WASHINGTON, Aug 1: Pakistan deployed more than 100,000 troops along its border around Tora Bora in March this year when the United States was conducting its largest military operation against the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in eastern Afghanistan, a US general said on Wednesday.

Gen Tommy Franks, who heads the US troops in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington in the evening that during this operation Pakistani troops picked up more than 300 Al Qaeda fighters fleeing their mountain fastness in Tora Bora.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who also appeared before the committee to report on the status of war in Afghanistan, said Pakistan handed over one of Osama bin Laden’s close aides to US forces who later led them to other senior Al Qaeda leaders.

Although roundly praised for successfully leading the war on terror, both Rumsfeld and Franks had to endure a three-hour public hearing sometimes under pointed questioning.

They denied a suggestion from a senator that there were Al Qaeda fighters in Kashmir, a claim that often echoes in official briefings in New Delhi as well.

“Reports of Al Qaeda presence in Kashmir are ambiguous. They don’t say how many, where and when,” said Rumsfeld. “I believe that if the government of Pakistan believed and knew there are Al Qaeda men in Kashmir, they would go and do something about it. They said so and I believe them.”

“Pakistanis have arrested and handed over to us hundreds of prisoners from 44 different nations and I genuinely believe that they will arrest and hand over to us if they find Al Qaeda (men) in Kashmir,” added Gen Franks.

Under pointed questioning from Vietnam War veteran Sen Max Cleland, D-Ga., Franks explained the altitude and difficulty of lifting heavy cannons, and the potential of hitting US aircraft flying over the area determined the equipment that was brought.

An M-119 howitzer, operating at the 8,000-foot mountain valley, fires its shells 8,000 metres in the air, putting weapons at 24,000 feet. “That affects literally hundreds of aircraft close air support sorties that were available to the combatants on the ground during Operation Anaconda,” Franks said.

Operation Anaconda is believed to have resulted in the death of several hundred Al Qaeda fighters.

Three months earlier in Tora Bora, on the Pakistani border, the battle was less successful.