The Taliban

22 Pages 5380 Words

The white mountains
of Afghanistan are
beautiful this time of
year. Snow blankets
the peaks from Kabul to the Khyber Pass, smothering the ancient
smugglers' footpaths that lead out of the country and into Pakistan.
With the arrival of winter, human traffic in the mountains comes to
a halt and the terrain is enveloped in an otherworldly calm.

Last week the hush was shattered by the blasts of hundreds of
American bombs, the rattle of Kalashnikovs and the roar of tanks
and pickup trucks carrying about 1,000 anti-Taliban soldiers into
the Tora Bora cave complex to deliver a final reckoning to Osama
bin Laden. The Afghans crept through the valleys and into the
caves in the wake of U.S. air strikes, hoping to nab enemy militants
as they tried to scramble to higher ground.

But things did not proceed quite as planned. On Thursday, 60
fighters ventured past a front line near the village of Melawa and
took up positions on a hill that offered a clear line of fire. Moments
later al-Qaeda snipers protecting bin Laden began firing from a
crest above. Six men were gravely wounded. The hunters
evacuated the injured, then beat a retreat, done for the day. "We
were thinking we'd be bold and courageous," said one. "They were
waiting for us."

For the Taliban, for Osama bin Laden and his dwindling legion of
lieutenants, Tora Bora is the last sanctuary. The Taliban's barbaric
and medieval rule unraveled for good last week as the regime's
soldiers fled ...