Isil seizes control of bin Laden’s mountain fortress
Terror group claims to have taken key Taliban hideout as it looks to consolidate power in Afghanistan
ISIL 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 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (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 it had captured the caves.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told The Daily Telegraph that up to 40 Isil fighters were killed in clashes yesterday, and a handful arrested.
Nangarhar borders Pakistan and is the main foothold of Isil’s Afghanistan cell, which emerged two 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 into the fold 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,” Mr Wali said.
Alim Eshaqzai, the deputy governor of Nangarhar, said that Mr 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-qaeda militants led by bin Laden hid from US coalition forces in 2001, following the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York.
American special forces, backed by British troops, spent two weeks attacking the cave complex in December 2001, in a search that failed to find bin Laden.
He eventually fled Tora Bora to the north-eastern Kunar province, before crossing the border into Pakistan, where he hid in a compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad.
Bin Laden was then killed in a raid by US Navy Seals in May 2011, which prompted a major diplomatic row as furious Pakistanis complained that the American raid had violated their sovereignty.
America estimates that there are about 800 Isil fighters in Afghanistan, mostly restricted to Nangarhar. Other estimates say their ranks also include thousands of battle-hardened Uzbek militants.
Last week Russia announced that it was reinforcing two of its bases in central Asia, in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, with its newest weapons because of fears of a “spill-over of terrorist activities from Afghanistan” by Afghan Isil.
“The group’s strategy to establish an Islamic caliphate poses a threat not only to Afghanistan but also to the neighbouring countries,” said Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister.