MELAWA, Dec 7: Al-Qaeda fighters put up fierce resistance in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan on Friday against anti-Taliban forces convinced they were hot on the trail of Osama bin Laden.

“He is here,” said anti-Taliban commander Haji Mohammad Zaman, who is leading the search for Osama bin Laden.

“My forces are 50 to 80 metres from the forces of al-Qaeda,” Zaman told reporters at Melawa mountain in the Tora Bora region.

Minutes after Zaman spoke, Al-Qaeda fighters sent a barrage of mortar rounds into the ranks of his men but they did not cause any casualties.

Fighting between the two sides intensified on Friday, as the Al-Qaeda fighters gave ground in the face of a steady opposition advance into Tora Bora, a maze of fortified underground caves and tunnels used by Mujahideen during their armed struggle against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

US warplanes have also stepped up their bombing of the mountainous area and US Special Forces troops are on the ground, but the extent of their cooperation with the Afghan militias is not clear.

The US effort to wipe out Al-Qaeda and track down Osama is expected to increase following the fall of Kandahar.

A Pakistani intelligence source at Parachinar town near the Afghan border said Friday that “most of the area in Tora Bora is now completely under tribal forces’ control”.

Osama’s Arab fighters had withdrawn from many of their Tora Bora hideouts and were believed to be scattering in the mountainous terrain, the source said.

“According to our information, which we have obtained from sources across the border, the Arabs had moved towards Melawa and the White Mountains to take up new positions.”

The White Mountains stretch to the Parachinar area.

Afghan commanders have said snowbound passes have made an escape by Osama and his fighters into Pakistan impossible, but an interior ministry official said security had been strengthened on the border.

Another local Afghan commander said he expected it would be at least until the weekend before anti-Taliban forces had secured control of the entire Tora Bora area.—AFP