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Posted on 12/03/2001 6:24:52 PM PST by kattracks
US warplanes and commandos zeroed in on the eastern Afghan mountains where a provincial official said he had located terror suspect Osama bin Laden and urged him to negotiate his fate.
Haji Mohammad Zaman, military commander of eastern Nangarhar province, said he had sent a letter to bin Laden three days ago. But he would not say whether the world's most wanted man was ready to talk or whether he was still in the same spot.
News of the sighting came as US warplanes bombed the region relentlessly and American ground forces moved into place to search for the world's most wanted man, possibly hiding in the Tora Bora cave complex near here.
Residents paid a heavy price for the US attention focused on the region, local officials said. Zaman reported that nearly 100 civilians were killed and 200 wounded in three days of US bombing.
Zaman said the bombs fell near Tora Bora, a network of dozens of caves situated in the freezing White Mountains and reachable only by foot or on horseback.
But he would not give any precise location for the mountain hideout of bin Laden, the head of the al-Qaeda network who is wanted by the US authorities for the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
"I sent a first letter to Osama three days ago, he was in the mountains," Zaman said. The text of the message, translated for AFP, urged bin Laden to reflect on the misfortune his activities had brought the Afghan people.
"It said: 'We are ready to talk with you and to discuss with you how to solve the problem by negotiation,'" said Zaman, one of the local chiefs who seized control of the Jalalabad region after the Taliban left last month.
With Tora Bora targeted by US officials as one of two likely bin Laden hiding places, along with the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar, the American presence in the area was growing.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said that 20 US special forces troops had helicoptered into Jalalabad on Sunday to launch a search for the elusive Saudi millionaire and his al-Qaeda lieutenants.
Kenton Keith, a spokesman for the US-led war on terrorism, confirmed that "there are coalition forces in the area" of Jalalabad but would not say anything more about their nature or mission.
But bin Laden has long been believed to have a heavily defended lair in the caves of Tora Bora around 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Jalalabad.
British press reports over the weekend said British and US elite special forces troops were preparing to raid the caves.
Britain's Mail on Sunday also reported that British special forces operatives just missed bin Laden when they stormed one of his mountain strongholds southeast of Kandahar last month.
"We were within a whisker of getting him. It was a hard battle and will have put the fear of God into his people," a source close to the elite Special Air Service (SAS) regiment told the paper.
US warplanes kept up their airstrikes around Tora Bora Sunday night and Monday. But Keith would not confirm the reports of civilian deaths, and he accused the Taliban of using "human shields".
"It is not the case that these people were targeted as civilians by coalition aircraft. The coalition does everything it can to minimise civilian casualties," he told a news briefing.
Even without any confirmed sighting of bin Laden, the Tora Bora complex has attracted its share of media coverage and curiosity.
The fortress comprises some 30 to 40 caves, many connected by tunnels. One Afghan visitor likened it to a hotel and said it contained numerous rooms with immense walls and electric heating.
Locals say the mujahedin fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s worked hard to fortify and expand the Tora Bora complex, digging new tunnels and burying large caches of arms.
Keith said bin Laden was still in Afghanistan but his exact location was not known for sure.
"Do we think Osama bin Laden is still in Afghanistan? Yes. Are we closer to identifying the exact place where he might be? ... I can't say that we are," he said.
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