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CNN SATURDAY MORNING NEWS

Taliban Fighters Believe Tora Bora Safe From Air Attack

Aired December 1, 2001 - 09:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: As the Taliban continues to disintegrate in Afghanistan, the search for Osama bin Laden is intensifying. As ITN reporter Paul Davis reports, the search has narrowed to a mountain cave said to be almost immune to air strikes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL DAVIS, ITN REPORTER (voice-over): The biggest manhunt in the world is now focusing on these mountains in eastern Afghanistan, and the caves where it seems increasingly likely Osama bin Laden is hiding.

An Afghan cameraman recently took pictures inside this cave network where fighters believe they're safe from American air attack.

Intelligence gathered by Britain and America suggest bin Laden and his most fanatical followers are sheltering nearby at Tora Bora, 30 miles from Jalalabad, in a cave complex that is an underground fortress.

The Russians spent years unsuccessfully attacking mujahideen rebels in Tora Bora. Recent air strikes by American reconnaissance aircraft have also failed because the caves are virtually invisible from above.

Locals say the caves have been cut more than 1,000 feet into the mountain, so deep even airborne thermal imaging equipment fails to detect them.

The 50-foot tunnel entrance to the caves is sloped to prevent bunker-busting bombs getting in. Inside, snow and stream water is used to generate electricity and heating. There are offices, bedrooms, and even underground armories. Exits are guarded and booby- trapped, the whole complex designed to resist attack.

DR. JAMES GOW, KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON: If bin Laden is in the Tora Bora complex, or indeed any similar complex, it's not going to be an easy job. This is a mountain complex which is not anything you could imagine when you use the word "caves."

DAVIS: The task of attacking Tora Bora is likely to fall to British and American Special Forces. One former SAS soldier says the Americans have a team ideally suited to the job. CHRIS RYAN, FORMER SAS SOLDIER: The Americans during the Vietnam War had a regiment called the Tunnel Rats, and they were used to clear all the underground complexes, which are similar to what we have in Afghanistan here. And the Tunnel Rats did it very successfully.

DAVIS (on camera): Military planners here at the ministry of defense and at the Pentagon have been aware for some weeks now that the final act of hunting down Osama bin Laden may prove much more difficult than defeating his Taliban allies. The greatest challenge facing British and American Special Forces is getting close enough to bin Laden to either take him alive or, more realistically, to conclusively prove he has been eliminated.

Paul Davis, ITN, at the ministry of defense.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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