KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. and Afghan troops slammed al-Qaida and Taliban targets Wednesday in remote Tora Bora where Osama bin Laden is believed to have escaped capture in 2001.
The operation included air and ground attacks against large numbers of militants in the mountainous Afghan region near the Pakistani border, CNN reported.
The network cited sources familiar with the operation as saying the attacks were against “hundreds of hardened al-Qaida and Taliban in dug-in positions.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Army described the operation as “a combined arms assault using precision munitions,” and said, “There have been no substantiated reports of civilian casualties in this engagement."
A White House spokeswoman, at the daily press briefing in Crawford, Texas, where President Bush is vacationing, denied knowledge of the operation and referred questions to NATO. The Bush administration has been criticized sharply for allegedly missing an opportunity to capture al-Qaida founder bin Laden in December 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.
