Hundreds of Afghan mujahideen troops, backed by British and American commandos, last night surrounded a mountain cave in eastern Afghanistan where they believe Osama bin Laden and a dwindling force of hardcore al-Qaeda fighters are hiding.
US jets delivered devastating bombing raids on the cave, high on a ridge in the mountains at Tora Bora, throughout the day. Huge orange fireballs and plumes of acrid black smoke rose into the sky around a small target area.
"Al-Qaeda is in one place, they are surrounded and we are fighting them. There is one cave surrounded by my forces. I think Osama bin Laden is there," said Hazarat Ali, one of the main Afghan commanders leading the Tora Bora attack.
"Al-Qaeda is finished in Tora Bora. We have them surrounded. They cannot escape." US military officials have said they have good reason to believe bin Laden is holed up in Tora Bora. They point to the ferocity of al-Qaeda fighters around the redoubt, but also claim to have intelligence reports pointing to the militant Saudi's presence.
President George Bush last night reiterated his total indifference as to whether Bin Laden was killed or captured. "I don't care, dead or alive, either way. It doesn't matter to me." Claiming that the Taliban had been totally eliminated as a force, he vowed US forces were "going to get" bin Laden sooner or later.
There were reports yesterday that two US special forces soldiers had been wounded in close combat around Tora Bora. According to CNN, the two soldiers had been shot while attacking an al-Qaeda machinegun nest.
Mujahideen soldiers, who have already overrun the main al-Quaeda command centre in Tora Bora, pushed up higher into the mountains and captured caves where they found heavy weapons, including rocket launchers and computerised mortars, as well as Arabic and Urdu-language books. Commander Ali said there was evidence that the cave was recently occupied by bin Laden.
A last force of up to 180 Arab fighters is now thought to have retreated to a large cave, blasted into the mountain rock near the villages of Wazir and Azam, high in the peaks of the White Mountains on the Pakistan border.
"We have seen the place," said Mohammad Syed Pahlawan, a commander from another Afghan faction. "The US is bombing the area, but the opening of the cave is safe from bombing.
For several days mujahideen commanders have reported sightings of bin Laden in Tora Bora, but there has been no clear proof that the world's most wanted man is sheltering at what used to be his most important al-Quaeda base.
A Pakistani news agency, the Afghan Islamic Press, which has close Taliban links, said last night it believed the Saudi dissident escaped to Tora Bora when the Taliban fled Kabul but had left the area more than two weeks ago, at the same time as the US bombing intensified.
Moments after each bombing raid yesterday, defiant al-Qaeda snipers and machine-gunners fired on the two mud huts barely a mile away, where the senior mujahideen commanders co-ordinated the attack.
Commander Ali sat on a wooden bed talking to his frontline commanders over the radio as bullets thudded into the dirt just yards from his feet. Mujahideen tanks fired back into the mountains.
"They cannot escape. We have blocked all the routes," he said. "Behind that position there is another mountain and it is covered with snow." Several Arab fighters had died in the battle and many others were injured near the cave, he said. At least eight were thought to have been captured.
As the fighting slowed towards evening Commander Ali began negotiating with al-Qaeda leaders over the radio. He spoke for several minutes with Marajuddin, a local Afghan Taliban commander who was fighting alongside the al-Qaeda troops.
"If you are still with the Arabs and you don't surrender yourself you are a second Osama for us," Commander Ali told him. "I cannot tell you what will happen to you if you surrender yourself to us. It is the decision of the shura (council)." He said he would accept only an unconditional surrender.
He also instructed Marajuddin to speak to one of the senior Arab commanders, a man he named as Salahuddin, to discuss an end to the fighting.
Negotiations over a surrender broke down earlier this week and mujahideen leaders blamed the collapse of talks on American pressure.
Senior mujahideen commanders are uneasy about the role of British and US special forces troops in the attack. At least 18 mujahideen soldiers have been killed by US bombs.
At first, US soldiers were calling in air strikes to co-ordinate with the mujahideen attack. Now armed troops have been seen patrolling the hills and are thought to be heavily involved in the fighting.
Haji Zahir, a leading commander and son of the Jalalabad governor Abdul Qadir, yesterday scoffed at the $25m offered by the FBI for information on bin Laden. "We have not come here for the money," he said. "We want to clear our country of terrorists. We were born in this area. We fought the Russians in this area. We know every inch of these mountains. It is not necessary for the Americans to come for their investigation."