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December 6, 2001
TORA BORA, Afghanistan -- Afghan fighters and U.S. warplanes struck Osama bin Laden's forces here Wednesday near their last major stronghold, and local commanders claimed late Wednesday to have captured half of an extensive mountain redoubt from al-Qaida defenders.
Commanders of the ground attack reported heavy resistance from hundreds of bin Laden loyalists besieged in caves and hiding among the trees. Twenty-four hours into the offensive, the commanders said that fighting by about 1,000 anti-Taliban troops had succeeded in cutting off al-Qaida fighters from supply routes.
"They are surrounded by us," said Haleem Shah, the field commander for the offensive, which is being led by the new authorities who seized control in this part of eastern Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban. "We want to finish them very soon."
In the valley to the east of the ridge where Shah was speaking, the front line was visible nearly a mile away next to the nearly dry Tora Bora River, where a row of pickup trucks glittered in the sunlight. Fiery explosions from U.S. airstrikes raised plumes into the sky as commanders reported that al-Qaida fighters were firing their Kalashnikov rifles at the attackers on the ground.
"The resistance is very hard, very tough. They are firing and our soldiers cannot go forward," said Sohrab Khan Qadri, intelligence chief for the region, assessing the overall battle. "Some of the caves have been taken, others are still in their control."
Hazrat Ali, the regional security chief whose fighters are leading the attack, allowed a convoy of Western reporters to visit the Tora Bora battlefield Wednesday.
Al-Qaida's mountain hideout, a complex of caves first fortified by Afghan fighters during the resistance of Soviet invaders in the 1980s, is located just above the village of the same name that is now home to the front line.
Local commanders said they did not know if bin Laden is hiding somewhere in the snow-capped White Mountains, about 55 miles southeast of the city of Jalalabad.
But the Afghan commanders said they were certain that a stepped-up bombing campaign against Tora Bora has killed many of bin Laden's fighters.
Shah was confident that early snows have made the mountain trails into Pakistan impassable, cutting off any escape route. "These are helpless people but they are terrorists," he said. "I'm sure they will be under control within three or four days."
Other anti-Taliban fighters said it could take much longer.