The eastern Afghanistan offensive ( Return to Tora Bora )

The Fourth Rail ^ | August 24, 2007 12:55 AM | Bill Roggio

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Senior al Qaeda leader may have been wounded in the ongoing battle at Tora Bora

The battle at the Tora Bora mountains in Nangarhar province has completed its first week, the fighting has intensified as Afghan Army and US forces hunt Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who have infiltrated the region. Scores of Taliban and al Qaeda operatives are reported to have been captured after upwards of 50 terrorists were killed in the initial fighting. A senior al Qaeda leader was also reported to have been wounded in the attack.

Dr. Amin al Haq, who serves as Osama bin Laden's security coordinator, was reported to have been wounded in the fighting, The Telegraph's Tom Coghlan reported from Tora Bora. Al Haq is said to have fled across the border into Pakistan's Kurram agency. As bin Laden's security coordinator, al Haq commands the elite Black Guard, the fanatical praetorian bodyguards devoted to the security of al Qaeda's leader.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Related Thread:

Afghanistan: Return to the lair of bin Laden(Bin Laden's security co-ordinator wounded)

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Western intelligence has placed bin Laden close to the border, probably in the tribal agency of Khurram, which lies opposite Tora Bora, during recent months

[freema]

I wonder if there’s any connection...

http://caosblog.com/5335

June 2007 Jack Idema is finally a free man

[freema]

Ping

[2111USMC]

"The news of the recent fighting in Tora Bora comes as al Qaeda and Taliban camps in North and South Waziristan recently emptied of fighters. Also, evidence recently emerged the US military has approval to conduct raids inside Pakistani territory. Pakistani troops are reported to have reinforced the border in the Kurram agency."

[2111USMC]

"US and Afghan commanders believe they have a large force pinned down in the valleys in southern Nangarhar. "Five hundred infiltrated the area," Gen. Qadim Shah, the commander of 1st Brigade of the Afghan Army, told Mr. Coghlan. "We have captured 57 fighters from the Taliban and al-Qaeda. They include Chechens, Arabs and Uzbeks." Local tribesmen are also saying Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs, and "a large contingent of Uzbeks led by Tahir Yuldashev" of the al Qaeda affiliate Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are fighting in the area."

I like the sound of this.

[AmericanExceptionalist]

Western intelligence has placed bin Laden close to the border, probably in the tribal agency of Khurram, which lies opposite Tora Bora, during recent months

I continue to wonder if Osama is still alive. If so, it seems passing strange that his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, stars in all the videos that can be roughly dated, and established as recent.

Not that it matters a great deal to the war against these salafist radicals (pardon the redundancy, please). They are just as dangerous, whether with or without their spiritual mentor.

If Osama is indeed among the departed (presumably, as a matter of natural causes)--and if that were to become common knowledge--I would be a bit ambivalent about it. Although it would be rather satisfying to learn, with certainty, of his demise, I would also feel a bit cheated.

It would be a bit like learning that an especially vicious serial killer had died in prison, of natural causes, while awaiting execution--years before his appeals could be exhausted. Satisfying...sort of. But also frustrating to any real sense of justice.

[freema]

Yes.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[Popocatapetl]

Remember all those nay-sayers who thought it had been a terrible intelligence gaffe to release the information about the camps in Pakistan?

[Marine_Uncle]

The fight shall go on that is for sure. Of course if the demowits take over in 2009, we may see an abrupt halt to these type operations. And the goons simply will bide time.
They have nothing to lose. Their narrow worlds have little to offer them anyway. Just sit around and get paid by some courier each month, and eat enough food to stay alive, and prepare oneself for eventual cannon fodder.
But obvious to some of us, is the fact we cannot simply stop hunting them down and giving them any indication that they are somehow going to win against the US and the rest of the free world. They must be made to realize as soon as they are hunted down they will die. It is the freeworld against Allah's stupid idiots.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Nicely said....

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest, well said, M.U.