumsfeld's visit aims to reassure President Karzai that Washington remains committed to Afghanistan, in spite of engagements elsewhere.
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