Afghan tribesmen, U.S. special forces advance in snow

TORA BORA, Afghanistan -- As U.S. planes strafed and bombed al-Qaida positions, Afghan tribesmen and American special forces advanced against Osama bin Laden's fighters in a snowy mountain canyon Thursday, vowing to wipe them out after surrender negotiations fell through.

The United States has sent more special operations forces into the Tora Bora region, where they could engage in direct combat with al-Qaida fighters who may be protecting Osama bin Laden, defense officials said Thursday.

Intense bombing and advances by U.S. commandos and anti-Taliban rebels have reduced substantially the area in which bin Laden and his forces can operate safely within the cave-dotted mountains near Tora Bora, U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Officials believe bin Laden may be bottled up with his forces in the Tora Bora region, but admit he could be elsewhere in Afghanistan.

But commanders in the tribal eastern alliance said top terrorists who they believed were among the al-Qaida forces may have escaped toward the nearby border with Pakistan.

Snow slows escapes

Heavy snow fell around the Tora Bora area in Afghanistan's eastern White Mountains, making escape more difficult for the Arab and foreign Muslim fighters trapped for days in a heavily forested canyon after fleeing al-Qaida caves.

U.S. warplanes provided close air support as alliance fighters -- with American special forces moving alongside to call in U.S. airstrikes -- advanced up the Milawa valley in an assault launched after a second deadline for the al-Qaida fighters to surrender passed at noon Thursday.

After sundown Thursday, B-52 bombers carpet-bombed the higher mountain ridges near the Pakistani border, creating spectacular orange flashes in the night. An AC-130 gunship resumed attacks for the third night in a row.

If not for the surrender talks over the past two days, "this would have been finished," Hazrat Ali, security chief for the eastern alliance, said. "Now we will fight them until we annihilate them."

Information on bin Laden

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon believes bin Laden is still in Afghanistan, though he acknowledged reports that he left the country.

He said the United States was getting "scraps of information" about bin Laden from Afghans, Pakistanis and others. "He is in hiding. We are asking everyone to help."

As for bin Laden's fighters, Rumsfeld said, "There's no doubt in my mind that any number of al-Qaida have gone across various borders and do intend to fight another day and we intend to find them and keep looking."

The Pentagon has said Tora Bora -- a network of caves and tunnels in the White Mountains -- is the last effective al-Qaida stronghold in Afghanistan.

Ali, of the eastern alliance, said surrender offers by the al-Qaida fighters holed up in Tora Bora had been "a trick" to give leaders an escape.

In other developments:

Britain was trying to put together a multinational force and make sure Afghanistan approves it before formally announcing, possibly today, that it will lead a peacekeeping effort.

In the eastern city of Jalalabad, 200 Pakistani prisoners who fought alongside the Taliban were released Wednesday and were making their way home. The release was made to mark of Islam's upcoming Eid al-Fitr feast that follows Ramadan.