From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [R-G] Bin Laden [escapes] as Hundreds Killed in Tora Bora Reuters. 16 December 2001. Bin Laden Remains Elusive as Hundreds Killed in Tora Bora. TORA BORA, BAGRAM AIRBASE -- The United States acknowledged Sunday it had no idea where Osama bin Laden was. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States had no reason to believe bin Laden, its prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, had been either killed or captured under intense U.S. bombing in the eastern mountains of Tora Bora. "We don't know where he is," he told NBC's "Meet The Press." A senior anti-Taliban commander said bin Laden was no longer in the area and the remnants of his al Qaeda forces had been virtually wiped out. "This is the last day for al Qaeda in Afghanistan," Haji Zaman, top military commander in the eastern Jalalabad region, told reporters. He said bin Laden had fled, but this would not prevent his mujahideen -- or holy warrior -- fighters from completing a mopping-up operation. "Osama bin Laden is not here," he said. Another senior commander said his men had killed 200 of bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters in Tora Bora. "We took 25 al Qaeda prisoners and killed 200 al Qaeda fighters," Hazrat Ali told Reuters on the road back from the front line. "Tomorrow we will show you the prisoners and their weapons. We think (the fighting) will all be soon over." Hundreds of al Qaeda fighters -- mainly Arabs -- had been killed in days of relentless U.S. bombing from the skies and by Afghan fighters inching forward on the ground, commander Hazrat Ali told Reuters. U.S. B-52 bombers arced through the skies on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr festival, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, dropping huge bombs on suspected al Qaeda positions through the night and into the morning. "We asked them to give themselves up, but they can't because bombs keep falling," said Haji Atiqullah, spokesman for frontline Tora Bora commander Haji Zahir. ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
