Lost at Tora Bora -page 3
September 11, 2005
(Page 3 of 6)
Bin Laden really didn't have to buy the loyalty of the Pashtun tribal chiefs; they were already devoted to him. He was, after all, the only non-Afghan Muslim of any consequence in the past half-century who had stood with the Afghans. But on that November afternoon, and on the nights that followed it, as bin Laden began to lay the groundwork for his escape from the Tora Bora caves, the elusive Qaeda leader was determined to be absolutely sure.
The following evening, or the evening after, bin Laden, according to an Afghan intelligence official, dined in Jalalabad with other Pashtun tribal chiefs from Parachinar, Pakistan, an old military outpost I first visited nearly 20 years before. Parachinar had been a key staging area for the C.I.A. during the jihad, and its tribal leaders had profited immensely. A picturesque town in the Kurram Valley, Parachinar was also Pakistan's first line of defense against any Afghan incursion. Beyond it lie only the White Mountains - and the caves of Tora Bora - and desolate stretches of no man's land.
The last time bin Laden was seen in Jalalabad was the evening of Nov. 13, when he, along with Khalis's son, Mujahid Ullah, and other tribal leaders negotiated a peaceful hand-over of power from the Taliban to a caretaker government. Under its terms, Khalis would take temporary control of the city until the formation of a newly appointed U.S.-backed government. He, of course, made certain that the Eastern Shura, as the government is called, was stacked with men who owed their loyalty to him. Hajji Abdul Qadir, his former military commander, became Nangarhar Province's governor again.
Bin Laden's Arab fighters had used Jalalabad as a base and as a command center for a number of years, and now they dispersed, loading their weapons and their clothing, their children and their wives into the backs of several hundred lorries, armored vehicles and four-wheel-drive trucks. Some Taliban fighters followed suit. Others disappeared, removing their signature black turbans and returning to their villages and towns.
As the convoy was being readied, bin Laden said his goodbyes: to the Taliban governor; to Mujahid Ullah, Khalis's son; and to scores of the tribal leaders who had received his white envelopes three days before. He was dressed now as he had been dressed then and cradled his Kalakov, even though he was surrounded by some 60 armed guards.
Then he entered a custom-designed white Toyota Corolla, and the convoy sped away toward the mountains of Tora Bora, where he waited for the Americans to arrive.
By late November, Hazarat Ali, Hajji Zaman and Hajji Zahir had assembled a motley force of some 2,500 men - supplemented by a fleet of battered Russian tanks - at the base of Tora Bora. The Afghans were ill equipped and poorly trained. They also lacked the commitment that bin Laden's fighters had. Hidden from view at 5,000 feet and above in the scores of valleys, forests and caves, the Qaeda fighters not only had the tremendous advantage of the terrain; their redoubts were replete with generators, electricity and heat and copious stocks of provisions. Snow covered the mountain, and it was bitterly cold. The Afghan fighters at its base grumbled and quarreled endlessly. It was also the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, and some of the Afghans had the irritating tendency to leave their posts and return home to celebrate iftar, the evening meal that breaks the fast.
Perhaps more ominous was the growing antipathy between Hazarat Ali and Hajji Zaman: both ruthless, both greedy, both corrupt, both flashing fistfuls of new $100 bills - one a Pashtun, the other not. Their mutual loathing became so intense that on more than one occasion they and their fighters, instead of fighting Al Qaeda, shot each other's men.
The American bombardment of Tora Bora, which had been going on for a month, yielded to saturation airstrikes on Nov. 30 in anticipation of the ground war. Hundreds of civilians died that weekend, along with a number of Afghan fighters, according to Hajji Zaman, who had already dispatched tribal elders from the region to plead with bin Laden's commanders to abandon Tora Bora. Three days later, on Dec. 3, in one of the war's more shambolic moments, Hazarat Ali announced that the ground offensive would begin. Word quickly spread through the villages and towns, and hundreds of ill-prepared men rushed to the mountain's base. The timing of the call to war was so unexpected that Hajji Zahir, one of its three lead commanders, told journalists at the time that he nearly slept through it.
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