Battle of Tora Bora
Encyclopedia
The Battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that took place in Afghanistan
in December 2001, during the opening stages of the war in that country
launched following the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The U.S. and its allies believed that al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden
was hiding in the rugged mountains at Tora Bora
, but despite overrunning the Taliban and al-Qaeda positions they failed to kill or capture him. Bin Laden was able to escape to Pakistan.
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-storied 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.
fighters were still holding out in the mountains of the Tora Bora region.
On December 3, a group of 20 U.S. CIA N.C.S. team members(team code name: Jawbreaker) and 70 special forces operators from the Army's Delta Force, Navy, and Air Force
was inserted by helicopter and parachute to support the operation. On December 5, Afghan Northern Alliance fighters wrested control of the low ground below the mountain caves from al-Qaeda fighters. The Jawbreaker team and SF teams called in Air Force bombers to take out targets. The al-Qaeda fighters withdrew with , to higher fortified positions and dug in for the battle.
The Northern Alliance fighters continued a steady advance through the difficult terrain, backed by air strikes and U.S. and British Special Forces
. Facing defeat, 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.
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, and one British
Royal Signals Specialist
from 63 Signals squadron now known as 18SFUK, accompanied the U.S. special operations forces in the attack on the cave complex at Tora Bora. Special Forces Operators of the German KSK
took part in the battle as well. They were purportedly responsible for the protection of the flanks in the Tora Bora mountains and conducted reconnaissance missions.
As the Taliban teetered on the brink of losing their last bastion, the U.S. focus increased on the Tora Bora. Local tribal militias, paid and organized by Special Forces and CIA SAD paramilitary operations officers, numbering over 2,000 strong, continued to mass for an attack as heavy bombing continued of suspected al-Qaeda positions.
By December 17, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. No massive bunkers were found, only small outposts and a few minor training camps.
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 (consisting primarily of CIA Paramilitary Officers from Special Activities Division
) 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 to 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 officer Gary Schroen
concurs with this view and Pentagon documents are suggestive.
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 VHF radio was on December 14, 2001. In 2008 Andy McNab, the pseudonym of a former SAS trooper echoed the claims of Berntsen, claiming that the Coalition were, "within a whisker" of capturing bin Laden at Tora Bora.
Many enemy fighters made 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.
commander, using the pen name "Dalton Fury", who was present at Tora Bora has written that bin Laden escaped into Pakistan on or around December 16, 2001. Fury gives three reasons for why he believes bin Laden was able to escape: (1) the US mistakenly thought that Pakistan was effectively guarding the border area, (2) NATO allies refused to allow the use of air-dropped GATOR mines
, which would have helped seal bin Laden and his forces inside the Tora Bora area, and (3) over-reliance on native Afghan military forces as the main force deployed against bin Laden and his fighters. Fury states that the Afghan forces would usually leave the battlefield in the evenings to break their Ramadan
fasts, thereby allowing the al-Qaeda forces a chance to regroup, reposition, or escape.
Fury, in an interview on 60 Minutes
, stated that his Delta Force team and CIA Paramilitary Officers traveled to Tora Bora after the CIA pinpointed bin Laden's location in that area. Fury's team proposed an operation in which they would assault bin Laden's suspected position from the rear, over the 14,000 foot high mountain separating Tora Bora from Pakistan. But, Fury's proposal was denied by unidentified officials at higher headquarters for unknown reasons. Fury then proposed the dropping of GATOR mines in the passes leading away from Tora Bora, but this was also denied. Forced to approach the al-Qaeda forces from the front, at one point Fury reports that his team was within 2,000 meters of bin Laden's suspected position, but withdrew because of uncertainty over the number of al-Qaeda fighters guarding bin Laden and a lack of support from allied Afghan troops.
A short time later, the Afghan military forces declared a cease fire with al-Qaeda. When Fury's team prepared to advance again on the al-Qaeda forces anyway, Afghan soldiers drew their weapons on the US soldiers. After 12 hours of negotiations, the Afghans stood down, but this had allowed bin Laden and his bodyguards time to relocate. Fury reports that bin Laden, in his radio calls which began in the afternoon of December 13, was clearly under duress, reportedly saying to his fighters, "the time is now, arm your women and children against the infidel". Then, after a few hours of enduring massive and accurate aerial bombing, he broke radio silence again to say "Our prayers were not answered. Times are dire and bad. We did not get support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers. Things might have been different". Fury describes that Bin Laden's final words to his fighters on that night were "I'm sorry for getting you involved in this battle, if you can no longer resist, you may surrender with my blessing".
A short time later, what was believed to be bin Laden and his bodyguards were observed entering a cave. Fury's team called down several bombing attacks on the cave, and believed that they had killed bin Laden. Six months later, US and Canadian forces returned and checked several caves in the area, finding remains of al-Qaeda fighters, but not of bin Laden. Fury believes that bin Laden was injured in the shoulder by shrapnel during the bombing of the cave, but was then hidden, given medical care, and assisted out of the area into Pakistan by sympathetic local Afghans.
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 Yemen
i medical doctor described the conditions during the battle.
He testified:
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. A US Senate report concluded that the failure to capture bin Laden "[laid] the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan." Al-Qaeda
forces began regrouping in the Shahi-Kot
mountains of Paktia Province
throughout January and February 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.
In December 2009, the magazine New Republic
published an article titled "The Battle for Tora Bora" by Peter Bergen
, an expert on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, whose book "Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden" came out soon after 9/11. In his critique Bergen reconstructs the encounter with Osama at Tora Bora. He termed the rebuttal by Tommy Franks, the then US Army chief, for 800 Army rangers from nearby bases to assault the complex of caves where Osama was supposedly hiding "one of the greatest military blunders in recent US history". Bergen argued that the United States failed to capture Osama and allowed the Taliban to return from the cold—regrouped, rejuvenated and remarkably stronger—while US officials were diverted to Iraq.
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was confirmed to have died in a United States Navy SEAL raid on a compound
in the city of Abbottabad
, Pakistan
, more than nine years after the failed attempts to capture or kill him in the Battle of Tora Bora.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
in December 2001, during the opening stages of the war in that country
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
launched following the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The U.S. and its allies believed that al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
leader Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
was hiding in the rugged mountains at Tora Bora
Tora Bora
Tora Bora , known locally as Spīn Ghar , is a cave complex situated in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, in the Pachir Wa Agam District of Nangarhar province, approximately west of the Khyber Pass and north of the border of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan...
, but despite overrunning the Taliban and al-Qaeda positions they failed to kill or capture him. Bin Laden was able to escape to Pakistan.
Background
Tora BoraTora Bora
Tora Bora , known locally as Spīn Ghar , is a cave complex situated in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, in the Pachir Wa Agam District of Nangarhar province, approximately west of the Khyber Pass and north of the border of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan...
is a cave complex situated in the White Mountains (Safed Koh)
Safed Koh
Spin Ghar or Safed Kuh or the Indian Caucasus, also known as the Safīd Mountain Range or Morga Range, is a mountain range on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, up to above sea-level at Mount Sikaram, straight and rigid, towering above all surrounding hills...
of eastern Afghanistan, near the Khyber Pass
Khyber Pass
The Khyber Pass, is a mountain pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan.The Pass was an integral part of the ancient Silk Road. It is mentioned in the Bible as the "Pesh Habor," and it is one of the oldest known passes in the world....
.
In 2001, it was suspected to be in use by al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
and the location of bin Laden's headquarters, variously described as a multi-storied 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
FIM-92 Stinger
The FIM-92 Stinger is a personal portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile , which can be adapted to fire from ground vehicles and helicopters , developed in the United States and entered into service in 1981. Used by the militaries of the U.S...
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
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989...
) for use by mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
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.
Battle
At the end of 2001, al-QaedaAl-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
fighters were still holding out in the mountains of the Tora Bora region.
On December 3, a group of 20 U.S. CIA N.C.S. team members(team code name: Jawbreaker) and 70 special forces operators from the Army's Delta Force, Navy, and Air Force
24th Special Tactics Squadron
The 24th Special Tactics Squadron is one of the Special Tactics units of the United States Air Force Special Operations Command .-Disposition:Based at Pope Air Force Base the 24th STS is among the premier Special Tactics Squadrons in the Air Force....
was inserted by helicopter and parachute to support the operation. On December 5, Afghan Northern Alliance fighters wrested control of the low ground below the mountain caves from al-Qaeda fighters. The Jawbreaker team and SF teams called in Air Force bombers to take out targets. The al-Qaeda fighters withdrew with , to higher fortified positions and dug in for the battle.
The Northern Alliance fighters continued a steady advance through the difficult terrain, backed by air strikes and U.S. and British Special Forces
Special forces
Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...
. Facing defeat, 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.
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
Safed Koh
Spin Ghar or Safed Kuh or the Indian Caucasus, also known as the Safīd Mountain Range or Morga Range, is a mountain range on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, up to above sea-level at Mount Sikaram, straight and rigid, towering above all surrounding hills...
into the tribal areas of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. 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
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
SBS
Special Boat Service
The Special Boat Service is the special forces unit of the British Royal Navy. Together with the Special Air Service, Special Reconnaissance Regiment and the Special Forces Support Group they form the United Kingdom Special Forces and come under joint control of the same Director Special...
commandos, and one British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Royal Signals Specialist
18 (UKSF) Signal Regiment
18 Signal Regiment is a Regiment of the Royal Corps of Signals in the British Army and provides communications and information systems support to the force elements of the United Kingdom Special Forces...
from 63 Signals squadron now known as 18SFUK, accompanied the U.S. special operations forces in the attack on the cave complex at Tora Bora. Special Forces Operators of the German KSK
Kommando Spezialkräfte
The KSK Kommando Spezialkräfte is an elite military unit composed of Special Operations soldiers from the ranks of Germany’s Bundeswehr and organized as such under the Division Spezielle Operationen . The unit has received many decorations and awards from both NATO and its affiliates...
took part in the battle as well. They were purportedly responsible for the protection of the flanks in the Tora Bora mountains and conducted reconnaissance missions.
As the Taliban teetered on the brink of losing their last bastion, the U.S. focus increased on the Tora Bora. Local tribal militias, paid and organized by Special Forces and CIA SAD paramilitary operations officers, numbering over 2,000 strong, continued to mass for an attack as heavy bombing continued of suspected al-Qaeda positions.
By December 17, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. No massive bunkers were found, only small outposts and a few minor training camps.
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
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
officer Gary Berntsen
Gary Berntsen
Gary Berntsen is a decorated former Central Intelligence Agency career officer who served in the Directorate of Operations between October 1982 and June 2005...
, who led the CIA team (consisting primarily of CIA Paramilitary Officers from Special Activities Division
Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
) 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 to the area of Parachinar
Parachinar
Parachinar is the capital of Kurram Agency, FATA of Pakistan. It is about 290 km west of the capital, Islamabad...
, Pakistan. He also claims that bin Laden could have been captured if United States Central Command
United States Central Command
The United States Central Command is a theater-level Unified Combatant Command unit of the U.S. armed forces, established in 1983 under the operational control of the U.S. Secretary of Defense...
had committed the troops that Berntsen had requested. Former CIA officer Gary Schroen
Gary Schroen
Gary C. Schroen is a former Central Intelligence Agency field officer who was in charge of the initial CIA incursion into Afghanistan in September 2001 to topple the Taliban regime and to destroy Al Qaeda....
concurs with this view and Pentagon documents are suggestive.
In an October 2004 opinion article in The New York Times, Gen. Tommy Franks
Tommy Franks
Tommy Ray Franks is a retired general in the United States Army. His last Army post was as the Commander of the United States Central Command, overseeing United States Armed Forces operations in a 25-country region, including the Middle East...
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 VHF radio was on December 14, 2001. In 2008 Andy McNab, the pseudonym of a former SAS trooper echoed the claims of Berntsen, claiming that the Coalition were, "within a whisker" of capturing bin Laden at Tora Bora.
Many enemy fighters made their escape in the rough terrain and slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east
Federally Administered Tribal Areas
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas are a semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan, lying between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. The FATA comprise seven Agencies and six FRs...
. 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.
Fury's account
A former Delta ForceDelta Force
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta is one of the United States' secretive Tier One counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units. Commonly known as Delta Force, Delta, or The Unit, it was formed under the designation 1st SFOD-D, and is officially referred to by the Department of Defense...
commander, using the pen name "Dalton Fury", who was present at Tora Bora has written that bin Laden escaped into Pakistan on or around December 16, 2001. Fury gives three reasons for why he believes bin Laden was able to escape: (1) the US mistakenly thought that Pakistan was effectively guarding the border area, (2) NATO allies refused to allow the use of air-dropped GATOR mines
GATOR mine system
The GATOR mine system is a US system of air-dropped anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, that was developed in the 1980s to be compatible with existing cluster dispensers. It is used with two dispenser systems — the Navy 500 lb CBU-78/B and the Air Force 1,000 lb CBU-89/B...
, which would have helped seal bin Laden and his forces inside the Tora Bora area, and (3) over-reliance on native Afghan military forces as the main force deployed against bin Laden and his fighters. Fury states that the Afghan forces would usually leave the battlefield in the evenings to break their Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
fasts, thereby allowing the al-Qaeda forces a chance to regroup, reposition, or escape.
Fury, in an interview on 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
, stated that his Delta Force team and CIA Paramilitary Officers traveled to Tora Bora after the CIA pinpointed bin Laden's location in that area. Fury's team proposed an operation in which they would assault bin Laden's suspected position from the rear, over the 14,000 foot high mountain separating Tora Bora from Pakistan. But, Fury's proposal was denied by unidentified officials at higher headquarters for unknown reasons. Fury then proposed the dropping of GATOR mines in the passes leading away from Tora Bora, but this was also denied. Forced to approach the al-Qaeda forces from the front, at one point Fury reports that his team was within 2,000 meters of bin Laden's suspected position, but withdrew because of uncertainty over the number of al-Qaeda fighters guarding bin Laden and a lack of support from allied Afghan troops.
A short time later, the Afghan military forces declared a cease fire with al-Qaeda. When Fury's team prepared to advance again on the al-Qaeda forces anyway, Afghan soldiers drew their weapons on the US soldiers. After 12 hours of negotiations, the Afghans stood down, but this had allowed bin Laden and his bodyguards time to relocate. Fury reports that bin Laden, in his radio calls which began in the afternoon of December 13, was clearly under duress, reportedly saying to his fighters, "the time is now, arm your women and children against the infidel". Then, after a few hours of enduring massive and accurate aerial bombing, he broke radio silence again to say "Our prayers were not answered. Times are dire and bad. We did not get support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers. Things might have been different". Fury describes that Bin Laden's final words to his fighters on that night were "I'm sorry for getting you involved in this battle, if you can no longer resist, you may surrender with my blessing".
A short time later, what was believed to be bin Laden and his bodyguards were observed entering a cave. Fury's team called down several bombing attacks on the cave, and believed that they had killed bin Laden. Six months later, US and Canadian forces returned and checked several caves in the area, finding remains of al-Qaeda fighters, but not of bin Laden. Fury believes that bin Laden was injured in the shoulder by shrapnel during the bombing of the cave, but was then hidden, given medical care, and assisted out of the area into Pakistan by sympathetic local Afghans.
Guantanamo captives' accounts of the battle
U.S. authorities have justified the continued detention of several dozen Guantanamo captives by the suspicion 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
Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi
Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfiis a Yemeni doctor who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 627....
, a Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
i medical doctor described the conditions during the battle.
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 UK forces and their Afghan allies consolidated their position in the country. A Loya jirgaLoya jirga
A loya jirga is a type of jirga regarded as "grand assembly," a phrase in the Pashto language meaning "grand council." A loya jirga is a mass meeting usually prepared for major events such as choosing a new king, adopting a constitution, or discussing important national political or emergency...
or grand council of major Afghan factions, tribal leaders, and former exiles, an interim Afghan government was established in Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
under Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...
. U.S. forces established their main base at Bagram Air Base
Bagram Air Base
Bagram Airfield, also referred to as Bagram Air Base, is a militarized airport and housing complex that is located next to the ancient city of Bagram, southeast of Charikar in Parwan province of Afghanistan. The base is run by a US Army division headed by a major general. A large part of the base,...
just north of Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
. 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
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
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. A US Senate report concluded that the failure to capture bin Laden "[laid] the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan." Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
forces began regrouping in the Shahi-Kot
Shah-i-Kot Valley
The Shah-i-Kot Valley is a valley located in Afghanistan's Paktia province, southeast of the town of Zormat. The terrain in and around the valley is notoriously rugged, located at a mean altitude of...
mountains of Paktia Province
Paktia Province
Paktia , is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, in the east of the country. Its capital is Gardez. The population is predominantly Pashtun.- History:...
throughout January and February 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
Operation Anaconda
Operation Anaconda took place in early March 2002 in which the United States military and CIA Paramilitary Officers, working with allied Afghan military forces, and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization and non NATO forces attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shahi-Kot...
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
Taliban insurgency
The Taliban insurgency took root shortly after the group's fall from power following the 2001 war in Afghanistan. The Taliban continue to attack Afghan, U.S., and other ISAF troops and many terrorist incidents attributable to them have been registered. The war has also spread over the southern and...
in the style of the mujahedin who battled Soviet forces
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
during the 1980s.
In December 2009, the magazine New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
published an article titled "The Battle for Tora Bora" by Peter Bergen
Peter Bergen
Peter Bergen is a print and television journalist, author, and CNN's national security analyst. Bergen produced the first television interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, marked the first time that bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western...
, an expert on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, whose book "Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden" came out soon after 9/11. In his critique Bergen reconstructs the encounter with Osama at Tora Bora. He termed the rebuttal by Tommy Franks, the then US Army chief, for 800 Army rangers from nearby bases to assault the complex of caves where Osama was supposedly hiding "one of the greatest military blunders in recent US history". Bergen argued that the United States failed to capture Osama and allowed the Taliban to return from the cold—regrouped, rejuvenated and remarkably stronger—while US officials were diverted to Iraq.
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was confirmed to have died in a United States Navy SEAL raid on a compound
Death of Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, then head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit....
in the city of Abbottabad
Abbottabad
Abbottabad is a city located in the Hazara region of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan. The city is situated in the Orash Valley, northeast of the capital Islamabad and east of Peshawar at an altitude of and is the capital of the Abbottabad District...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, more than nine years after the failed attempts to capture or kill him in the Battle of Tora Bora.
See also
- Afghan Civil War
- Death of Osama Bin LadenDeath of Osama bin LadenOsama bin Laden, then head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit....
- Operation AnacondaOperation AnacondaOperation Anaconda took place in early March 2002 in which the United States military and CIA Paramilitary Officers, working with allied Afghan military forces, and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization and non NATO forces attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shahi-Kot...
- Osama Bin LadenOsama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
- War in Afghanistan (2001–present)War in Afghanistan (2001–present)The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
- Assassination attempts on Osama bin Laden
- Special Boat ServiceSpecial Boat ServiceThe Special Boat Service is the special forces unit of the British Royal Navy. Together with the Special Air Service, Special Reconnaissance Regiment and the Special Forces Support Group they form the United Kingdom Special Forces and come under joint control of the same Director Special...
- British Special Forces
- U.S. Army's Delta ForceDelta Force1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta is one of the United States' secretive Tier One counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units. Commonly known as Delta Force, Delta, or The Unit, it was formed under the designation 1st SFOD-D, and is officially referred to by the Department of Defense...
- CIA's Special Activities DivisionSpecial Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
Further reading
- Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-QaedaJawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-QaedaJawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A personal account by the CIA's key field commander is an autobiographical book by Gary Berntsen describing the time he spent in Afghanistan at the beginning of the American campaign against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden after the...
, Gary BerntsenGary BerntsenGary Berntsen is a decorated former Central Intelligence Agency career officer who served in the Directorate of Operations between October 1982 and June 2005...
, Three Rivers Press ISBN 0-307-35106-8, Published December 24, 2006 (paperback). - Online map and picture The Washington Post. December 10, 2008.
- The Long Hunt for Osama Peter BergenPeter BergenPeter Bergen is a print and television journalist, author, and CNN's national security analyst. Bergen produced the first television interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, marked the first time that bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western...
, The Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
. Oct. 2004 - Tora Bora John BowmanJohn BowmanJohn Bowman PhD is an Irish historian and a long-standing broadcaster and presenter of current affairs and political programmes with Raidió Teilifís Éireann . He chaired the audience-participation political programme Questions and Answers on RTÉ One for 21 years...
, CBC News Online. Dec. 2001 - The Tora Bora Fortress Myth? Edward Epstein, The Times. November 29, 2001
- Lost at Tora Bora Mary Anne Weaver, the New York Times. September 11, 2005
- How bin Laden got away Phillip Smucker, The Christian Science Monitor. March 4, 2002
- Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed To Get bin Laden And Why It Matters Today US Senate majority report, November 30, 2009
- The Battle for Tora Bora: The Definitive Account by Peter BergenPeter BergenPeter Bergen is a print and television journalist, author, and CNN's national security analyst. Bergen produced the first television interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, marked the first time that bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western...
, The New RepublicThe New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, December 22, 2009