Posted on 12/06/2001 4:09:35 PM PST by Pokey78
HOURS after bin Laden issued orders to al-Qa'eda members to fight to the death, Philip Smucker, in Garikhil village, listens in as Arabs besieged in Tora Bora exchange radio messages from their caves
THE battle for Tora Bora, the network of caves occupied by al-Qa'eda, intensified yesterday as Osama bin Laden issued an order for his fighters to stand firm against the "infidel aggressors" and "arm your wives".
Thundering tank blasts echoed through the valleys. Allied bombs sent giant mushroom clouds hovering over the pine forests deep inside the key terrorist base. Suspicions mounted among locals that, while bin Laden was issuing his edicts through his lieutenants, he had already fled the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora, which lies inside the White Mountains, some 40 miles south of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.
American B52 bombers blasted al-Qa'eda strongholds for a second day, but a half-hearted ground attack by Western-backed Afghan fighters was repulsed. They said that their efforts to penetrate deeper into the Tora Bora base had been answered by heavy machinegun fire from three directions.
More than 2,000 Afghan fighters loyal to Western-backed warlords took up positions around the mountain redoubt which Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, cited last week as the likely hiding place for bin Laden.
Just behind the ridge of the front line, a pick-up sped up to a command post beside an ageing Russian tank. "We have a martyr, commander," said a distraught young fighter in a woollen beret. A weary field commander lifted up a blood-soaked blanket in the back of the pick-up and shook his head at the gruesome sight.
Minutes later, the commander held a radio handset and permitted The Telegraph to listen to al-Qa'eda fighters exchanging messages from their caves. "OK - you can come out shooting," said an Arab speaking to another al-Qa'eda fighter. "The US planes have flown out of the area again."
An interpreter, speaking in Arabic, asked the Arab fighters if they had any word of bin Laden. No answer came back. Only hours earlier, bin Laden had issued an order for Arab and Chechen families to stand and fight at any cost. "The sheikh says keep your children in the caves and fight for Allah. Give guns to your wives as necessary to fight against the infidel aggressors."
Afghan wives of Arab and Chechen fighters were sent out of Tora Bora two days ago in anticipation of the battle. Foreign wives are thought, however, to be still inside the caves and tunnels. The al-Qa'eda fighters were firing from small openings in the cave walls, chiselled out in recent weeks by Afghan villagers.
Western-backed fighters, who have taken several "supply caves" at the mouth of the Tora Bora base, displayed some of the papers they had found. One Arab fighter had written down a poem, which read: "Those in the mountains are the warriors of Allah. The days are dark, the nights are bleak and we must expect to die. But the reward will be Paradise for those who don't follow the infidel."
Haji Mussah, the Afghan commander, said his men had entered the portals of the Tora Bora base yesterday, only to be repulsed by machinegun fire from all directions. "We would like a direct line to those planes up there," said Commander Mussah, pointing to the cloudy skies above the snow-capped peaks. "Or even the Pentagon. They are still a little off the mark."
In the last week, US air strikes have killed some 140 Afghan villagers, whose homes rest well below the mountain redoubt. Yesterday morning, US bombers pounded the wrong mountain.
Although the Western powers seem content to fight a proxy war, for now, late in the day two truckloads of what appeared to be bearded Western military advisers sped towards the mountain redoubt, disguised in local clothes.
Amid growing fears that many of the key terrorist operatives would try to flee, Rooh Ullah, an officer attached to the warlord Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, pointed over a mountain towards the Pakistani border. "We've only been able to block part of the valley leading into Pakistan. The Arabs can still cross into Pakistan on a 24-hour walk. If they prefer, they can go south into their other terror bases inside Afghanistan," he said.
The ridge where Mr Ullah stood was littered with posters dropped from US planes. On one side was the face of bin Laden and on the other that of Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, whom intelligence officials for Commander Ghamsharik believe died in an air strike on Monday - asphyxiated by a bomb blast near to his cave. As the US planes hammered the forests, hundreds of Afghan villagers emerged to watch the fight.
Some scoffed at Western reporters for what they called the "cowardly behaviour" of the Allies. "We want to see how brave the Americans and the British really are," said Mohammed Aslam, who had been paid £30 by al-Qa'eda for cutting out a square cubic metre in the mountainside for Arab fighters. "Osama is not our enemy, he is yours. We want to see the US soldiers fight, not just wear baby coats and fly about our skies."
Other Afghans appeared to revel in the battle for Tora Bora. "That is the sound of music," said Bomber Khan, a tank mechanic, who danced in a circle each time a tank blew fire and dust across the valley.
/john
Then back off and let it set up for a week.
Then smash five detonators: bunker-busters . . . deep penetrators to set it off.
Asphyxiated, eh? Does that mean it was a Fuel-Air Explosive?
Al-Qa'dea sez: "NOW you can be equal." Uh, can the women aim properly through the screens in their burqas? If the women die in combat, do they receive 70 virgin studs, or 70 gigolos, or what?
Socialists in Congress? Click on the zeppelin, Grasshopper.
It really is kinda funny: the boy-and-sheep-buggering Talibanimals there aren't so misogynist as to not allow their women to SHIELD them and FIGHT for them. More proof that they are, by Western definitions, cowards, though you can be sure that there is no such concept of courage and cowardice or right and wrong there as there is among civlized human beings.
Did this Brit dream up the whole story or only this part?
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