Search for bin Laden: US troops landed in Jelalabad

Two US aircraft have landed at the Jelalabad airport to take part in operation for the search and annihilation of Osama bin Laden. According to information agencies, referring to Doon newspaper, international terrorist number one is hiding himself in the underground city created in Tora Bora mountains, at a distance of 50 km towards the southwest from Jelalabad, Nangarhar province’s capital. This underground capital was built when the Mojahed were fighting against Soviet troops. In May of 1996, Osama bin Laden founded his first base with water and food reserves, ammunition depots, and sources of electric energy. About 1,500 militants – Pakistanis and Arabs belonging to personal guard of “sheikh Osama” - are supposed to hide themselves together with bin Laden. Hadji Mohammad Zaman, the new commander of Pashtun troops, who had inherited power from the Taliban in Nangarhar, telephoned that he possessed his own plan of “Tora Bora occupation and of cleansing this region from foreign militants."

However, at the same time, he admitted that he would need the anti-terrorist coalition’s support. Zaman told to Doon newspaper that he had sent to this region a group of elders expecting that they would convince the mercenaries to give up. They should have taken this decision by this Monday. Though, “now, the time is up, so we are preparing for a military operation,” the Pashtun leader said.

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/12/04/34486.html