Posted on 12/16/2001 4:03:26 PM PST by Smogger
Dec. 16 — After weeks of fighting and relentless U.S. bombing in Afghanistan’s eastern White Mountains, U.S.-backed tribal forces declared victory Sunday in an all-out assault on remaining al-Qaida fighters. But Osama bin Laden himself could not be found, and a senior commander said he had fled and was no longer in the area. U.S. officials, who had appeared confident they had cornered bin Laden, conceded they did not know where he was but said U.S. forces wouldn’t rest until they tracked him down.
HAZRAT ALI, a senior commander of alliance of eastern tribes, told NBC News’ Jim Avila in Tora Bora that the battle for the region was over.
Ali said the alliance fighters had captured about 25 al-Qaida fighters and were holding them in the mountains. They were all that were left after more than 200 bin Laden loyalists were killed in a pitched battle Sunday, he said.
Jubilant eastern alliance forces chanted “Al-Qaida is finished! Al-Qaida is finished!”
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell welcomed the news but said, “Our work is not done. There are lots of al-Qaida cells around the world that we have to go after.”
Later, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Powell said the United States had no reason to believe that bin Laden “has been captured or killed. He might be in that area, where the eastern alliance forces are closing in; he might be somewhere else.”
</b The general in charge of the war also backed off earlier statements by U.S. officials that they had picked up bin Laden’s voice last week on short-range radio in the Tora Bora area.
But U.S. officials stressed that American forces would hunt down bin Laden and senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.
“We’re not leaving till we get the job done,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told U.S. troops on a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday.
Rumsfeld also tried to temper the claims of victory, saying he expected more fighting in Tora Bora as pockets of al-Qaida fighters try to escape.
NBC correspondent Suzanne Malveaux said in Washington that the Bush administration would watch Tora Bora for a couple days before declaring victory in the region.
Still, a victory against al-Qaida would mark a turning point in the U.S. campaign against al-Qaida; bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States; and their protectors, the militant Islamist Taliban militia.
Ali told NBC that his fighters had taken possession of bin Ladin’s cave in Tora Bora, but of bin Laden himself, there was no sign.
Mohammed Zaman, defense chief of the eastern alliance, said that would not prevent his fighters from completing a mopping-up operation.
“Osama bin Laden is not here,” he told The Associated Press, but “we are going to search the mountains meter by meter.”
Zaman said several hundred of the routed al-Qaida men might be on the run toward the border with Pakistan, only miles south of the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora. The eastern forces were pursuing the fleeing fighters, he said.
Al-Qaida’s only way out would be to retreat through dense forest, but U.S. B-52 bombers pounded the woods with incendiary bombs Sunday, and flames leapt from the trees, the AP reported.
RUMSFELD ARRIVES IN AFGHANISTAN
Almost simultaneously with the tribal declaration of victory, U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld arrived triumphantly near Kabul, the capital, becoming the first senior U.S. official to visit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.
Rumsfeld has been touring several countries in central Asia this weekend, but his visit to Afghanistan had been kept a secret. U.S. fighter jets screamed through the sky above the Bagram airbase near Kabul before his plane touched down, Reuters reported.
Rumsfeld sat down to talks with Hamid Karzai, who will head an interim government that takes power next week. Karzai thanked Rumsfeld for U.S. help in defeating the Taliban, Reuters reported, while Rumsfeld reassured Karzai that the United States had no designs on Afghan territory.
Rumsfeld said he told Karzai that “from the very beginning, we have tried to make it clear that our operation here was not against Afghanistan, against the people, against a religion. It was against terrorism.”
Powell said the United States would open a mission in Kabul on Monday to begin helping the Afghan people rebuild.
FULL-BORE HUNT FOR BIN LADEN
Intense U.S. bombing in support of the eastern alliance’s final assault demonstrated that the arrival of Eid al-Fitr, the festival that celebrates the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, was unlikely to slow the U.S. search for bin Laden.
B-52 bombers raced through the skies Sunday, dropping huge bombs on suspected al-Qaida positions through the night and into the morning.
Speaking Saturday to the AP, a U.S. official said U.S. forces believed that they had detected bin Laden giving orders over short-range radio in the Tora Bora area during the past week. The official confirmed a report last week by NBC News that the voice on the radio matched bin Laden’s.
But on Sunday, Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. commander of the war, backed off those statements.
“We have certainly been receiving an awful lot of transmission traffic,” Franks told ABC’s “This Week.” Referring to bin Laden, he said Sunday that “we’re not sure whether it’s UBL or not.”
There was no immediate indication of how the Afghan commanders’ report that bin Laden was no longer in the region would affect U.S. military plans.
U.S. troops have been scouring caves captured from al-Qaida, bin Laden’s terrorist network, for documents and other evidence. Rumsfeld said Saturday that the missions had led to several arrests of suspected al-Qaida operatives in foreign countries. He did not elaborate.
Sunday, Rumsfeld said U.S. forces were garnering useful intelligence from a site they searched over the weekend just east of Camp Rhino, a U.S. base near Kandahar in the south. Rumsfeld said the location, Tarnak Farm, was being searched for evidence that it was a site for Taliban or al-Qaida work on chemical, biological or radiation weapons.
Officials told NBC’s Norah O’Donnell, who was traveling with Rumsfeld in Afghanistan, that potentially “significant” documents and materials were being studied. But they stressed that no actual weapons of mass destruction had been found.
I thought that it was highly unlikely that OBL would stay in Tora Bora. In FACT there were NO senior Al Qaeda leaders captured there. I think OBL is LOOONG gone and planning retaliation. Al Qaeda has gone underground.
Kashmir, Somalia, Iraq, Iran. There was never any evidence of him being in Tora Bora since hostilities broke out. Some Afghan commanders said he was in Kandahar. Frankly they have no idea. He could be on a Yacht in the Mediterranean sippin' Pina Colada's for all we know. He may have been whereever he was for weeks.
I haven't heard reports of ANY senior Al Qaeda or Taliban leadership captured. Last I heard they all jetted to Iran and Pakistan.
Maybe. But if this is true then how come we haven't copped more Senior Al Qadeda leadership? Do you know how hard it is to secure a mountainous 14,000 square mile border?
Where the Hell is Mullah Omar?? He should be A LOT easier to capture then Bin Laden. He has disappeared too.
Absolutely.
It is wishful thinking to believe that he is dead. Until we have a corpse we better keep looking.
Granted. If we know where the hell he is.
We haven't known where OBL since well before 9-11. We only know what the Taliban has told us. The Taliban said OBL was still in the country after the start of hostilities in October so we took them for their word. Is this point lost on you all..? We have NOT known definatively (good enough to drop a bomb on his ass) since well beore 9-11.
I tend to agree. and we may never know. He may have been the recipient of a JDAM ennema. It would be hard to find him if he's 30 ft. of greasy red dirt.
Osama is not even as smart as us average FReepers. He's stupid as a turnip, just has a lot of money. This guy is a feminized wimp and is probably hunkered in a cave somewhere crying.
The almost total absence of senior al Queita leaders captured...and if the "brains" survived...remember, they use doubles...the family of the "brains" was whacked in an air raid. Osama's sons apparently escaped, as well as Osama's three wives.
IMHO, we are up against it. Next attack?? Probably Bio...my guess Smallpox. It is present in the soil of old graveyards, and that outbreak happened about 20 years ago. I still think the DOWNFALL operation is to be put into effect, or perhaps the Daschle Anthrax could be released.
It Isn't over!!
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