Tora Bora, Afghanistan
Osama bin Laden and hundreds of his al Qaida cohorts escaped from the Tora Bora cave compound last winter because U.S. and Pakistani troops were unable to guard the Afghan borders, Newsweek reported this week. Afghan villagers told the magazine that the Americans bombed only one of the two main escape routes, and Pakistani troops didn’t reach the border region until many al Qaida members had already slipped into Pakistan or Iran. Bin Laden and two dozen followers went to Shah-i-kot, an Afghan mountain stronghold, in December, according to a Taliban guide. The man said he led the group on a brutal five-day trip through snowy mountains on horseback. “Osama rarely got down from his horse, he was such an expert rider,” the man said. A Taliban soldier said he saw bin Laden rallying the troops in Shah-i-kot several months later.
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