Kabul, Afghanistan ? U.S. special-operations snipers killed nine suspected Taliban militants in the Afghan mountains bordering Pakistan, the military said Saturday, marking one of American forces’ deadliest engagement in months.

The military would not say if the clash marked the start of a promised spring offensive to capture Osama bin Laden, though a spokesman said the fighting began when as many as 40 suspected Taliban tried to flank the position maintained by the Americans and their Afghan army allies.

In the past two weeks, U.S. commanders have pledged what they call a hammer-and-anvil approach for the spring thaw into summer, with the crucial support of Pakistan troops on their own side of the Afghan frontier.

Under that plan, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region where terror suspects are thought to be hiding becomes the anvil against which terror suspects would be hammered, the military said.

With bin Laden and other top al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives the subject of redoubled U.S. attention, the world’s news crews have launched a spring offensive of their own. U.S. news organizations are rapidly boosting staff in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

But after touting the planned offensive, the U.S. military now appears bent on tamping down expectations.

“I don’t have any other information about Osama bin Laden,” military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said at a news conference Saturday at the U.S. base in Kabul.

Hilferty addressed reporters before a budding almond tree, its white blooms testifying to the warming air in the Kabul valley, and the melting snow in the Afghanistan-Pakistan mountains where bin Laden may be hiding.

“If I knew where he was, I would go get him,” Hilferty said. In January, Hilferty had said he was “sure” the United States and its allies would catch bin Laden by the end of the year.

American soldiers patrol past local Afghan militia Tuesday in Khost, Afghanistan. U.S. Special operations snipers killed nine suspected Taliban rebels in a firefight in near Orgun, about 105 miles from the Pakistan border area, on Saturday.