Al-Qaida forces retreat after mountain battle

Hundreds of anti-Taliban troops have been battling with Osama bin Laden's fighters near mountain hideouts.

The fighting took place south of Jalalabad and commanders say they are preparing to lay siege to the caves.

Al-Qaida fighters were forced to withdraw and abandon a tank, according to provincial security chief Hazrat Ali.

He claimed 1,000 troops moved into the mountains today, with 2,000 more on their way.

Ali and provincial defence chief Mohammed Zaman said they are ready to attack hundreds of al-Qaida fighters they believe are hiding in the high valleys and caves along the border with Pakistan.

"Practically, we must start the war against these people," Zaman said.

US bombers have been pounding the area near al-Qaida's Tora Bora camp for days. Zaman said he had reports that 17 al-Qaida members were killed in a raid on Monday night, among them bin Laden's finance chief, known variously as Ali Mahmoud or Shaihk Saiid.

Zaman also said bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was injured. US officials said they were sceptical of his claim.

Zaman said attempts to negotiate an al-Qaida surrender had failed and that force was the only option. He said officials were already preventing residents from taking water by mule to the al-Qaida camps.

"Without water, life is very difficult," Zaman said.

Ali said heavy US bombing of the area has forced al-Qaida fighters out of the main cave complexes at Tora Bora and Malaewa and that they had spread out, moving further up the mountains into smaller caves. He was still optimistic of success.

"In my opinion, it will take at least two weeks," he said.

He said recent snowfall in the mountains would make it difficult for al-Qaida fighters to survive without supplies for very long.

Ali said all the tribal elders who make up the Eastern Shura, or council, had pledged to send fighters to the mountains, 40 miles southwest of Jalalabad, bringing the total number of anti-Taliban fighters to 3,000.

Ali said he sent a delegation of elders from Jalalabad to negotiate the surrender of non-Afghan fighters hiding in the mountains. Another group of elders, claiming to represent the fighters, brought back a response - reputedly from bin Laden, he said.

"They gave a message to our elders from Osama bin Laden: 'I don't want to fight the Muslim forces, but if I find some foreign troops, I must fight them,"' Ali said.

He could not vouch for the veracity of the elders' claim to represent bin Laden.