Bagram, Afghanistan ? Hundreds of British troops have begun patrolling near the Pakistani border to stop al-Qaida and Taliban fighters from slipping back into Afghanistan in a remote area where a warlord opponent of the United States may be active.

The new British deployment, codenamed Operation Buzzard, will last for several weeks and cover plains south and east of the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border, British military spokesman Lt. Col. Ben Curry said.

A British Royal Marine mans a machine gun mounted on a Land Rover during Operation Buzzard near the Pakistani border in Afghanistan. In Operation Buzzard, British forces will conduct patrols along the border by helicopter, foot and vehicle.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the powerful warlord accused of seeking to kill American soldiers and sabotage Afghanistan’s interim government, is known to have connections to the area and could help al-Qaida make a “resurgence” in Afghanistan, Curry said. But he would not say whether Operation Buzzard aimed specifically to hunt down Hekmatyar.

The CIA tried to kill Hekmatyar in early May, but missed him with a missile one of the U.S. government’s first overt actions against a non-al-Qaida or Taliban group in Afghanistan.

In the 1980s, Hekmatyar fought against the Soviet occupation, and later served as a prime minister in the fractious government that took power in 1992, but fled to Iran after the nascent Taliban took Kabul in 1996. He returned to Afghanistan this year.

Two former high-ranking Taliban officials told The Associated Press last week that the Afghan-Pakistan border cannot be sealed to stop the movement of militants. They said the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, is overseeing a reorganization of the religious movement and has been in contact with Taliban warriors in their mountain hide-outs in Afghanistan.

The Taliban fighters may seek a “symbolic victory” against U.S.-led forces, including shooting down a helicopter or capturing a soldier and executing him, a senior British official said.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Bryan Hilferty said al-Qaida and Taliban members may also try to sabotage the loya jirga, the June 10-15 grand council meeting of Afghans from across the country to draw up a government.

The operation comes as Pakistan appears to be preparing to withdraw troops patrolling its side of the Afghan border because of tensions with India. And while the mission is primarily aimed at blocking re-entry into Afghanistan, coalition officials clearly would also seek to intercept remaining al-Qaida or Taliban trying to flee into Pakistan.

Operation Buzzard is not specifically designed to protect the grand council meeting, Curry said, but “clearly anything that we can do to prevent any form of disruption that al-Qaida or the Taliban may try to cause is a good thing.”

The loya jirga aims to forge an 18-month government out of the country’s often violently divided factions and tribes, a vital step toward stabilizing Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in December.