TALIBAN GETS BURY LUCKY

U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.

The unmanned airplane, circling undetected high overhead, fed a continuous satellite feed of the juicy target to officers on the ground.

"We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture," one U.S. Army officer told NBC.

But that excitement quickly turned to gut-wrenching frustration because the rules of engagement on the ground in Afghanistan blocked the U.S. from mounting a missile or bomb strike in a cemetery, according to the report.

Pentagon officials declined comment and referred The Post to Central Command officers in Afghanistan, who did not respond to a request for comment or explanation.

Agonizingly, Army officers could do nothing but watch the pictures being fed back from the drone as the Taliban splintered into tiny groups - too small to effectively target with the drone - and headed back to their mountainside hideouts.

Military experts told The Post that rules of engagement are constantly adjusted on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, depending on the severity of the threat posed by the enemy.

In Iraq, gun battles have raged inside cemeteries in Fallujah, and once-off-limits mosques are now subject to U.S. searches.

The lost opportunity in Afghanistan came amid a spike in Taliban activity in Afghanistan - a craggy country roughly the size of Texas that poses problems for U.S. troops hunting fighters in remote mountain areas.

Taliban militants have launched their deadliest attacks since the terrorist regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 for providing a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda camps.

U.S. troops and NATO allies recently reclaimed territory in southern Afghanistan from Taliban fighters following a bloody 11-day operation.

NATO leaders announced yesterday the hard fighting killed at least 510 Taliban insurgents.

And American and Afghan forces stormed a fortified compound in the Wardak province to arrest a dozen Taliban leaders who were planning a new wave of attacks.

"Five years ago, the Afghan national army was zero," Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, who heads the training of Afghan soldiers and police, told CNN.

"We now have sufficient forces - that's why there is some tough fighting down in Kandahar."

With Post Wire Services

niles.lathem@nypost.com