Army May Use Gas To Smoke Out Bin Laden

The Times (UK) ^ | 12-01-2001 | Michael Evans

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SATURDAY DECEMBER 01 2001

Army may use gas to smoke out bin Laden

BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR

OSAMA BIN LADEN could be flushed from his Tora Bora hideaway by military engineers drilling holes in the mountain and filling the cave complex with a disabling gas. It is one option being considered before a frontal assault on the caves by US Marines and special forces in order to avoid heavy casualties.

Richard Cheney, America’s Vice-President, confirmed yesterday that bin Laden was now thought to have taken refuge in the Tora Bora complex in the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan.

“I think he was equipped to go to ground there,” he said. “He’s got what he believes to be fairly secure facilities, caves underground. It’s an area he’s familiar with.”

Interviewed on ABC, Mr Cheney said that the military campaign had “narrowed the amount of space” where bin Laden felt safe. “I think he’s still in Afghanistan and I think he’s probably in that general area (Tora Bora).”

The military plan for reaching bin Laden inside the Tora Bora mountain complex, 35 miles south of Jalalabad, is expected to involve engineering as well as military force. Drilling might be needed.

The main priority would be to “produce bin Laden or his body”, not to reduce the bunker complex to a pile of rubble, one defence source said.

Although the US Marines, the SAS and American special forces have the expertise to engage in cave and tunnel warfare, bin Laden and his 1,000-man al-Qaeda force have the advantage of hiding in a bunker described as of Nato-standard construction.

Sending troops into a confined space which would be heavily defended and probably booby-trapped would lead to unacceptable casualties, defence sources said.

The key to a successful storming of the concrete and steel-lined complex of caves and tunnels would be precise intelligence of the location of the bunkers and possibly penetration of the outer rock by drilling and bombing. Modern mining techniques are likely to have as much of an impact as any military strategy.

Vertical or horizontal drilling, using the most advanced engineering equipment, could penetrate the rock, experts say. This could give American and British commandos the chance to fill the bunker complex with smoke or CS gas or some other form of disabling substance.

Another way of making life difficult for those inside the bunker would be to dismantle the hydro-electric power system which apparently provides electricity.

Drilling would have relevance, the sources said, only if the location of the complex inside the mountain had been pinpointed. But the complex was developed in the 1980s by the Mujahidin with the CIA’s help. “Somewhere in Langley (the CIA’s headquarters) there must be a detailed diagram and locator for this complex,” one source said.

Drilling and mining have played a key role in numerous wars, not least the First World War when Allied and German miners fought an underground battle seeking out each other’s secret tunnels. In the Vietnam War the Vietcong burrowed beneath the surface to hide weapons and move arms around. In the 1991 Gulf War the Iraqis built deep bunkers in the Kuwaiti desert which were not damaged by bombs.

John McCarthy who works for an American company, Berco Services of Houston, Texas, which specialises in horizontal drilling, said: “If you know where the entrance to the caves is, you could drill a hole 20in in diameter through solid rock for up to two miles at the rate of 1,000ft a day.

“We have drill bits that can go through steel as well as rock. The possibilities are endless.”

Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies, said that care would have to be taken to ensure the roof of the caves did not collapse. “Ultimately, the US Marines and others will have to enter the tunnels, perhaps using Claymore mines (a small charge of explosive packed behind 700 steel balls) as they advance.”

[weikel]

That was my idea( best way to kill life underground is poison gas)