Anti-Taliban forces have advanced unopposed as the US continued bombing into the cave-riddled mountains of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden may be hiding, a commander said today.
"Bombing continues," Hazrat Ali told reporters by telephone from the eastern city of Jalalabad. "We have taken some areas which they (bin Laden's men) left around Tora Bora. They pulled out from these areas without a fight."
He said his fighters, who left Jalalabad in a convoy of pickup trucks yesterday, were delaying a final assault to make sure they were not inadvertently hit by US air strikes.
"We are sending more men and coordinating the modality of the battle before a final push," Ali said. "Fighting may start today or tomorrow after the coordination issues are sorted out. Yesterday, American planes were about to bomb civilians and our people and we want to make sure that they can identify our men."
Ali said yesterday US air strikes had killed 12 members of bin Laden's al Qaeda network in the previous two days in or around his suspected underground hideout in Tora Bora, about 55 kilometres south of Jalalabad.