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The first batch of 2,000 US marines deployed to Afghanistan to ramp up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders have begun arriving, the military said Wednesday. "They have started to come into the country," Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty said. "Some of those 2,000 marines are here now." Hilferty would not say how many marines had arrived, but when the group is fully deployed over the next few weeks it will bring the number of US-led coalition soldiers in Afghanistan to its highest ever figure of 15,500. Some 13,500 of these are from the United States with Romania contributing the largest non-American combat unit with some 400 troops. The newly-deployed troops from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit will be part of Operation Mountain Storm which aims to capture or kill Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants such as bin Laden and Taliban founder Mullah Mohammed Omar. Operation Mountain Storm, which began on March 7, focuses on Afghanistan's porous border with Pakistan and complements Pakistani efforts to squeeze militants out of tribal frontier areas. US military officials say the arrival of the marines is a scheduled deployment that has been planned for some time and represents the evolution of the United States-led military operation to subdue militants in Afghanistan. It comes as the United States has stepped up surveillance in the Pakistani border region, believed to be where bin Laden and allies such as Egyptian born Al-Qaeda mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri are in hiding. Colonel Hilferty said soldiers involved in Operation Mountain Storm were conducting about 40 patrols each day. The strengthened force of 15,500 includes 200 soldiers from South Korea, 100 from Poland and others from countries such as Britain, Egypt, Jordan, New Zealand and Slovakia. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
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