Battle of Tora Bora

Battle of Tora Bora
Part of the War in Afghanistan, Afghan Civil War
Date December 2001 Location Pachir Wa Agam District, Nangarhar province Result Failure to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.
Combatants
United States, United Kingdom, Afghan Northern Alliance	Taliban, al-Qaeda
Commanders
Tommy Franks, Bismillah Khan	Osama bin Laden
Strength
N/A	Unknown
Casualties
No Coalition deaths reported; Northern Alliance N/A	200+ killed

Location of Tora Bora, near the border to the Kurram Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

34°07′N, 70°13′E

The Battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that took place in Afghanistan in December 2001. US forces were under the impression that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden may have been hiding in the rugged mountains.

Background

Tora Bora (Pashto: تورا بورا, “black dust” ) is a cave complex situated in the White Mountains (Safed Koh) of eastern Afghanistan, near the Khyber Pass.

In 2001, it was suspected to be in use by al-Qaeda and the location of bin Laden's headquarters, variously described as a multi-storeyed cave complex harnessing hydroelectric power from mountain streams, or a lower-rise dwelling with hotel-like corridors capable of sheltering more than 1,000. It was also said to contain a large cache of ammunition, such as missiles left over from the 1980s.

The outposts in use in 2001 were originally built by extending and shoring up natural caves, with the assistance of the CIA in the early 1980s (Operation Cyclone) for use by mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but several may date back to much earlier periods, as the difficult terrain has been used by tribal warriors fighting foreign invaders since ancestral times.

The Battle

At the end of the invasion of Afghanistan, the foreign al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of Tora Bora. Anti-Taliban tribal militia continued a steady advance through the difficult terrain, backed by withering air strikes guided in by U.S. and British Special Forces. Facing defeat and reluctant to fight fellow Muslims, the al-Qaeda forces negotiated a truce with a local militia commander to give them time to surrender their weapons. In retrospect, however, many believe that the truce was a ruse to allow important al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden, to escape ^{[citation needed]}. On December 12, the fighting flared again, possibly initiated by a rear guard buying time for the main force's escape through the White Mountains into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Once again, tribal forces backed by U.S. special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al-Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region. Twelve British SBS commandos accompanied the U.S. special operations forces in the attack on the cave complex at Tora Bora.

By December 17, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. They did not find any massive “underground fortresses”, only small bunkers and outposts and a few minor training camps ^[1].

A search of the area by U.S. forces continued into January, but no sign of bin Laden or the al-Qaeda leadership emerged. Former CIA officer Gary Berntsen, who led the CIA team in Afghanistan that was tasked with locating Osama bin Laden, claims in his 2005 book Jawbreaker that he and his team had pinpointed the location of Osama bin Laden. Also according to Berntsen, a number of al-Qaeda detainees later confirmed that bin Laden had escaped Tora Bora into Pakistan via an easterly route through snow covered mountains in the area of Parachinar, Pakistan. He also claims that bin Laden could have been captured if United States Central Command had committed the troops that Berntsen had requested. Former CIA agent Gary Schroen concurs with this view ^[2]. Pentagon documents ^[3] seem to confirm this account. In an October 2004 opinion article in The New York Times, Gen. Tommy Franks wrote, "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time...Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives ... but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp." Franks, who retired in 2003, was the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the time. The last time Osama bin Laden was overheard on the radio was on December 14th.

Most of the enemy fighters made good their escape in the rough terrain and slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east. It is estimated that around 200 of the al-Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle, along with an unknown number of anti-Taliban tribal fighters. No coalition deaths were reported.

Guantanamo captives' accounts of the battle

The continued detention of several dozen Guantanamo captives was justified by the suspicion that they had participated in the battle, had been present during the battle, or had passed through the area of the battle before or after it concluded.

During his testimony before a procedure convened under the authority of the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, a Yemeni medical doctor described the conditions during the battle.^[4] He testified:

• "Most of all the total guns in the Tora Bora area was 16 Kalashnikovs and there are 200 people,"
• "He [Osama bin Laden] came for a day to visit the area and we talked to him and we wanted to leave this area. He said he didn't know where to go himself and the second day he escaped and was gone."

Aftermath

Following Tora Bora, U.S. and U.K. forces and their Afghan allies consolidated their position in the country. A Loya jirga or grand council of major Afghan factions, tribal leaders, and former exiles, an interim Afghan government was established in Kabul under Hamid Karzai. U.S. forces established their main base at Bagram Air Base just north of Kabul. Kandahar International Airport also became an important U.S. base area. Several outposts were established in eastern provinces to hunt for Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives. The number of US troops operating in the country would eventually grow to over 10,000. Meanwhile, the Taliban and al-Qaeda had not given up. Al-Qaeda forces began regrouping in the Shahi-Kot mountains of Paktia Province throughout January and February of 2002. A Taliban fugitive in Paktia province, Mullah Saifur Rehman, also began reconstituting some of his militia forces in support of the anti-US fighters. They totaled over 1,000 by the beginning of Operation Anaconda in March 2002. The intention of the insurgents was to use the region as a base area for launching guerrilla attacks and possibly a major offensive in the style of the mujahedin who battled Soviet forces during the 1980s.

See also

• Afghan Civil War
• Operation Anaconda
• Osama Bin Laden
• War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
• "Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A personal account by the CIA's key field commander", by Gary Berntsen. ISBN 0-307-35106-8.

References

Further references and reading

• Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda, Gary Berntsen, Three Rivers Press ISBN 0-307-35106-8, Published 24 December 2006 (paperback).

• Online map and picture The Washington Post. 10 December 2001

• The Long Hunt for Osama Peter Bergen, The Atlantic Monthly. Oct. 2004]

• Tora Bora John Bowman, CBC News Online. Dec. 2001

• The Tora Bora Fortress Myth? Edward Epstein, The Times. 29 Nov.001

• Lost at Tora Bora Mary Anne Weaver, the New York Times. 11 Sep. 2005

• How bin Laden got away Phillip Smucker, The Christian Science Monitor. 4 Mar. 2002

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