Afghans Helped Bin Laden Flee Country, Official Says

Osama bin Laden was given safe passage to Pakistan in 2001 by Afghan commanders paid by Al Qaeda and sympathetic to the terrorist network’s cause, a senior Afghan official said Wednesday.

Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said commanders had helped the Al Qaeda leader escape from the Tora Bora mountains near the Pakistani border as U.S. warplanes and Afghan forces attacked his hide-out in late 2001.

“The help was provided because of monetary aid availed by Al Qaeda and also partly because of ideological issues,” Mashal said.

“Osama, along with other Al Qaeda people, managed to go to Parachinar at the time, and then Pakistani forces battled the Al Qaeda runaways, killing around 70 of them,” he said, referring to an area in Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region.

He said commanders loyal to Maulvi Yunus Khalis had helped Bin Laden escape. The whereabouts of Khalis, a top mujahedin leader in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, are unknown.

Mashal told private Pakistani television channel Geo on Tuesday that U.S. forces had made a mistake in entrusting the capture of Bin Laden to Afghan commanders.

Mashal said that he was present in the Tora Bora mountains during the December 2001 operation and that although U.S. forces were not there in uniform, Green Berets were present in plainclothes.

While 800 to 900 Arabs fled Tora Bora for Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region, he said, senior Al Qaeda leaders trekked to Parachinar with the help of some Sulemankheil tribal elders.

Mashal said Bin Laden later recrossed the border to Khowst, where the leader of the Taliban there gave him refuge. He then returned to Pakistan, this time heading for Miranshah, the main town in another tribal area, North Waziristan.

U.S. officials have said Bin Laden, who has evaded a U.S.-led manhunt since the Sept. 11, attacks, is probably still hiding in the rugged mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.