GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- U.S. troops and their Afghan allies scoured the icy mountains of eastern Afghanistan on Saturday for a "high-value target," and other al-Qaida remnants hunkered down in cliffside caves to wait out driving winds and snow.

Coalition ground forces pushed ahead with efforts to eliminate the holdouts, pursuing a surrender-or-die policy against enemy forces targeted in the biggest U.S.-led military offensive of the Afghan war. Fighting was light as Operation Anaconda entered its second week, slowed by the extreme conditions.

American troops are operating under the assumption that Osama bin Laden or other major al-Qaida figures might be anywhere, including the epicenter of the offensive, the rugged Shah-e-Kot mountains south of Gardez, said Maj. Bryan Hilferty, the spokesman for the 10th Mountain Division.

"We have seen at least one high-value target," Hilferty said, without elaborating.

Afghans say neither bin Laden nor ex-Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is in the area. A former Taliban commander, Saif Rahman, however, is believed to be heading the troops in the mountains.

Afghan feud

As the offensive ground on, with coalition forces conducting supply, search and attack missions through the snow, a new feud between America's Afghan allies emerged -- and threatened to explode into violence.

The trouble began when the interim administration of Hamid Karzai dispatched convoys of new Afghan fighters into the battle area. The troops were ethnic Tajiks from the north, however, and their presence exacerbated ethnic tensions in the largely Pashtun area around Gardez.

Many Pashtuns see the Tajiks as interlopers on their land, and widely suspect that Tajiks in the Defense Ministry simply want to use the offensive to move their fighters into Paktia.

"We don't need them," front-line commander Abdul Matin Hasankhiel said. "We can fight the al-Qaida ourselves. I don't know why they came. It's between them and the Defense Ministry"

Karzai said the 1,000 additional troops were ordered up to Gardez because coalition forces had run into such strong resistance during the opening days of the offensive. He called Paktia the "last main base" of al-Qaida and Taliban, although he said there are areas where smaller groups are likely operating.

"We will fight terrorism until we are absolutely sure that they are not there to threaten anybody anywhere in the world," he said.

Hilferty said more than 500 al-Qaida and Taliban fighters had been killed since the offensive began last weekend. Coalition forces say eight U.S. servicemen and three Afghans have died.