Telegraph

Al Queda put up fierce resistance in Afghan mountains Pierre Lhuillery (AFP) December 8

Al-Qaeda fighters were putting up fierce resistance in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan on Friday against anti-Taliban forces convinced they were hot on the trail of Osama bin Laden.

"He is here," said anti-Taliban commander Haji Mohammad Zaman, who is leading the search for the Al-Qaeda leader wanted for the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

"My forces are 50 to 80 metres (yards) from the forces of Al-Qaeda," Zaman told reporters at Melawa mountain in the Tora Bora region.

Minutes after Zaman spoke, Al-Qaeda fighters sent a barrage of mortar rounds into the ranks of his men but they did not cause any casualties.

Zaman earlier had narrowly escaped death when a shell exploded on a stony slope he had just passed while he was carrying out a scouting mission on a difficult ridge.

He told reporters he had come within about 50 meters (yards) of the Al-Qaeda fighters, many of them Arabs.

He claimed bin Laden was seen in the area "three or four days ago".

When asked how he had come into that information, he replied: "We sent our spies to their troops, and they got that information."

He was adamant: "Osama bin Laden and the extremist fundamentalists are living here. Bin Laden is living here with his family."

The US effort to wipe out Al-Qaeda and track down bin Laden is expected to increase following the collapse of the Taliban's last stronghold of Kandahar in the far south of the country on Friday.

A Pakistani intelligence source at Parachinar town near the Afghan border said Friday that "most of the area in Tora Bora is now completely under tribal forces' control".

Bin Laden's Arab fighters had withdrawn from many of their Tora Bora hideouts and were believed to be scattering in the mountainous terrain, the source said.

"According to our information, which we have obtained from sources across the border, the Arabs had moved towards Melawa and the White Mountains to take up new positions."

The White Mountains stretch to Pakistan's northern Parachinar area.

Afghan commanders have said snowbound passes have made an escape by bin Laden and his fighters into Pakistan impossible, but a Pakistani interior ministry official said security nevertheless had been strengthened on the border.

Another local Afghan commander, Halim Shah, said he expected it would be at least until the weekend before anti-Taliban forces had secured control of the entire Tora Bora area.

US officials meanwhile said that US special forces had joined opposition troops on the ground in the assault on cave complexes in Tora Bora.

The commandos have been able to direct air strikes on Tora Bora caves, US Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Washington.

"Until just recently, we haven't been, in fact, attacking the caves from the air," said Pace.

"Now, as the opposition groups move their troops through that complex, we're able to provide them the air support that they can help direct because they're able to see the caves that are active, they can see the caves that are not, and we're able to provide much more direct support to them."

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001