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Bin Laden slips clutches of SAS By agencies in London

03dec01

A HAND-PICKED group of British Special Forces operatives stormed one of suspected terror chief Osama bin Laden's mountain strongholds – missing him by just two hours.

Four soldiers from the elite Special Air Service were wounded in a fierce battle in the caves of the Hada mountains, southeast of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, the Mail on Sunday said.

The conflict featured the largest deployment of SAS troops in one battle since the war in Oman in the mid-1970s, the paper said.

"We were within a whisker of getting him. It was a hard battle and will have put the fear of God into his people," a source close to the regiment was quoted as saying.

"When prisoners were questioned it came out we had just missed him by about two hours," the source added.

Intelligence sources, also contacted by the paper, believed bin Laden fled as the battle began.

"The enemy were facing highly-trained and disciplined troops who, although outnumbered, had the tenacity, professionalism and firepower to terrorise them.

"Bin Laden knows the SAS are not far behind," one said.

The paper said that as soon as the decision was made to deploy coalition troops, the SAS was told its priority was to find bin Laden and Mullar Omar, the leader of the Taliban.

"There comes a time when all the missiles and Stealth bombers have done their bit and you have to get to grips with the enemy and kill him," an SAS source said.

In Kabul, the Northern Alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah, said he believed bin Laden was hiding in one of three provinces around Kandahar: Uruzgan, Zabul or Helmand.

Meanwhile, armoured convoys of US Marines patrolled the desert near Kandahar, the Taliban's last stronghold, after tribal warriors said they were determined to take its airport and then seize the city itself.

More than 1000 US Marines are stationed at a desert base about 110km southwest of Kandahar, but have not taken part in the fighting for Kandahar, an officer at the base said on condition of anonymity.

Warplanes hit positions around the city in Afghanistan's south. In the east, bombers struck positions in mountains near Jalalabad.

Refugees, who have fled Kandahar for the safety of neighbouring Pakistan, say the bombardment has brought chaos to the city, the Taliban's spiritual home.

Emboldened by air support, warriors from local Pashtun tribes claimed that they launched an assault on Saturday night on Taliban forces defending Kandahar's airport.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001