- AMID the rubble of Shah-i-Kot, the Al-Qaeda terror
network's
last known mountain stronghold in Afghanistan, the only visible remains
of Osama Bin Laden's foot soldiers last week were three charred and mangled
bodies. A cheap digital watch still blinked around the broken wrist of
one of them until a passing Afghan soldier tore it off as a trophy.
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- In Washington, the Pentagon claimed to have killed
hundreds
of fighters. In Shah-i-Kot, however, the talk was of the hundreds more
who had slipped through the coils of Operation Anaconda, the American
military's
attempt to surround the village with an army of Afghan allies and crush
the life out of it.
-
- A member of the American special forces surveyed the
aftermath of a battle that had claimed the lives of eight US soldiers and
warned of more bloodshed to come. "This is far from over, said the
soldier, who identified himself only as Mark. "We killed a lot of
enemy fighters but many managed to escape further into the mountains. It's
a difficult task. The terrain is very tough and they have good escape
routes.
-
- American forces would have to stay in the area for at
least another month before moving on to seek out further pockets of
resistance,
he said. "We are trying to deny them areas where they can use bases.
This is the only way of getting them" by shrinking the water in which
the fish swims.
-
- For more than 10 days Shah-i-Kot, high in the Arma
mountains,
was the scene of fighting between 2,000 American and Afghan soldiers and
an estimated 1,000 Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants holed up in caves and
trenches. The mountain track that leads there is slow and winding.
-
- Two Apache attack helicopters circled overhead as our
convoy of trucks crept past the point where Afghan troops led by a group
of Americans had been ambushed by Al-Qaeda.
-
- The ground was littered with spent ammunition shells
and tattered US leaflets calling on the Afghan people to rise up against
Al-Qaeda. Close by, the burnt-out remains of an American four-wheel drive
marked the spot where US helicopters had bombed some of their own vehicles
during a retreat to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. At least
one Afghan fighter was killed.
-
- At the entrance to Shah-i-Kot, a donkey foraged for food
on a rocky ridge where the three Al-Qaeda fighters had been killed by an
American bomb. All that was left of their possessions were a toothbrush
and a tube of toothpaste, the shredded remains of a backpack, sacks of
flour and sugar, and two burnt-out radio-cassette players There was also
a handwritten note in the Cyrillic alphabet listing ammunition stocks,
suggesting that the fighters had included some Chechens.
-
- "They put up a serious fight but eventually we drove
them out of here, said Dalaqa, 35, an Afghan soldier who fought alongside
American special forces. "I killed a Pakistani Taliban as he tried
to escape out of a cave. Inside I found the bodies of two Arabs who were
killed by bombs.
-
- The scene in the village was apocalyptic. It had once
contained dozens of walled mud forts and houses; all had been razed. As
the Afghan soldiers celebrated victory, a group of haggard, heavily armed
US special forces soldiers sporting reflective sunglasses and long beards
drove past in an armoured jeep.
-
- One of them had written "The love machine in the
dust on its side.
-
- It could be at least two weeks before all the caves
around
Shah-i-Kot are searched and the final death toll is known. But there is
no doubt about the hundreds of fighters who survived to seek refuge near
Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. The most senior figure to get away
was Saif Rakhman, the nephew of a former Taliban agriculture
minister.
-
- Last week some 500 Afghan troops were preparing to open
a new front against Taliban and Al-Qaeda sympathisers in Kharwar, a village
northwest of Shah-i-Kot, where Bin Laden supporters have been reported
to be distributing leaflets calling on Afghans to fight back.
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- "This is what it will be like for months to come,
said Said Isaaq, chief of police in Gardez, 90 miles southeast of Kabul.
"They will find a pocket, bomb it, kill a few and declare victory
while the others will escape further into the mountains.
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- http://www.sunday-times.co.uk
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