Battle of Tora Bora The Battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that took place in Afghanistan from December 12 , 2001 to December 17 , 2001 , during the opening stages of the War in Afghanistan launched by the United States following the September 11 attacks . The U . S . and its allies believed that Osama bin Laden , the founder of al - Qaeda , was hiding in the mountains at Tora Bora . The allied forces overran Taliban and al - Qaeda positions and heard bin Laden ' s voice in intercepted radio transmissions several times , but they failed to kill or capture him . Bin Laden escaped to the Federated Tribal Areas of Pakistan , where he would stay for 9 years before being located and killed by Navy SEALs of the United States Navy Special Warfare Development Group in May 2011 . Tora Bora ( ) is a cave complex situated in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan , near the Khyber Pass . In 2001 , the United States and its allies suspected the complex was being used by al - Qaeda and was the location of the commander Osama bin Laden ' s headquarters . It was variously described as a multi - storied cave complex harnessing hydroelectric power from mountain streams , or a lower - rise dwelling with hotel - like corridors capable of sheltering more than 1 , 000 people . It was said to contain a large cache of ammunition , such as Stinger missiles left over from the 1980s . Based on a description leaked from government source , national US newspapers carried a cartoon drawn of the complex . Donald Rumsfeld , Secretary of Defense , displayed the cartoon in a discussion of Tora Bora on " Meet the Press " in October 2001 . In the early 1980s , the United States CIA officers had assisted the mujahideen in extending and shoring up the caves in Operation Cyclone to use for resistance during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan . The US then supported their effort , and it was not until several years later that the Taliban formed and took control of the country , enforcing fundamentalist rule . Several cave areas likely were used in much earlier periods , as the difficult terrain formed a natural defensive position and had been used by tribal warriors fighting foreign invaders since ancestral times . The British journalist Abdel Bari Atwan , author of " The Secret History of Al Qaeda " ( 2006 ) , had visited Bin Laden at Tora Bora in 1996 . He wrote that at the time , bin Laden lived in a " humble cave " with basic heating equipment . Battle . At the end of 2001 , al - Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of the Tora Bora region . On December 3 , 2001 , a group of 20 U . S . CIA NCS and 5th SFG ( A ) ODA572 team members , code name Jawbreaker , were inserted by helicopter in Jalalabad , Afghanistan to begin an operation against them . On December 5 , 2001 , Afghan Northern Alliance fighters wrested control of the low ground below the mountain caves from al - Qaeda fighters . The Jawbreaker team and SF teams called in Air Force bombers to take out targets . The al - Qaeda fighters withdrew to higher fortified positions and dug in for the battle . Approximately a week later , 70 special forces operators from the Army Delta Force ' s A Squadron , Navy DEVGRU , and Air Force STS arrived overland by vehicle to support the bombing campaign with ground forces . The Northern Alliance fighters continued a steady advance through the difficult terrain , backed by air strikes and U . S . and British Special Forces . Facing defeat , al - Qaeda forces negotiated a truce with a local Afghan militia commander to give them time to surrender their weapons . In retrospect , however , some critics believe that the truce was a device to allow important al - Qaeda figures , including Osama bin Laden , to escape . On December 12 , 2001 , the fighting flared again , possibly initiated by a rear guard buying time for the main force ' s escape through the White Mountains into the tribal areas of Pakistan . Tribal forces backed by U . S . special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al - Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region . Twelve British SBS commandos , and one British Royal Signals Specialist from 63 Signals squadron ( now known as 18SFUK ) , accompanied the U . S . special operations forces in attacking the cave complex at Tora Bora . Special Forces Operators of the German KSK took part in the battle as well . They were reportedly responsible for protecting the flanks in the mountains and conducted reconnaissance missions . The U . S . focus increased on the Tora Bora . Local tribal militias , paid and organized by Special Forces and CIA SAD paramilitary , numbering over 2 , 000 strong , continued to mass for an attack as heavy bombing continued of suspected al - Qaeda positions . Matthew Forney of " Time Magazine " reported on December 11 , 2001 that the allied forces did not find massive bunkers but small outposts and a few minor training camps . He said reporters were allowed to see the " rough bunkers " deep in the mountains were still " remarkable . " By December 17 , 2001 , the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun . US forces continued searching the area into January , but did not find any signs of bin Laden or the al - Qaeda leadership . According to his book published in 2005 , the former CIA officer , Gary Berntsen , led the CIA team ( consisting primarily of CIA Paramilitary Officers from Special Activities Division ) in Afghanistan tasked with locating bin Laden during the armed conflict . In his book " " ( 2005 ) , Berntsen said that his team had pinpointed bin Laden ' s location . He wrote that a number of al - Qaeda detainees later confirmed that bin Laden had escaped into Pakistan via an easterly route through snow - covered mountains to the area of Parachinar , Pakistan . He believed that bin Laden could have been captured at the time if the United States Central Command had committed the troops which Berntsen had requested . In a 2005 interview , the former CIA officer Gary Schroen concurred with Berntsen ' s opinion . Pentagon documents suggest bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora . In an October 2004 opinion article in " The New York Times " , General Tommy Franks wrote , " We don ' t know to this day whether Mr . bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001 . Some intelligence sources said he was ; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time . . . Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives . . . but Mr . bin Laden was never within our grasp . " Franks retired in 2003 , but had commanded U . S . forces in Afghanistan at the time . Many enemy fighters made their escape in the rough terrain and slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east . Allied forces estimated that around 200 of the al - Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle , along with an unknown number of anti - Taliban tribal fighters . No coalition deaths were reported . Fury ' s account . A former Delta Force commander , using the pen name " Dalton Fury " , who fought at Tora Bora , wrote that bin Laden escaped into Pakistan on or around December 16 , 2001 . Fury gives three reasons for why he believes bin Laden was able to escape : ( 1 ) the US mistakenly thought that Pakistan was effectively guarding the border area , ( 2 ) NATO allies refused to allow the use of air - dropped GATOR mines , which would have helped seal bin Laden and his forces inside the Tora Bora area , and ( 3 ) over - reliance on native Afghan military forces as the main force deployed against bin Laden and his fighters . Fury states that , as it was Ramadan , the Afghan forces would usually leave the battlefield in the evenings to break their day - long fasts . He suggested this allowed the al - Qaeda forces a chance to regroup , reposition , or escape . In an October 2008 interview on " 60 Minutes , " Fury said that his Delta Force team and CIA Paramilitary Officers traveled to Tora Bora after the CIA had identified bin Laden ' s location . Fury ' s team proposed an operation to attack bin Laden ' s suspected position from the rear , over the 14 , 000 foot - high mountain separating Tora Bora from Pakistan . He said unidentified officials at higher headquarters rejected his proposal . Fury suggested dropping GATOR mines in the passes leading away from Tora Bora , but this was also denied . Fury and his team approached the suspected position from the front and were within 2 , 000 meters , but withdrew because of uncertainty over the number of al - Qaeda fighters and a lack of support from allied Afghan troops . A short time later , the Afghan military forces declared a cease fire with al - Qaeda . In his 2008 book , " Kill bin Laden " , Fury described the following . His team planned to advance again on the al - Qaeda forces , but after the cease - fire , Afghan soldiers drew their weapons on the US soldiers . After 12 hours of negotiations , the Afghans stood down , but bin Laden and his bodyguards had left . Fury reports that his team intercepted and interpreted radio calls by bin Laden in the afternoon of December 13 , 2001 . He said to his fighters , " the time is now , arm your women and children against the infidel . " Then , after a few hours of bombing , bin Laden broke radio silence again , saying : " Our prayers were not answered . Times are dire and bad . We did not get support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers . Things might have been different . " Fury said that Bin Laden ' s final words to his fighters that night were " I ' m sorry for getting you involved in this battle , if you can no longer resist , you may surrender with my blessing . " During his interview on " 60 Minutes " to discuss his book , Fury said that his team saw a group whom they believed to be bin Laden and his bodyguards entering a cave . The team called down several bombing attacks on the site , and believed that they had killed bin Laden . Six months later , US and Canadian forces returned and checked several caves in the area , finding remains of al - Qaeda fighters , but not of bin Laden . Fury thought that bin Laden was injured during the bombing of the cave , but was hidden , given medical care , and assisted out of the area into Pakistan by allied local Afghans . Guantanamo captives ' accounts of the battle . U . S . authorities have justified the continued detention of several dozen Afghan Guantanamo captive s by the suspicion they had participated in the battle , had been present during the battle , or had passed through the area of the battle before or after it concluded . In September 2007 , Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi , a Yemeni medical doctor held as an enemy combatant by the United States , was reported to have described the conditions during the battle : " Most of all the total guns in the Tora Bora area was 16 Kalashnikovs and there are 200 people . " He also said , " He [ Osama bin Laden ] came for a day to visit the area and we talked to him and we wanted to leave this area . He said he didn ' t know where to go himself and the second day he escaped and was gone . " Aftermath . Following Tora Bora , U . S . and U . K . forces and their Afghan allies consolidated their position in the country . The Taliban and al - Qaeda forces did not give up and went into hiding . A " Loya jirga " or grand council of major Afghan factions , tribal leaders , and former exiles , an interim Afghan government , was established in Kabul under Hamid Karzai . Mullah Saifur Rehman , a Taliban fugitive in Paktia province , began rebuilding some of his militia forces in support of the anti - US fighters . They totaled over 1 , 000 by the beginning of Operation Anaconda in March 2002 . The insurgents planned to use the region as a base for launching guerrilla attacks and possibly a major offensive in the style of the mujahedin during the 1980s . U . S . forces established their main base at Bagram Air Base just north of Kabul . They used Kandahar International Airport as an important base for accepting and distributing supplies and personnel . Several outposts were established in eastern provinces to hunt for Taliban and Al - Qaeda fugitives . The number of US troops operating in the country would eventually grew to more than 10 , 000 as efforts against the Taliban and al - Qaeda were increased . In 2009 a US Senate report concluded that the failure to capture bin Laden " [ laid ] the foundation for today ’ s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan . " Al - Qaeda forces began regrouping in the Shahi - Kot mountains of Paktia Province throughout January and February 2002 . In December 2009 , " New Republic " published Peter Bergen ' s " The Battle for Tora Bora " Bergen had published " " in 2001 soon after 9 / 11 . ) In his critique of the battle , Bergen reconstructed the US allies engagement at Tora Bora . He said that General Tommy Franks , then US Army chief , refused to deploy 800 Army rangers from nearby bases to assault the complex of caves where bin Laden was supposedly hiding . Bergen characterized this as " one of the greatest military blunders in recent US history " . Bergen says that the US failure to capture bin Laden at the time provided energy to the Taliban . It regrouped and became stronger after US officials diverted forces for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and war there . US intelligence agencies continued to track bin Laden . On May 2 , 2011 , President Barack Obama confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden , who was living in a compound in the city of Abbottabad , Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province , Pakistan . He was killed by a US Navy SEAL raid on the urban compound . Tora Bora " fortress " . Tora Bora was variously described by the western media to be an impregnable cave fortress housing 2000 men complete with a hospital , a hydroelectric power plant , offices , a hotel , arms and ammunition stores , roads large enough to drive a tank into , and elaborate tunnel and ventilation systems . Both the British and American press published elaborate plans of the base . When presented with such plans in an NBC interview on " Meet the Press " , Donald Rumsfeld , the US Secretary of Defense , said , " This is serious business , there ' s not one of those , there are many of those " . When Tora Bora was eventually captured by the U . S . and Afghan troops , no traces of the supposed ' fortress ' were found despite painstaking searches in the surrounding areas . Tora Bora turned out to be a system of small natural caves housing at most , 200 fighters . While arms and ammunition stores were found , there were no traces of the advanced facilities claimed to exist . In an interview published by the Public Broadcasting Service , a Staff Sergeant from the U . S . Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha ( ODA ) 572 , who had been in the Battle of Tora Bora described the caves : " Again , with the caves , they weren ' t these crazy mazes or labyrinths of caves that they described . Most of them were natural caves . Some were supported with some pieces of wood maybe about the size of a 10 - foot by 24 - foot room , at the largest . They weren ' t real big . I know they made a spectacle out of that , and how are we going to be able to get into them ? We worried about that too , because we see all these reports . Then it turns out , when you actually go up there , there ' s really just small bunkers , and a lot of different ammo storage is up there . " – Jeff , Staff Sgt . ODA 572