BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (REUTERS) — The United States Monday announced the end of the biggest ground battle of the Afghan war but forecast more big battles ahead before al Qaeda-Taliban forces were driven from Afghanistan.

U.S. General Tommy Franks, head of coalition forces in Afghanistan, said Operation Anaconda was a major success but warned rebels were likely to regroup to fight another day.

“Future operations are likely to be the same size as Anaconda,” he said, adding that he had an “idea” where the next attacks would be but did not want to disclose it.

Meanwhile, defense officials in Washington said elite U.S. troops had killed 16 people Sunday in an attack on a convoy believed carrying fleeing al Qaeda guerrillas in eastern Afghanistan.

“We don’t have a lot of details yet, but 16 were killed, one was wounded and one captured. No American troops were injured,” one official told Reuters, adding that the attack took place about 45 miles southwest of Gardez.

Other officials said U.S. army special forces troops attacked a convoy of three or four vehicles believed to be fleeing Operation Anaconda forces around Gardez.

Bronze Star

At a ceremony to award the Bronze Star for bravery to four American soldiers, Franks said the world could not thank troops enough for their contribution to the war against terror.

The 17-day-long battle of Shahi Kot, which started March 2, was fought on snow-covered mountains at altitudes of 11,000 feet, probably the greatest height where U.S. troops have ever seen action.

“There was some mountain fighting back in World War II in the Italian Alps,” said Major Timothy Brooks, chief of training for the U.S. mountain division mainly involved in the battle.

“So it has certainly been a long time and it probably is the highest altitude.”

The story was the same for the helicopter pilots who played a key role in winning the battle, and for Canadian forces who soldiered alongside their American allies taking part in their biggest combat since the Korean War.

The last of the major battles ended last Wednesday when U.S, Canadian and Afghan troops stormed rebel caves and trenches near Gardez.

The focus then shifted to a guerrilla war as small bands of fighters from Afghanistan’s hard-line Islamic Taliban movement and the al Qaeda network — blamed by Washington for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States — tried to dodge the allied dragnet.

“Operation Anaconda was an absolute success. We continue to look for the enemy to bring them to justice,” General Franks said. “The campaign in Afghanistan is not over yet, but the battle of Shahi Kot brings us closer to it being over.”

Bin Laden

Eight American soldiers died and about 60 were wounded while four Afghan fighters were killed and 40 wounded.

The United States threw B-52 bombers, helicopters, special forces units and about 1,500 American troops into a battle against up to 1,000 rebels who put up unexpectedly stiff resistance from caves and bunkers.

There were about 1,000 Afghan troops and forces from Australia, Germany, France, Norway and Denmark also involved in the fighting which was the fiercest and most difficult of the five-and-a-half month-old war.

“The terrain is 200 times different than what we trained for,” said Sergeant Jonathan Wightman, 26, from Phoenix, Ariz. “We had to think on our feet.”

The mountain soldiers said they had to pace themselves, identify headaches, nausea or disorientation as possible altitude sickness, and take precautions such as holding on to each other on steep inclines.

General Franks said the battle and intelligence, including DNA tests, gathered in caves used by rebels had not brought the United States any closer to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“I do not know where bin Laden is today. I do not know the number of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The al Qaeda are spread in over 60 countries in the world,” Franks said.

About 500 Canadian and U.S. troops and an equal number of Afghan soldiers remain in the area searching caves.

U.S. military spokesman Captain Steven O’Connor said so far 30 of the hundreds of caves in the mountains had been searched.

There had been no fighting in the past 24 hours and no new rebel bodies found, adding to speculation that hundreds of rebels may have escaped the dragnet to border areas of Pakistan.

“It’s not about body count,” O’Connor said. “Bombs can blow bodies apart and they can remain unidentified.”