PESHAWAR, Dec 5: Anti-Taliban fighters met with stiff resistance from Arab fighters Wednesday at the foothills of Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan, a suspected hideout of Saudi dissident Osama ben Laden, an Afghan commander said.

“There was fighting in the morning. The Arabs put up fierce resistance, forcing our fighters to retreat,” conceded an Afghan commander reached by satellite phone in Jalalaabad, capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

The commander said that hundreds of fighters of Nangarhar’s security chief Malik Hazrat Ali were forced to abandon their pick-up trucks and run for cover in the face of heavy gunfire from Osama’s supposed mountainous hideout.

The commander, who did not wish to be identified, said that the Arabs and their Taliban comrades seized seven vehicles of anti-Taliban fighters. Two anti-Taliban fighters were caught in the fire but their fate was not known.

Earlier in the day, Jalalabad’s military commander, Haji Muhammad Zaman rushed hundreds of his men to the battle scene to reinforce Malik Hazrat Ali and launch a coordinated offensive against Arab fighters.

Afghan commanders put the total number of Arabs in the Milawa region of Tora Bora at somewhere between fifteen hundred to two thousands that included Arabs, Pakistanis and the Taliban.

Tora Bora complex of mountain caves and tunnels is a key focus in their attempt to capture him and other members of al-Qaeda network.

The commander said the anti-Taliban fighters, armed with tanks, machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades, encountered stiff resistance from al-Qaeda fighters as they headed towards the base of the mountain. They received incoming small-arms fire.

He said that US bombers struck Tora Bora in concert with the anti-Taliban fighters but Afghan commanders insisted they wanted to take on the Arabs themselves without involving the US ground forces to flush out the enemy from their hideout.

The US suspects that Osama may be hiding in Tora Bora, situated in the foothills of Speenghar mountain range, 56km to the southwest of Jalalabad.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney said last week Osama could be hiding somewhere in eastern Afghanistan. Also, CIA director George J Tenet made a secret visit to Jalalabad over the weekend, while on a visit to Pakistan, giving ample indication that the American intelligence agency also gives credence to reports of Osama’s presence in the Tora Bora region.

Haji Zaman had told Dawn that his forces were ready to storm Osama’s hideout as the Arab fighters had refused to heed a warning to vacate the area by Monday.