U.S. Forces Detect bin Laden's Voice
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WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. forces have detected Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) giving orders over short-range radio in the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan (news - web sites) during the past week, a U.S. official said Saturday.
The intercepted radio messages helped persuade U.S. military officials that bin Laden is likely in the area, where al-Qaida forces are in a pitched battle with Afghan forces being helped by American and British special forces. Commanders of the Afghan forces say they believe they have bin Laden trapped in a cave in the snowy, rugged mountains.
U.S. officials confirmed that the voice on the radio was bin Laden's by comparing it with his voice from several videotapes, said the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Americans have several ways to listen in on such radio transmissions, including gear carried by special operations forces and instruments on aircraft and satellites.
America's Afghan allies also have captured about 50 al-Qaida fighters during heavy combat in the area, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.
U.S. troops have helped the Afghan fighters scour caves captured from al-Qaida for documents and other evidence to track down other members of the group and link them to the Sept. 11 attacks and other terrorist acts. Americans have done the same at al-Qaida sites captured earlier in the Afghanistan campaign.
That material - along with information developed elsewhere in the terrorism investigation - has led to several arrests in foreign countries of suspected al-Qaida operatives, said the other U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. No details were offered.
Rumsfeld, during a visit to Azerbaijan, said Saturday it was too early to say whether the operations around Tora Bora area would end soon. He also said information gathered from the interrogation of prisoners is ``accumulated and correlated, judgments are be made as to its accuracy or a lack of accuracy, and then we shall proceed to next steps.''
Commanders of the Afghan forces said they believe top suspect Osama bin Laden is trapped in the area, but Army Gen. Tommy Franks said the U.S. military is not certain where he is.
The military estimates that between 300 and 1,000 al-Qaida fighters are trapped in the two valleys, Franks told reporters near Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., and at the Pentagon (news - web sites) via two-way video. The al-Qaida members are scattered on valley floors, in fortified mountainside caves and along high ridges, he said.
Rumsfeld said on his trip to Central Asia that ``we think there are not a lot of ways out'' for al-Qaida fighters.
Franks said U.S. soldiers have been involved in front-line fighting in the rugged mountain region. He said he did not know of any U.S. soldiers wounded in the fierce battles, although some members of the international anti-terrorism coalition have been hurt.
Opposition fighters told The Associated Press on Friday that two Americans had been grazed by machine-gun bullets in the Tora Bora area. British special forces troops also are in the area.
Franks said John Walker, the American Taliban fighter who surrendered to American forces in Afghanistan, has been moved to the USS Peleliu in the Arabian Sea. U.S. Marines had been holding Walker at Camp Rhino, their remote desert base 70 miles from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
U.S. officials have not decided what to do with Walker - whether to keep him in military custody or turn him over to the civilian justice system, Franks said.
As with bin Laden, the U.S. military does not know the whereabouts of the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, Franks said. Omar was in Kandahar when the city fell last week, but has disappeared.
Many al-Qaida members have been killed in this week's fighting at Tora Bora, but the United States has not determined if any of them are high-ranking leaders, Franks said.
Three senior al-Qaida leaders are known to be dead: Egyptians Mohammed Atef, Tariq Anwar al-Sayyid Ahmad and Muhammad Salah, all killed by U.S. airstrikes last month.
``We probably have killed some people on this (most wanted) list and don't know it yet,'' Franks said.
Captured Al-Qaida and Taliban leaders could be held by U.S. forces at Camp Rhino like Walker was, at the new Marine outpost at Kandahar airport, or possibly other places in Afghanistan, Franks said. He said prisoners also could be held, like Walker, on U.S. Navy (news - web sites) shipsX. |
