How Al Qaeda Slipped Away

摘要

The afghan foot patrol was so hot on the trail of fleeing Qaeda troops that the pursuers could literally smell blood. Across the high passes of the Tora Bora range they raced, with blankets drawn over their shoulders and their turbans wrapped around their faces against, the freezing December wind. They came upon a man's severed leg, its stump still 'Oozing blood. The owner couldn't have gotten far. Ahead was a high intermontane valley, and beyond it an even more formidable barrier, the Spin Ghar range―the White Mountains. The fugitives were as good, as dead or captured. American B-52s and attack helicopters were plastering the hillsides; some 1,500 pro-Western Afghans had joined the chase, and on the far side of the White Mountains the Pakistanis had ostensibly closed the border.