TORA BORA, Dec 16: An Afghan militia leader on Sunday declared victory over Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda fighters in the battle for their last known stronghold in Afghanistan.

But Haji Mohammad Zaman, the military head of the province in eastern Afghanistan which includes Tora Bora mountain, said Osama had also fled the region.

Zaman said Al-Qaeda had been beaten as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld carried out a landmark visit to an air base near Kabul for talks with Afghan interim leader.

Zaman told reporters: “We cleared al-Qaeda from our land. We did the job.”

According to Zaman, Osama had also disappeared. “He is not here,” the commander declared.

The mountains, south of Jalalabad and near the Pakistan border, have been the focus of the US-led hunt for Osama since the start of this month.

There have been increasingly intensive US bombing raids on the caves and mountains over the past two weeks as Zaman’s forces have advanced into the hills.

Earlier on Sunday US warplanes, including B-52s, intensified the punishing bombing raids as Afghan forces entered the caves and tunnels. Heavy machinegun and rifle fire, mortars and grenade launchers were heard on several peaks.

Haji Musa, a deputy to Hazrat Ali — another top local commander battling Al-Qaeda — said it was believed most of the fighters had fled toward the Pakistan border.

Rumsfeld said before arriving at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, that US special forces had also started to enter the caves in the hunt for Osama.

But there was no sign of the Al-Qaeda leader, despite US newspaper reports that he had been heard directing troops by short-wave radio in Tora Bora.

Rumsfeld said hundreds of bombs had been dropped on the White Mountain range which includes Tora Bora.

US bombers also detonated an underground cache of ordnance setting off a huge two-kilometre-wide explosion, he said.

Rumsfeld visited US troops at the air base and talked with top members of leaders of the interim administration — including its leader Hamid Karzai and defence minister, Mohammad Qasim Fahim — that will take office on Dec 22.

Rumsfeld said he had emphasized to Karzai that the US military presence in Afghanistan was not to take land. “We had no interest in territory. We were simply here for the sole purpose of finding the terrorists and stopping them from terrorizing,” he said.—AFP