ISIL claims it has taken over bin Laden’s Tora Bora mountain fortress.

Taliban denies caves have been taken over

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claims it has seized Osama bin Laden’s infamous Tora Bora mountain hideout in eastern Afghanistan.

A black- and- white flag was hoisted above the huge cave complex, according to a radio bulletin by ISIL, which also claimed to have taken over several nearby villages. “Those areas around Tora Bora were a Taliban stronghold, but now Daesh militants captured them during fighting,” the police commander in the area, Shah Wali, said, using an Arabic term for ISIL.

The Taliban said that the group had occupied areas around Tora Bora, in Nangarhar province, but denied that i t had captured the caves.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said up to 40 ISIL fighters were killed in clashes Thursday, and a handful arrested.

Nangarhar borders with Pakistan and is the main foothold of ISIL’s Afghanistan cell, which emerged t wo years ago and has vowed to replace the Taliban as the dominant Islamist force in the region. The Afghan chapter is believed to have drawn dozens of Taliban fighters and hopes to eventually topple President Ashraf Ghani.

The capture of Tora Bora would mark a significant symbolic victory for ISIL and grant it a major tactical advantage in their clashes with the Taliban.

The assault comes two months after the United States dropped the largest non- nuclear bomb in the world — referred to as the “mother of all bombs” — in Achin, southern Nangarhar, killing at least 92 ISIL fighters.

“After Achin, Daesh was looking for a second stronghold and now they have it,” Wali said.

Alim Eshaqzai, the deputy governor of Nangarhar, said President Ghani had dispatched the country’s 201st army corps to flush out the remaining fighters.

Inside the mountains lies a vast network of caves in which al- Qaida militants led by bin Laden hid from U. S. coalition forces in 2001, following 9/11.

U. S . special forces, backed by British troops, spent two weeks attacking the cave complex in December 2001, in a search that failed to turn up bin Laden.

He eventually fled Tora Bora to the north- eastern Kunar province, before crossing the border i nto Pakistan, where he hid in a compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

Bin Laden was killed in a raid by Navy Seals in May 2011.

America estimates that there are about 800 ISIL f i ghters in Afghanistan, mostly restricted to Nangarhar.

Other estimates say their ranks also i nclude thousands of battle- hardened Uzbek militants.