Tora Bora falls, but no bin Laden

Abu Jaffar, a stout, long-bearded man, recounted his escape from Tora Bora last week. Relieved because he thought he would soon be free, he sat with his Egyptian wife beside a small stove at the base of the valley in Upper Pachir, an Afghan village just a few miles from where US Special Forces were reported by the Pentagon to have surrounded bin Laden's own cave.

Before leaving Upper Pachir that night to reach sanctuary in Pakistan, Mr. Jaffar gave an account that suggested American intelligence both outside and inside Tora Bora was inaccurate.

The Saudi, who had arrived in Jalalabad about six months earlier with a $3 million contribution to the Al Qaeda cause, said he drove in a truck with bin Laden from Jalalabad toward Tora Bora on the night of Nov. 6.

He was present when bin Laden met with several chiefs of the Ghilzi tribe, whose villages straddle the rugged border between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Some 400 Kalashnikovs were given as "gifts" to the Ghilzi tribesmen. In exchange, the tribesmen promised to help smuggle Afghan and Arab leaders to freedom in Pakistan. It was a quid pro quo that the Ghilzis understood well.

When bin Laden finally decided that remaining inside the embattled Tora Bora terror base had become too risky, he used the same Ghilzi contacts to escape the siege.

"Most of us firmly believe that Osama left to Parachinar in Pakistan days ago," says Abdul Wafi, a lieutenant for Commander Ghamsharik. Eight Afghan Al Qaeda prisoners, who surrendered Thursday night, gave similar accounts. They told their captors that bin Laden had left Tora Bora almost two weeks ago.

The current exodus of Al Qaeda fighters from Tora Bora began in earnest when Ghamsharik failed in his own efforts to gain a UN-backed "surrender" for the Al Qaeda fighters.

American officials, who have been highly secretive about relations with the Afghan fighters, were likely incensed to find that Ghamsharik and some of his fellow Khugani tribesmen were offering the Arabs "safe passage" out of Tora Bora.

Afghan sources say that US military officials replaced the ethnic Pashtun leader at the "sharp end" of their military operations with a rival warlord, Hazrat Ali. Mr. Ali claimed only three days ago that he had bin Laden cornered in a cave.

Before any moves were made against Tora Bora two weeks ago, Ghamsharik decided to ask the Arabs in the White Mountains to simply leave their province. Indeed, a senior alliance member, Mujahid Ullah, later appointed as the region's information minister, two weeks earlier had personally persuaded the Arabs to depart Jalalabad without a fight in exchange for "safe passage" into Tora Bora.

"Some of the Arabs were arguing to stay and fight, but Mujahid Ullah was persuading Osama to go and not to resist," says Babrak Khan, who was present two days before the fall of the Taliban in Jalalabad a month ago. "After a long discussion, he agreed to go."

The battle for Tora Bora finally got under way a full week after newspapers published accounts of bin Laden entering Tora Bora with his closest aids.

Ghamsharik - the most senior Afghan military commander - said two weeks ago, that he was launching the offensive because he had no other option. One of the reasons he gave for the attack was, ironically, that stray US bombs had killed 140 Afghan villagers, including some of his own fighters, in the villages at the foot of Tora Bora. "My people are angry at me for what has happened, but they will fight alongside me and get killed in greater numbers than US airstrikes have already killed," he added.

And last week, Ghamsharik could be overheard asking Al Qaeda fighters over a radio to "surrender or leave."

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