Fighters Besiege Bin Laden Cave Fortress

JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Wednesday - Some 1,000 Afghan militia closed in yesterday on a suspected mountain lair of Osama bin Laden amid growing signs that US bombs had scored a major hit on his al-Qaeda network. Local forces were bent on encircling the sprawling Tora Bora cave complex in eastern Afghanistan, where bin Laden may be holed up with hundreds of supporters, officials in Nangarhar province said. US warplanes have been hammering at the area south of Jalalabad in recent days and local officials said an airstrike early on Monday may have devastated the leadership ranks of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. Hazrat Ali, police chief of this provincial capital, said 10 al-Qaeda officials had died in the raid on the village of Wouchnow, near the mountainous Tora Bora complex. He gave no details. Nangarhar military commander Haji Mohammad Zaman said, however, that 18 people had been killed in the attack, including bin Laden’s financial manager Ali Mahmud. Zaman said Ayman al-Zawahri, the number two man in al-Qaeda who is believed by some to be the real brains behind the network, was wounded and possibly killed by the US bombs. There was no report of bin Laden, the Saudi-born millionaire wanted for the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, being hit. Nor was there any immediate official reaction in Washington. But NBC television news quoted US officials as saying that, while they had no word on Zawahri falling victim to US bombs, they believed his wife, a son and three daughters were killed. The loss of Mahmud and particularly Zawahri, a doctor who founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, would be a severe blow to al-Qaeda after the death last month of its military commander Mohammad Atef in an airstrike near Kabul. The reports also appeared to lend credibility to Zaman’s claim that bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man, was holed up in the Tora Bora cave complex where the US search has focused and some US special forces have been dispatched. AFP Ends