Osama ‘was within reach’

OSAMA bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of US troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report said.

The report said that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 laid the foundation for today’s reinvigorated Afghan uprising and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan.

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost US troops in Afghanistan.