Afghans Say al-Qaida Forced From Caves                                

By CHRIS TOMLINSON
.c The Associated Press

TORA BORA, Afghanistan (Dec. 11) - Supported by U.S. airstrikes and nighttime raids by American troops, tribal forces on Tuesday claimed they had flushed Osama bin Laden's loyalists out of their Tora Bora cave hide-outs and forced them to retreat to a mountaintop in eastern Afghanistan.

B-52s and other American warplanes battered mortar positions manned by bin Laden's al-Qaida network on the mountaintops as the Afghan fighters seized caves in the Milawa valley in the White Mountains.

[red]Afghan troops said dozens of U.S. soldiers made lightning raids against key al-Qaida positions overnight, then returned to a nearby village before dawn Tuesday.[/red]

Front-line commanders said hundreds of al-Qaida members, loyal to Osama bin Laden, were making a stand atop of Enzeri Zur, a peak that overlooks the Milawa and Tora Bora valleys that were both captured Monday amid fierce fighting.

They said the al-Qaida force, mainly consisting of Arabs and other foreign Muslims, was blocked on three sides and might attempt a retreat along the Kharoti Pass, a high and snowbound track that leads south into neighboring Pakistan.

''All al-Qaida forces are now gathering on the mountaintop,'' said one tribal commander, Spin Jabarkhil. ''We are trying our best to cut them off from going to Pakistan.''

As heavy fighting raged Tuesday, it was not possible to verify whether all al-Qaida troops had been forced to abandon the vast network of caverns and tunnels at Tora Bora.

U.S. Marines also intensified their hunt for Taliban leaders and members of the al-Qaida terror network around the southern city of Kandahar - the other region where Afghan and American officials think bin Laden may be hiding.

Marine ''hunter-killer'' teams in armored assault vehicles and backed by combat helicopters set up a staging ground at the foot of a jagged mountain about 12 miles outside Kandahar, from which officials said they could intercept fleeing fighters on the roads.

In Washington, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said that although the Taliban have fallen, the military faced the tough task of tracking down bin Laden and eliminating al-Qaida. ''Large numbers of al-Qaida terrorists are still at large. It's going to be a very long and difficult job,'' he said.

Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, said getting rid of al-Qaida was a priority as the country tries to build a stable post-Taliban government.

''What Afghanistan needs is the full establishment of a national state, but first we must root out all the terrorists,'' he told journalists in the former house of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in Kandahar. ''We must burn out all these roots.''

Karzai promised there would be no amnesty for the cleric if he were caught. Omar has disappeared since the Taliban abandoned Kandahar, their birthplace and last major city, on Friday.

The Pentagon said it targeted caves in the Tora Bora area with its largest conventional bomb, the 15,000-pound ''daisy cutter,'' on Sunday on suspicion they might contain senior al-Qaida leaders, possibly including bin Laden. Spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said damage from the strikes was not known.

Alliance fighters fired machine guns, anti-aircraft artillery and Soviet-era T-55 tanks at al-Qaida positions, which responded with machine guns and mortars.

Late Monday, one alliance commander, Haji Zahir, said his troops had taken all the Milawa valley except for two or three mortar positions, which were coming under attack during the night.

Three alliance fighters were killed, Zahir said. He said his forces captured 15 caves, some holding ammunition stocks. Stufflebeem confirmed that U.S. special forces were in the area to help the Afghan fighters.

Across the nearby border, helicopters dropped Pakistani soldiers on mountain peaks to stop any al-Qaida fighters who try to cross the 15,400-foot snowcapped peaks.

Though Tora Bora is seen as the most likely site, U.S. officials have not ruled out that bin Laden could be hiding around Kandahar.

To step up the hunt, Marines from Camp Rhino - their base about 70 miles southwest of Kandahar - set up a new position closer to the city. From the new staging ground, they said, they can move swiftly to intercept fighters trying to escape. ''Any Taliban that still have their weapons or don't drop them will die,'' Capt. Stewart Upton said.

Super Stallion and Sea Knight helicopters kicked up clouds of dust as they brought in food, mortars and other equipment to the Marines at the staging ground. Servicemen moved in LAV-25s - fast-moving armored vehicles with a 25mm turret cannon - and Humvees armed with TOW anti-tank missiles.

''It feels very good to be here. Everybody wants to contribute,'' said Marine Major Tom Impellitteri, 32, of Pennsylvania, the commander of the company at the new site. He said his men plastered a New York Fire Department bumper sticker on a nearby bridge.

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After nightfall, a CNN crew encountered a convoy of 10 vehicles carrying several dozen heavily armed U.S. troops on the outskirts of Tora Bora. It is estimated that there are around 1,000 al Qaeda fighters in the region.

The troops said they were on their way to assist Ali.

Tuesday brought a new Pentagon policy for the Marines on patrol near the former Taliban stronghold.

"When doing interdictions, they will be collecting weapons and destroying them. They wouldn't do this with friendly forces," said Capt. David Romley, U.S. Marine Corps spokesman.

Quoted:
This is beginning to resemble the Indian Wars of the 19th century.  And probably that's the sort of tactics (updated) that we ought to use.

Quoted:


Everything we have done militarily since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has more and more resembled British colonial warfare of the 19th century

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Well said. And we're fighting in some of their same stomping grounds, too, 100- 150 years later. Don't forget, an entire British regt (24th Foot?) was wiped out, exc. for its surgeon, in 1842 marching out of Kabul back to India, by tribesmen sniping from the hills. The British never quite pacified Afghanistan, and they obviously never garnered much support from any Afghans.

But, yes, if we keep winning against tinpot dictators and towelheads, however lethal they can be, we run the risk of becoming over-confident and complacent like the 19th cent. British, who, had it not been for the wake-up call of the Boer War, hadn't faced a proper enemy using modern weaponry and tactics since Waterloo.

I hope we learn from their mistakes and do not repeat them. So far, so good.