KABUL, April 5 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States military believes that the remnants of the ousted Taliban regime and their al-Qaeda allies pose no more threat to the US-backed government in post-Taliban Afghanistan, a US army official said Monday.

    "The Taliban or al-Qaeda no longer pose a military threat to Afghanistan and I am confident the security situation would continue to improve here," Bryan Hilferty told reporters at his last news briefing here as the spokesman for US military serving Afghanistan.

    He made this comment amid increasing security incidents and thereinforcement of 2,000 more US troops in the war-weary country to boost the hunt down Taliban and al-Qaeda operation in the rugged terrain along the border with Pakistan.

    "We are not bringing in more troops. The 2,000 marines are not very much," observed the spokesman.

    Around 20 people including two US soldiers have been killed over the past one month since the launching of the much publicizedoperation "Mountain Storm" to root out the Taliban and terror groups in the country.

    In the latest of a series of attacks on government and coalition troops at least one government soldier in the volatile Zabul Province was killed and five others were injured with one ofthem seriously when their vehicle hit a landmine on Saturday in east of Zabul's provincial capital Qalat.

    The unit of Afghan National Army was involved in a joint operation with US-led coalition troops when the incident occurred but inflicted no casualties to the coalition forces, Hilferty confirmed.

    In the meantime, the US top brass confirmed the arrest of a commander loyal to the rebel leader Gulbudin Hekmatyar whose loyalists have been engaged in a hit-and-run war against the US-dominated foreign troops in Afghanistan since 2002.

    "On March 31 we did have a joint operation with Afghan InteriorMinistry and detained Amanullah in Wardak Province along with one of his bodyguards and found from his compound grenades, silencers,explosive devices and suspicious documents," he said.

    "We believe Amanullah has link to suicide bombing attacks here in Kabul and we believe he provided safe haven for the bombers," observed the US spokesman.

    At least two Canadian and two British soldiers were killed and several others including Afghan civilians were injured in two separate suicide attacks here in last January and Taliban claimed responsibility for that.

    Both Hekmatyar and Mullah Omar, the two US allies in cold war era, have vowed to continue Jihad or holy war unless the US-led foreign troops leave Afghanistan. Enditem