Battle of Tora Bora

In Operation Cyclone during the early 1980s, CIA officers had assisted the mujahideen fighters in extending and shoring up the caves to use for resistance during the Soviet–Afghan War.^[9] The U.S. then supported their effort. Several years later, the Taliban formed and took control of most of the country, enforcing fundamentalist rule. Several cave areas were used in much earlier periods, as the difficult terrain formed a natural defensive position and had been used by tribal warriors fighting foreign invaders.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom to dismantle the Taliban regime that had sheltered Osama bin Laden. To achieve this goal, the U.S. military joined forces with the Northern Alliance, a group of rebels who had long been waging a guerrilla war against the Taliban. Through a combination of air strikes and ground operations, the U.S. and its allies quickly gained the upper hand, seizing control of key Taliban strongholds and toppling the regime's grip on power. By November 13, 2001, the Northern Alliance had captured the capital city of Kabul.

The CIA was closely tracking Osama bin Laden's movements, hoping to locate and catch him. On November 10, 2001, he had been spotted near Jalalabad traveling in a convoy of 200 pick-up trucks heading in the direction of his training camp in Tora Bora mountain.^[13] The U.S. had expected bin Laden to make a last stand at Tora Bora, hoping to repeat his success against the Soviets in the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Vice President Dick Cheney revealed in a November 29, 2001 television interview that bin Laden was believed to be in the general area of Tora Bora, surrounded by a sizable force of loyal fighters.^[4] The CIA lead in the Panjshir, Gary Berntsen, sent a detachment to team up with Afghan tribal militias around Jalalabad who opposed the Taliban.^[13] The Americans climbed the mountains guided by the locals who knew the terrain. After a few days of climbing, they arrived at the training camp in Tora Bora where hundreds of Al-Qaeda fighters could be spotted.^[14]

 

At the end of 2001, Al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of the Tora Bora region. Aerial bombardment ensued, including the use of large bombs known as daisy cutters.^[15]

Twelve British SBS commandos, and one British Royal Signals Specialist from 63 Signals squadron (now known as 18 [UKSF] Signal Regiment), accompanied the U.S. special operations forces in attacking the cave complex at Tora Bora. Special Forces Operators of the German KSK took part in the battle as well. They were reportedly responsible for protecting the flanks in the mountains and conducting reconnaissance missions.^[16]

On November 30, 2001, a coalition of U.S. Special Forces, Joint Special Operations Command soldiers, and a detachment of CIA operatives codenamed "Jawbreaker" led by Gary Berntsen, joined forces with Afghan tribal militias, and began to call in airstrikes on the Al-Qaeda training camp.^[17][18]

On December 1, Berntsen made a request to general Tommy Franks to send in a battalion of 800 United States Army Rangers. The plan was to block off the mountain passes into Pakistan and cut off Osama bin Laden's escape, however, the request was denied by Franks.^[2][19] Berntsen would later say that the failure to deploy the Rangers at Tora Bora and overreliance on the Afghan militias had allowed bin Laden to escape.^[20]

On December 3, Hazrat Ali, one of the Afghan commanders, announced that the push to capture the mountain stronghold would begin. However, Hazarat Ali's failure to properly communicate the plan of attack to the other commanders resulted in many fighters being ill-prepared at the outset of the offensive.^[9] On December 5, the Afghan fighters wrested control of the low ground below the mountain caves from the Al-Qaeda fighters. The Jawbreaker team and Special Forces teams equipped with laser designators called in Air Force bombers to take out targets; non-stop heavy air strikes including laser-guided bombs and missiles lasted for 72 hours.^[21]

The tribal militias that the U.S. coalition was coordinating with lacked the motivation to engage in the fight wholeheartedly. To them, Al-Qaeda was a group of fellow Muslims, and with the battle taking place during Ramadan, the fighters would retire every evening to break their fast and spend time with their families off the mountain.^[2] Moreover, the two Afghan commanders, Hazrat Ali and Mohammed Zaman, had a strong dislike and mutual distrust of each other. As a result, their factions often shot at each other instead of focusing on fighting Al-Qaeda. The animosity between the leaders and their respective militias was not a favorable sign for a successful outcome against a determined and cohesive enemy.^[22]

The Al-Qaeda fighters withdrew to higher fortified positions and dug in for the battle. On December 8, a team of elite Delta Force soldiers led by Major Tom Greer, aka Dalton Fury, arrived.^[23] They had put on traditional clothing and grown bushy beards to blend in with the Afghan militias, and were carrying the same types of weapons as their local counterparts.^[4]

The Americans were able to pick up a radio from a dead Al-Qaeda fighter. This allowed the U.S. forces to eavesdrop on the Al-Qaeda fighter's communications, including Osama bin Laden himself. Fury has said that there was "no doubt" that it was bin Laden's voice on the other end of that radio, citing a CIA operative named Jalal, who had spent seven years studying bin Laden's voice, confirming it.^[4]

Two British SBS Commandos from M Sqn were embedded with A Sqn Delta, one of whom continued to work for JSOC, albeit in a different capacity. During the hours of darkness, the Al-Qaeda fighters would light fires, which would reveal their specific location and aid laser-designated targeting for air-launched weapons.

The Afghan fighters continued a steady advance through the difficult terrain, backed by airstrikes and U.S. and British Special Forces.

The U.S. bombed the bunker that bin Laden was believed to be hiding in on December 9, however, he had already evacuated the bunker on the previous day. Journalist Peter Bergen says that bin Laden had a premonition of danger when he dreamed of a scorpion crawling into one of the trenches his men had dug for him.^[24]

On December 10, Delta Force intercepted radio communications indicating that bin Laden was on the move, attempting to break through the siege line. Later that day, Afghan soldiers claimed they had spotted bin Laden and had him surrounded. In the evening, more communications revealed bin Laden's location just 10 kilometers away. However, Delta Force couldn't act on this opportunity due to being engaged in a fierce firefight with other Al-Qaeda fighters and their Afghan allies leaving to break their fast and observe Ramadan. Dalton Fury later expressed deep regret about the failure to capitalize on this opportunity, feeling that he had let down his country in its time of need.^[25]

On December 12, Al-Qaeda forces, facing defeat, negotiated a truce with a local Afghan militia commander to give them time to surrender their weapons. In retrospect, however, some critics believe that the truce was a device to allow important Al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden, to escape.^[26]

Gary Berntsen was furious when he heard the news of the ceasefire. He didn't trust the Al-Qaeda fighters and was suspicious of their intentions to surrender. He grabbed his phone and screamed, "No cease-fire! No negotiation! We continue airstrikes!".^[28] Dalton Fury has accounted that the Americans were only half-heartedly honoring the truce, even bombing Al-Qaeda positions at 5 AM, a full three hours before it was set to expire. One American pilot protested the proposed surrender by drawing a giant "8" in the sky, followed by the word "ON".^[29]

On December 13, the fighting flared again, possibly initiated by a rear guard buying time for the main force's escape through the White Mountains into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Tribal forces backed by U.S. special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al-Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region.

The U.S. focus increased on the Tora Bora. Local tribal militias, paid and organized by Special Forces and CIA SAD paramilitary, numbering over 2,000 strong, continued to mass for an attack as the heavy bombing continued on suspected Al-Qaeda positions.^[30] However, progress was painfully slow due to the Afghans retreating every night to break their fast, leaving only a small number of U.S. special forces to fend for themselves and allowing Al-Qaeda to regain control of all the terrain that had been gained during the day. On December 14, the Americans finally convinced Hazrat Ali to keep his men in position and continue advancing even after dark. But at this point, too much time had already been wasted, allowing most of the Al-Qaeda leadership to escape into Pakistan.^[31]

Bin Laden is conventionally believed to have escaped Tora Bora on December 15. As the situation became increasingly precarious due to continued U.S. bombardment and with the Al-Qaeda fighters running low on food supplies, two groups of Al-Qaeda fighters descended the southern slopes toward Pakistan. They bribed local tribes in the area to elude Pakistani blocking forces. Historian Carter Malkasian has hinted that bin Laden may have escaped with one of these two groups.^[32]

Peter Bergen's account states that bin Laden had already escaped towards Jalalabad on December 12 during the truce that had been negotiated that day. Bergen says that bin Laden took advantage of the truce that night and used the cover of the darkness to sneak out of the mountain range and make his way to the house of an ally in Jalalabad, where he spent the night. The next day, he rode north on horseback to the heavily forested mountains of Kunar, where he disappeared into a place so remote and obscure that it didn't appear on any maps.^[33]

Another theory presented by Sean Naylor involves outside assistance. According to Naylor, a Delta operator observed multiple Mi-17 helicopters, which are used by the Pakistani armed forces, flying near the border at the Agam pass. The helicopters seemed to be making a quick landing in Afghanistan and then immediately returning to Pakistan. This observation led some Delta members to speculate that Pakistan might have been transporting bin Laden to safety.^[34]

The failure to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora meant that the U.S. had squandered its best opportunity to capture the Al-Qaeda leader during the first year of the War on Terror.^[11]

By December 17, 2001, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun.^[35] Some of the most brutal fightings of the battle took place during these last couple of days as the most dedicated Al-Qaeda fighters remained in the caves to cover the retreat of their leadership.^[36] The around 60 captured Al-Qaeda prisoners were put on display for the international media. These prisoners appeared worn out and thin, far from the image of the formidable warriors that many had presumed them to be.^[37] U.S. forces continued searching the area into January, but did not find any signs of bin Laden or the Al-Qaeda leadership. Former CIA officer Gary Berntsen led the CIA team tasked with locating bin Laden.^[38] He said that al-Qaeda detainees had reported that bin Laden escaped into Pakistan via an easterly route to Parachinar. Berntsen believed that bin Laden could have been captured during the battle if the U.S. military had committed more troops early in the battle.^[39]

CIA intelligence had indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were trapped in the caves early in the battle, and Berntsen had wanted to send less than 1,000 American Army Rangers to eliminate them, which he believed would have ended the War on Terror very quickly. However, the request was turned down by the Bush administration, which had argued that the Pakistanis would capture bin Laden if he attempted to flee into Pakistan.^[40]

Former CIA agent Gary Schroen has agreed with Berntsen's opinion in a 2005 interview, in which he cited the opportunity to take out bin Laden and the senior Al-Qaeda leadership early on in the conflict by deploying the Rangers.^[41] Historian Carter Malkasian, a former adviser to American military commanders in Afghanistan, has argued that bin Laden always had a good chance of escaping the caves and that the Rangers would not have been able to completely seal off the mountain range.^[11]

After the failure to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, the Bush administration initially denied any evidence of his presence in the battle. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld argued that the threat posed by Islamist extremism went beyond one individual, and there was no certainty about bin Laden's presence. Vice President Dick Cheney avoided addressing the matter entirely, choosing to never mention or talk about the battle's occurrence.^[42]

On January 7, 2002, General Tommy Franks, who was the general commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the time, told the Associated Press that bin Laden had been at Tora Bora.^[43] However, he later backpedaled on this comment, writing in an October 2004 opinion article in The New York Times:

We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time ... Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives ... but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.^[4]

According to Lieutenant General Michael Delong, Franks's deputy at CENTCOM at the time, officials in Washington were well aware of bin Laden's presence at Tora Bora during the battle. He later wrote in his memoir:

We were hot on Osama bin Laden’s trail. He was definitely there when we hit [the Tora Bora] caves. Every day during the bombing, Rumsfeld asked me, ‘Did we get him? Did we get him?’^[43]

During the 2004 presidential election, the question of whether Osama bin Laden was present at Tora Bora became a highly debated issue. John Kerry, the Democratic contender, criticized the Bush administration, accusing them of failing to capture bin Laden despite having him cornered in the caves and with the world's most powerful military at their disposal. This criticism sparked a strong reaction from the Bush campaign, as it challenged the president's claim of being tough on terrorism. Dick Cheney vehemently dismissed Kerry's critique of the Tora Bora campaign as "absolute garbage."^[43]

In the spring of 2005, the Pentagon released a document to The Associated Press. The document admitted that Pentagon investigators believed that bin Laden had indeed escaped at Tora Bora. This was the first time such information had been made public.^[44]

Many enemy fighters fled through the rough terrain and into tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east. Allied forces estimated that around 200 of the al-Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle, along with an unknown number of anti-Taliban tribal fighters. No coalition deaths were reported. Bin Laden would not be seen until 2004, when a video of him surfaced on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network.^[4]

In 2009, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations led an investigation into the Battle of Tora Bora. They concluded that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks had not committed enough troops during the battle to secure the area around Tora Bora. They believed that Osama bin Laden had likely been at Tora Bora and his escape prolonged the war in Afghanistan.^[4]

 

The former Delta Force officer Thomas Greer,^[45] using the pen name "Dalton Fury", who was the ground force commander at Tora Bora, wrote that bin Laden escaped into Pakistan on or around December 16, 2001. Fury gives three reasons for why he believes bin Laden was able to escape: (1) the US mistakenly thought that Pakistan was effectively guarding the border area, (2) NATO allies refused to allow the use of air-dropped GATOR mines, which might have kept bin Laden and his forces inside the Tora Bora area, and (3) over-reliance on native Afghan military forces as the main force deployed against bin Laden and his fighters. Fury theorized that, because the battle took place over the holy religious month of Ramadan, the Afghan forces would leave the battlefield in the evenings to break fast, giving al-Qaeda a chance to regroup, reposition, or escape.^[46]

In an October 2008 interview on 60 Minutes, Fury said that his Delta Force team and CIA Paramilitary Officers traveled to Tora Bora after the CIA had identified bin Laden's location. Fury's team proposed an operation to attack bin Laden's suspected position from the rear, over the 14,000 foot-high mountain separating Tora Bora from Pakistan. He said unidentified officials at higher headquarters rejected his proposal. Fury suggested dropping GATOR mines in the passes leading away from Tora Bora, but this was also denied. Fury and his team approached the suspected position from the front and were within 2,000 meters, but withdrew because of uncertainty over the number of al-Qaeda fighters and a lack of support from allied Afghan troops.^[47]

 

A short time later, the Afghan military forces declared a ceasefire with al-Qaeda. In his 2008 book, Kill bin Laden, Fury described the following. His team planned to advance again on the al-Qaeda forces, but after the cease-fire, Afghan soldiers drew their weapons on the US soldiers. After 12 hours of negotiations, the Afghans stood down, but bin Laden and his bodyguards had left. Fury reports that his team intercepted and interpreted radio calls by bin Laden in the afternoon of December 13, 2001. He said to his fighters, "the time is now, arm your women and children against the infidel." Then, after a few hours of bombing, bin Laden broke radio silence again, saying: "Our prayers were not answered. Times are dire and bad. We did not get support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers. Things might have been different." Fury said that bin Laden's final words to his fighters that night were "I'm sorry for getting you involved in this battle if you can no longer resist, you may surrender with my blessing."^[48]

During his interview on 60 Minutes to discuss his book, Fury said that his team saw a group whom they believed to be bin Laden and his bodyguards entering a cave. The team called down several bombing attacks on the site, and believed that they had killed bin Laden. Six months later, US and Canadian forces returned and checked several caves in the area, finding remains of al-Qaeda fighters, but not of bin Laden. Fury thought that bin Laden was injured during the bombing of the cave, but was hidden, given medical care, and assisted out of the area into Pakistan by allied local Afghans.^[47]

U.S. authorities have justified the continued detention of several dozen Afghan Guantanamo captives by the suspicion they had participated in the battle of Tora Bora, had been present during the battle, or had passed through the area of the battle before or after it concluded, or helped Osama bin Laden to escape.^[49]

In September 2007, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, a Yemeni medical doctor held as an enemy combatant by the United States, was reported to have described the conditions during the battle:^[50]

"Most of all the total guns in the Tora Bora area was 16 Kalashnikovs and there are 200 people."^[50] He also said, "He [Osama bin Laden] came for a day to visit the area and we talked to him and we wanted to leave this area. He said he didn't know where to go himself and the second day he escaped and was gone."^[50]

 

Following Tora Bora, UK and U.S. forces and their Afghan allies consolidated their position in the country. The Taliban and al-Qaeda forces did not give up and went into hiding. A Loya jirga or grand council of major Afghan factions, tribal leaders, and former exiles, an interim Afghan government, was established in Kabul under Hamid Karzai. Mullah Saifur Rehman, a Taliban fugitive in Paktia province, began rebuilding some of his militia forces in support of the anti-US fighters. They totaled over 1,000 by the beginning of Operation Anaconda in March 2002. The insurgents planned to use the region as a base for launching guerrilla attacks and possibly a major offensive in the style of the mujahedin during the 1980s.^[51]

U.S. forces established their main base at Bagram Air Base just north of Kabul. They used Kandahar International Airport as an important base for accepting and distributing supplies and personnel. Several outposts were established in eastern provinces to hunt for Taliban and Al-Qaeda fugitives. The number of U.S. troops operating in the country would eventually grow to more than 10,000 as efforts against the Taliban and al-Qaeda were increased.

In 2009, a U.S. Senate report concluded that the failure to capture bin Laden "[laid] the foundation for today's protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan."^[52] Al-Qaeda forces began regrouping in the Shahi-Kot mountains of Paktia Province throughout January and February 2002.

 

In December 2009, New Republic published Peter Bergen's "The Battle for Tora Bora"^[53] In his critique of the battle, Bergen reconstructed the U.S. allies engagement at Tora Bora. He said that General Tommy Franks, then U.S. Army chief, refused to deploy 800 Army Rangers from nearby bases to assault the complex of caves where bin Laden was supposedly hiding. Bergen characterized this as "one of the greatest military blunders in recent US history".^[53] Bergen says that the US failure to capture bin Laden at the time provided energy to the Taliban. It regrouped and became stronger after U.S. officials diverted forces for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and war there.

U.S. intelligence agencies continued to track bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden, who was living in a compound in the city of Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. He was killed by a US Navy SEAL raid on the urban compound.

Tora Bora refers to a fortress-like section of Spin Ghar, which is also known as the White Mountains.^[4] In the 1980s, this area was a key battleground for the Mujahideen fighters in their resistance against the Soviet-backed communist regime. Osama bin Laden, being the scion of a wealthy Saudi construction tycoon, used his resources to fund and build tunnel complexes in the mountains during the Soviet–Afghan War. He also attracted scores of foreign Islamist fighters to Afghanistan, transforming the local resistance into a global Jihad.^[54]

During an interview with the New York Times, Masood Farivar, a former Mujahideen fighter who had fought in Tora Bora during the war with the Soviets, explained the significance of the caves:

"They're rugged, formidable and isolated, If you know them, you can come and go with ease. But if you don't, they're a labyrinth that you can't penetrate. They rise in some places to 14,000 feet, and for 10 years the Soviets pummeled them with everything they had, but to absolutely no avail. Another reason they're so important is their proximity to the border and to Pakistan"^[9]

After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, Osama bin Laden left Afghanistan. However, he returned in 1996 with his wives and children after being expelled from Sudan. Once back in Afghanistan, he began expanding his fortress and building base camps at higher elevations. Bin Laden took the time to intimately familiarize himself with the area, hiking for long periods with his sons and committing the geography to memory.^[4]

Tora Bora has been variously described by the Western media as an impregnable cave fortress housing 2000 men complete with a hospital, a hydroelectric power plant, offices, a hotel, arms and ammunition stores, roads large enough to drive a tank into, and elaborate tunnel and ventilation systems.^[55] Both the British and American press has published elaborate plans of the base. When presented with such plans in an NBC interview on Meet the Press, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense, said, "This is serious business, there's not one of those, there are many of those".^[56][57][58]

When Tora Bora was eventually captured by the U.S., British and Afghan troops, no traces of the supposed 'fortress' were found despite painstaking searches in the surrounding areas. Tora Bora turned out to be a system of small natural caves housing, at most, 200 fighters. While arms and ammunition stores were found, and while Soviet tanks had been driven into some of the caves,^[59] there were no traces of the advanced facilities claimed to exist.^[58][60]

In an interview published by the Public Broadcasting Service, a Staff Sergeant from the U.S. Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 572, who had been in the Battle of Tora Bora described the caves:

"Again, with the caves, they weren't these crazy mazes or labyrinths of caves that they described. Most of them were natural caves. Some were supported with some pieces of wood maybe about the size of a 10-foot by 24-foot room, at the largest. They weren't real big. I know they made a spectacle out of that, and how are we going to be able to get into them? We worried about that too, because we see all these reports. Then it turns out, when you actually go up there, there's really just small bunkers, and a lot of different ammo storage is up there."^[61]

Journalist Matthew Forney, covering the battle, described being allowed access to see "rough bunkers" deep in the mountains, which he considered "remarkable."

"After my eyes adjusted I saw a chamber of about eight square feet and high enough for a tall man to stand in. The floor was dirt and rubble, but there were signs of habitation. It contained two empty white boxes decorated with palm trees and the words, "Sherjah Dates." Scattered on the floor were a few green metal boxes of ammunition with Russian writing on them, and a canister about the size of an unexploded cluster bomb but the wrong color — red instead of yellow. Another cave next to it was about the same size and filled with ammunition, mostly bullets for Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades. Another nearby was much bigger and also filled with ammunition. Its cavern sloped up and back and seemed to lead to a passage, but nobody ventured in."^[62]

• War in Afghanistan (1978–present)
• British Special Forces
• CIA's Special Activities Division
• Operation Anaconda
• Osama bin Laden
  • Death of Osama bin Laden
• U.S. Army's Delta Force
• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
• Battle of Baghuz Fawqani — The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's last stand in Syria

• Bergen, Peter L. (August 3, 2021). The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden: The Biography. Simon & Schuster.
• Malkasian, Carter (June 15, 2021). The American War in Afghanistan: A History (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tora Bora in the War in Afghanistan (2001-2014).

• Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda, Gary Berntsen, Three Rivers Press ISBN 0-307-35106-8, Published December 24, 2006 (paperback).
• Online map and picture The Washington Post. December 10, 2008.
• The Long Hunt for Osama Peter Bergen, The Atlantic Monthly. Oct. 2004
• Tora Bora John Bowman, CBC News Online. Dec. 2001
• The Tora Bora Fortress Myth? Edward Epstein, The Times. November 29, 2001
• Lost at Tora Bora Mary Anne Weaver, The New York Times. September 11, 2005
• How bin Laden got away Phillip Smucker, The Christian Science Monitor. March 4, 2002
• Michael R. Gordon (December 23, 2001). "A NATION CHALLENGED: SURVIVORS; On Tora Bora, Horror Rained On Al Qaeda". New York Times. Retrieved February 1, 2008.
• Bergen, Peter (December 30, 2009). "The Battle for Tora Bora". The New Republic. Archived from the original on May 8, 2013. Retrieved July 15, 2013.