Two senior al-Qaida captured, says Pentagon

US troops have captured two senior al-Qaida fighters and confiscated their computers and mobile phones near a huge underground cave complex used by Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, the Pentagon said.

The discoveries in eastern Afghanistan came as US forces were wrapping up operations in Tora Bora and focusing on Zawar Kili, the complex used as a training camp and assembly point for possible movement from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

The two men, found late on Monday in a group of 14 suspected members of al-Qaida, were deemed sufficiently important to be removed immediately to the US-run detention centre in Kandahar, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers said at a Pentagon briefing yesterday.

War commander, General Tommy Franks, said clues to the pair’s importance included ‘‘the way that they carried themselves, their language skill and that sort of thing’’.

Besides the computers and phones, ‘‘some small arms and training documents were also found’’, General Myers said.

US warplanes have struck repeatedly at the cave complex and at other areas around Khost in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktia province. US special forces teams are on the ground in that area, where a US Green Beret soldier was killed in an ambush on Friday.

As US forces sweep through the area, they have found a large network of buildings, bunkers and a warren of underground caves, Gen Myers said.

‘‘We have found this complex to be very, very extensive. It covers a large area. When we ask people how large, they often describe it as huge.’’

US bombers struck a cache of tanks and weaponry in the area on Sunday. They launched two new strikes on additional buildings and bunkers found nearby late on Monday.

An F-14 fighter jet dropped two precision-guided bombs on one building, and an F-18 jet dropped two more guided bombs on a bunker, the Pentagon said.

The two al-Qaida, captured near the cave complex, were among a group of 14 fighters apprehended without resistance by US forces on the ground, Gen Myers said.

They were transferred to a detention centre where US officials have been interrogating suspected al-Qaida and Taliban. The other 12 remain in the custody of Afghan officials, the general said.

‘‘They were the ones of interest that we thought were senior enough where they might have the kind of information that we’re looking for in terms of ... future operations and so forth’’.

Gen Myers said officials expected to make the first transfer soon of detained suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members to a new site being built at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In all, US forces were holding 364 suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members, he said.

One detainee previously held aboard a US ship had been moved to the airfield at Bagram, near Kabul, because there were specially trained interrogators there. The general declined to identify the detainee.