Bin Laden's escape options narrowing, says Pentagon

WASHINGTON -- U.S. commanders believe they are quickly narrowing Osama bin Laden's options for escape from the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Yet even as U.S.-backed tribal forces advance in the rugged Tora Bora region, no one seems certain whether bin Laden is even there.

"The honest answer is we really don't know," Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. war commander, said Friday.

If bin Laden is still there, he has little room to maneuver.

Afghan tribal forces, operating with a few dozen U.S. commandos and supported by American air power, are closing in from the north, and Pakistani troops stand in bin Laden's way to the south. American forces are not with the Pakistanis, but U.S. officials believe Pakistan wants to keep bin Laden out.

U.S. surveillance planes, including high-altitude Air Force U-2s and an unmanned Global Hawk, are scanning the mountain passes to the east and west, and the al-Qaida fighters thought to be shielding bin Laden in Tora Bora are being targeted by relentless American bombing. Franks said those al-Qaida troops do not have enough ammunition, food or water to hold out indefinitely in the mountains.

Waiting game

"We can wait longer than they can," Franks told a news conference in Tampa, Fla.

Pentagon officials on Friday were reluctant to embrace the notion that bin Laden has been surrounded.

"We do not have his precise location," said Victoria Clarke, chief spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who left Friday on a trip to Central Asia to discuss the war on terrorism.

U.S. commanders have increased the number of Special Operations Forces in the Tora Bora area in recent days. They are now doing more than calling in U.S. airstrikes and advising the Afghan fighters. Franks said Friday they are engaged in direct combat with al-Qaida warriors. Other officials said they are ready to snatch bin Laden or other al-Qaida leaders if the opportunity arises.

Franks said he has a "plan in place" for dealing with bin Laden if he is captured alive. The four-star Army general would not discuss the plan in detail but said any senior al-Qaida leaders who are taken might be interrogated at U.S.-controlled sites inside Afghan-istan or taken to U.S. ships in the Arabian Sea.

Tora Bora was thought to be a hide-out for bin Laden because it contains many caves, some highly fortified and with accommodations that could enable him to hunker down for a long period.

Ready for unexpected

Rumsfeld doesn't exclude any possibility, and he's insisting the U.S. military be ready for the unexpected. That's one reason why U.S. Navy ships are watching the waters off Pakistan's coast, in case senior al-Qaida leaders or top Taliban officials try to smuggle themselves out of the region.

Rumsfeld has not ruled out the chance that bin Laden may be in central Afghanistan, in the mountains north of Kandahar. On Thursday he said he assumes bin Laden laid plans for an alternate hide-out in the event he had to flee Afghanistan. If he did escape, Rumsfeld said, U.S. forces would pursue him.

Hunting in Kandahar

The U.S. Marines, meanwhile, are in the Kandahar area ready to grab any senior al-Qaida or Taliban leaders who might try to escape that southern city. With an eye out for the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, Marines have blocked roads leading south from Kandahar toward the Pakistan border and west toward Iran.

President Bush on Friday said he remains confident of getting bin Laden, no matter how long it takes.

"I don't know whether we're going to get him tomorrow or a month from now or a year from now," Bush said. "But we're going to get him."