KABUL - Osama bin Laden is reportedly leading about 1000 fighters defending his mountain strongholds in eastern Afghanistan.
Mohammad Amin, a Northern Alliance spokesman, said from Jalalabad that anti-Taleban forces had pushed bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters out of their bases in the cave-riddled Tora Bora heights and were attacking them in nearby forests.
"Osama himself has taken the command of the fighting. He, along with around 1000 of his people ... have now dug themselves into the forests of Spin Ghar after we overran all their bases in Tora Bora.
"He is here for sure. The American planes have been carrying out regular and severe bombings to kill him," Amin said.
US warplanes %have been pound-%ing suspected bin Laden hideouts in the Tora Bora peaks, 55km south of Jalalabad, for several days in support of local Afghan forces.
Frontline fighters also reported that the Arabs' wives had been issued with Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers and allowed to replace their all-encompassing burqas with headscarves and baggy trousers so they could also join the defence of the cave complex.
The women were armed, an intercepted radio communication revealed, on the orders of "the sheikh", as bin Laden is known to his followers.
Earlier, there were suggestions that bin Laden and Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar might have fled Afghanistan.
US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz mentioned neighbouring Pakistan, as well as Somalia and Yemen, as countries in which bin Laden and Omar might try to seek refuge. He also warned other countries against harbouring them.
Pakistan said it had moved helicopter gunships and troops to its border with Afghanistan to prevent fleeing Taleban or al Qaeda members sneaking into the country.
US Marine teams backed by helicopters sealed off escape routes from Kandahar.
- REUTERS
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