SHAH-E-KOT, Afghanistan ? U.S. and Afghan troops pursued al-Qaida fighters Wednesday after seizing control of the Shah-e-Kot valley in a 12-day battle in which coalition forces claimed that hundreds of enemy fighters died.

Afghan forces led by Gul Haider and Zia Lodin overran three villagers and a strategic ridge dubbed “the whale” after intense bombing by U.S. jets, coalition officers said Wednesday.

U.S. special forces troops and Afghan fighters were combing the area Wednesday. Overhead, Apache and other U.S. attack helicopters prowled the skies, searching for al-Qaida and Taliban remnants believed fleeing toward Pakistan.

The enemy commander, Saif Rahman Mansour, apparently escaped, Afghan commanders said. One special forces soldier, who refused to give his name, said operations would continue in the area for another 30-35 days on a smaller scale.

U.S. officers said Operation Anaconda had yielded valuable information about al-Qaida, including training manuals, bomb-making equipment and other intelligence.

It was the largest U.S.-led offensive of the five-month war on terrorism and marked the first time that American conventional forces _ the 101st Airborne Division and the 10th Mountain Division _ were engaged in ground combat in Afghanistan.

“They had been building this place and this defense for years,” Col. Frank Wiercinski, brigade commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said at Bagram air base north of Kabul. “We definitely put a spike through their heart.”

The coalition casualty toll since the battle began on March 2 stood at eight U.S. special forces troops and three Afghan allied fighters.

Wiercinski insisted the majority of those killed in the battle were non-Afghans from al-Qaida.

Estimates of the number of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in the area had varied widely during the offensive and it was unclear how many of the enemy died or may have escaped.

At Bagram, Maj. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for the 10th Mountain Division, estimated there were no more than 100 enemy fighters left in the area. U.S. officials in Washington had estimated the enemy force at 600 to 700 in the early days of the offensive.

In this village alone, special forces troops believed there were between 100 and 250 al-Qaida members when the fighting began. Coalition troops found 25 bodies in the village Wednesday.

“I think we got a lot of them but we’re not really sure,” one U.S. special forces soldier said, refusing to give his name. He said there were apparently hundreds of caves in the area, many of which were believed to have collapsed in the bombing.

Afghan commanders said searching the caves was slow because of fears of land mines and booby traps.

In the final push, Zia’s troops attacked from the north and Haider’s from the south against scattered resistance. The area was quiet Wednesday, with the bombed-out village of sun-baked mud homes empty except for U.S. special forces and Afghan troops.

U.S. officials said they were holding about 20 prisoners and they were being interrogated. One Afghan commander, Naeem, said he had talked to one injured Afghan fighter who claimed there were about 14 Arab commanders and about 250 Chechens in the region at the start of the campaign.

However, many Afghan Taliban deserted when the battles started because of a disagreement with their al-Qaida commanders, Naeem said.

The overall enemy commander, Saif Rahman, is from this area and a member of a prominent local family. Afghans said he brought Taliban and al-Qaida fighters to this district in December after the collapse of Taliban rule.

U.S. officials had hoped to prevent a repeat of the experience in December at Tora-Bora, a cave complex hammered for weeks by U.S. troops on the suspicion that Osama bin Laden was there.

Most of the ground fighting was conducted by Afghan militias from that area, and U.S. authorities said they apparently allowed many al-Qaida fighters to escape to Pakistan.

There was no sign of bin Laden when the Tora-Bora complex was finally overrun.

Pakistan has rushed troops to its border in an effort to apprehend any Taliban and al-Qaida fighters who seek refuge there. However, the mountainous border, with thousands of paths and smuggling routes, is impossible to seal.

U.S. planes have been dropping leaflets over the Pakistani side in recent days, urging people not to offer shelter to any fugitives.

“We were asked by the local authorities not to give any shelter to al-Qaida or the Taliban, and we are committed not to give them shelter, because we don’t want trouble in our area,” said Khan Marjan Wazir, a village leader in Pakistan.