Battle of Tora Bora (2001)
The Battle of Tora Bora, fought in December 2001 in Afghanistan, was a pivotal military engagement during the early stages of the U.S.-led War on Terror. Following the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding in Tora Bora's extensive cave system, a stronghold he had developed during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s. U.S. forces, in conjunction with Afghan militia fighters, launched an intense bombing campaign aimed at capturing bin Laden and his al-Qaeda leadership. Despite the assault, bin Laden and many militants managed to escape, leading to significant controversy regarding the U.S. military’s strategy and reliance on local forces.
Critics argue that the decision not to deploy additional American ground troops hindered the operation's success, while some military leaders defended this approach as consistent with a strategy to minimize American footprint in the region. The aftermath of the battle raised questions about intelligence reliability and the effectiveness of local Afghan alliances. Tora Bora became emblematic of the challenges faced in the ongoing pursuit of al-Qaeda, influencing perceptions of U.S. military operations and counter-terrorism efforts for years to come. Bin Laden remained a significant figure in global terrorism until his death in 2011 in Pakistan.
Battle of Tora Bora (2001)
Summary The battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that occurred in Afghanistan in December 2001, shortly after the War in Afghanistan began. The battle represents a singular event in a series of diplomatic and military efforts to capture the architect of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, which lasted from the mid-1990's until bin Laden's death in May 2011. Two months after the invasion of Afghanistan, al Qaeda was believed to be hiding in the mountainous region of Tora Bora, where bin Laden had overseen the creation of a complex cave stronghold during the Afghanistan jihad in the 1980's. In December 2001, American forces launched an intense assault on Tora Bora, and despite successfully overtaking the complex, bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership managed to flee roughly two weeks later. The effort to apprehend bin Laden at Tora Bora resulted in longstanding controversy over the tactics used by the U.S. military.
Background Tora Bora, a mountainous area in northeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, has been a stronghold of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda since the Soviet War in Afghanistan in the 1980's. Approximately three months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, CIA agents inside Afghanistan reported that bin Laden and an estimated 500 - 2,000 al Qaeda militants were hiding out in Tora Bora's complex network of caves. In order to flush bin Laden out, intelligence agents called for a large-scale U.S. ground assault to buttress an intense bombing campaign. CIA paramilitary officers were inserted with a highly trained Afghan force, but the requested U.S. ground troops were not authorized. Although the forces overran the complex within less than a week, it is theorized that bin Laden and most of the al Qaeda militants had escaped, evidently for sanctuary in Pakistan or elsewhere in Afghanistan.
In the wake of the battle, "Tora Bora" became the subject of heated debate over U.S. military actions - specifically, whether the military relied too heavily on local Afghan militiamen and whether more American troops should have been dispatched to capture the cave complex and to cut off bin Laden's escape route, long presumed to have been into Pakistan. Until May 2011, al Qaeda and its leader continued to be the focal point of the global War on Terror until bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.
History
Tora Bora is a rugged region in the northern end of the Spin Ghar Mountains in eastern Afghanistan, located about 30 miles southeast of Jalalabad. Given its system of natural caves, Tora Bora was used by the Afghan insurgency against the Soviets in the 1980's. At that time, bin Laden is said to have overseen the creation of a viable fortress in the cave system by enlarging the caverns, linking them with tunnels, implementing ventilation systems, etc.
After the American invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, U.S. intelligence reported that bin Laden had fled the city of Jalalabad and taken refuge in the Tora Bora complex. In December 2011, the U.S. military launched an intense American bombing campaign in concert with a trained Afghan ground force. Before the invasions, U.S. intelligence agents had urged then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, commander of Operation Iraqi Freedom, to send a strong contingent of U.S. ground troops as well, both to inspect the caves and to block possible bin Laden escape routes. The request was not approved.
The decision not to send in more ground troops became a longstanding controversy in the aftermath of the battle. Some critics alleged that the United States lost a key opportunity to achieve its stated goal of capturing and punishing bin Laden and al Qaeda for the attacks of September 11. In defense of the decision, General Franks insisted in his memoirs that there was no definitive evidence that bin Laden was present at Tora Bora; a large-scale assault by the U.S. military would have therefore contradicted the U.S. strategy to "tread lightly" and leave fighting against the Taliban to Afghans. At the time, the United States was allied with Afghan militias known as the Northern Alliance.
On November 30, 2009, a report titled "Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today" was published by the majority staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Written eight years after the Battle of Tora Bora, after the conflict in Afghanistan has escalated significantly, "the Kerry Report" examined the chain of events and command decisions that took place in Tora Bora, attempted to determine why the mission failed to finish the job, and explored the consequences of the failure. The report was extremely critical of the decision not launch a large-scale military assault on Tora Bora. According to the report, bin Laden's escape into Pakistan allowed him to emerge as a powerful symbolic figure who could attract money, recruits, and allies around the world - laying the groundwork for a protracted insurgency. Following the report's publication, another 18 months passed before bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seal commandos inside a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The wisdom of the strategy and tactics employed in December 2001 have remained a point of contention; many have argued that the mission's failure allowed al Qaeda to regain its strength, bolster the conflict in Afghanistan, and focus on worldwide targets, making citizens of Great Britain and other countries more vulnerable to terrorism. Other accounts argued that the most current intelligence reports on bin Laden's whereabouts were inconclusive and did not justify dispatching large numbers of troops to capture him or to prevent his escape.
Cast of Characters
Osama bin Laden. Founder (late 1988-1989) and former head of al Qaeda, the militarist Islamist group blamed for the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington on September 11, 2001. Advocate of global jihad focused principally on American influence over Muslim lands. Ally of the fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan, 1994-2001. "Most Wanted" terrorist from 2001-2011. Tracked to compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed in a U.S. commando raid on May 1, 2011.
General Tommy Franks. (ret. 2003). In charge of the U.S. Central Command based in Florida and commanded Operation Iraqi Freedom. Long-defended the decision not to commit more American troops to the battle of Tora Bora, insisting that intelligence about Bin Laden's presence at Tora Bora was inconclusive.
Donald Rumsfeld. U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1975-1977; 2001-2006. Advocate of "tread lightly" tactics adopted in Afghanistan, in contrast to the "Powell Doctrine" that advocated overwhelming military force.
George Tenet. Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Henry Crumpton. Head of special operations, CIA counter-terrorism unit; chief of CIA's Afghan strategy. Personally briefed President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, urging authorization of more U.S. troops to block escape routes from Tora Bora.
Dalton Fury. The pseudonym used by a U.S. military officer who commanded approximately 90 special operations troops at Tora Bora. Later wrote a recollection of the battle of Tora Bora called Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man (St. Martin's Press, 2008). His account of the battle played a significant role in the Kerry Report.
Haji Zaman Ghamsharik. Afghan drug smuggler who had returned to Afghanistan at the urging of U.S. forces in order to recruit local militiamen. Although Ghamsharik fielded a force of 2,000 Afghans, their loyalty was questioned. Some have argued that competing loyalties and distrust caused the 12-hour ceasefire on December 12, which gave time for several hundred al Qaeda fighters to escape ("Tora Bora Revisited," 2009).
Hazret Ali. Afghan militia leader who led the campaign against Taliban in Jalalabad in November 2001 and became security chief of "Eastern Shura," a short-lived government declared for the region. With Ghamsharik, played a major role in American efforts to use Afghan fighters at Tora Bora.
Chronology
Following is a condensed chronology of events surrounding the Battle of Tora Bora in 2011, widely described as a key opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden.
November 10: Osama bin Laden rallies his forces at his headquarters in Jalalabad, five hours east of Kabul, vowing to use the same tactics against the invading Americans that were used against the Soviet army in the 1980's.
November 12: Kabul falls to U.S. and allied invasion forces. The United States intensifies its bombing campaign in the vicinity of Jalalabad.
November 13: Bin Laden leaves Jalalabad.
November 16: U.S. bombing of area of Tora Bora intensifies. Also in mid-November, the United States begins recruiting two local warlords, Hazret Ali and Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, to aid in the attack on Tora Bora.
December 5: The offensive against Tora Bora is launched. American commandos near the al Qaeda complex direct bombing with "laser target designators" within sight of the caves. The attack involves about 100 American special forces soldiers and several hundred Afghan militants recruited to aid in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban.
December 10: Directed by two American soldiers near al Qaeda positions, the U.S. carries out intensive air strikes for 17 consecutive hours. According to descriptions by captured al Qaeda fighters, some people inside the cave complex are "vaporized" by the bombing. Afghan militiamen capture terrain thought to be near where bin Laden is hiding.
December 11: Radio transmissions in Pashto declare, "Our guest brothers [referring to Arab fighters for al Qaeda] want to find safe passage out of your province." Americans agree to a 12-hour ceasefire in order to give large numbers of al Qaeda fighters opportunity to surrender; no fighters surrender. Later intelligence reports that up to 800 fighters used the ceasefire to escape.
December 16: Bin Laden flees Tora Bora to Pakistan. Afghan warlords report their troops have entered the caves of Tora Bora.
December 17: U.S. troops enter the Tora Bora complex, taking about 20 prisoners.
Disputes
More than nine years after the Battle of Tora Bora, several aspects of the battle remain in dispute:
Should the United States have sent more American troops to the area to block the flight of bin Laden and other al Qaeda members? This controversy is sometimes framed as a question of whether the United States relied too heavily on Afghan warlords to provide fighters at Tora Bora. The two principal Afghan allies, Haji Zaman Ghamsharik and Hazret Ali, were reportedly distrustful and jealous of one another, and also from different ethnic groups. There were also questions about the loyalties and competence of their fighters.
When did Bin Laden leave Tora Bora? Although many accounts say he fled the network of caves in mid-December, other accounts say bin Laden fled toward Pakistan during the last four days of November 2001.
Did Bin Laden actually flee east, toward Pakistan? In April 2011, The Guardian newspaper published documents leaked by WikiLeaks that suggested bin Laden had escaped with the aid of a "minor warlord." According to The Guardian: "At least two accounts from detainees and other intelligence collated by U.S. officials appear to indicate that in fact the al-Qaida leader [bin Laden] and [his second-in-command Ayman] al-Zawahiri headed north, slipping through the lines of the coalition forces and their Afghan auxiliaries to the house of an Afghan sympathizer called Awal Malim Gul in or near the city of Jalalabad. They 'rested' there before traveling further on horseback into the remote province of Kunar where they were to remain for 10 months."
Bibliography
Burke, Jason. "Guantánamo Bay files rewrite the story of Osama bin Laden's Tora Bora escape." Guardian. April 26, 2011.
Smucker, Philip. "How bin Laden got away." Christian Science Monitor. March 4, 2002.
Majority Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today." November 30, 2009.
Krause, Peter John Paul. "The Last Good Chance: A Reassessment of U.S. Operations at Tora Bora." Security Studies. 17:4 (October-December 2008). 41p.
Liu, Melinda, et al. Fortress Tora Bora. Newsweek. 138:24 (December 10, 2001) 2p.