Knight Ridder Tribune
WASHINGTON - Although it has involved little fighting, the military effort to scour and close a network of 50 caves in the Zawar Kili region of eastern Afghanistan has turned out to be one of the most extensive operations of the 100-day-old war in Afghanistan.
After 10 days of bombing, the Pentagon said Monday it was nearing the end of the campaign, which began Jan. 3 when intelligence sources picked up indications that al-Qaida or Taliban fighters were attempting to regroup in the area.
The task, which involved ground operations by U.S. Special Forces, turned out to be harder than anybody in the military had expected - a job nearly on the scale of efforts last month to clean out caves in the Tora Bora area, to the north of Zawar Kili.
Because the U.S. military did not have allies in this part of the country early in the war, officials have said, it did not know the extent of the warren of hideouts.
"Systematically, the forces on the ground have been inspecting these facilities and then calling in strikes," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said at the Pentagon. ". . . Most of the cave entrances have been closed and all of the above-ground (buildings) have been destroyed" so that they cannot be used again.
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There was no sign of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden despite reports that he might have been seen in the area at the beginning of the month. Ground forces did not encounter opposition, Stufflebeem said.
A number of Taliban tanks and artillery pieces were found in the caves and then dragged out by special forces soldiers so that they could be bombed and destroyed. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week he would not disclose what intelligence materials were found.
Sixty buildings and other structures were demolished. Zawar Kili, near the town of Khost, had been a terrorist training camp prior to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Hundreds of al-Qaida members, now scattered around the world, may have passed through the camp.
The U.S. Navy launched a Tomahawk cruise missile at the camp in 1998 after al-Qaida was linked to the bombings of two American embassies in East Africa. Bin Laden was said to have narrowly escaped being killed.
Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters may yet be hiding in other Afghan caves, Stufflebeem said. There is no way for the United States to routinely inspect every hole in a Swiss cheese landscape.
"This is not a unique area," Stufflebeem said. ". This entire part of the country is riddled with hillsides and valleys, of caves and above-ground structures." He said U.S. forces would continue to hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban forces and search facilities they have used in the past.
Jack Shroder, a geologist with a special interest in eastern Afghanistan, said in an interview that warriors of the ethnic Pashtun group in the region have been digging caves for hundreds - maybe thousands - of years.
"Most of the caves in that area are manmade," said Shroder, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. "Once they got skilled with modern engineering techniques, they started digging through very tough rocks, like granite . . . You can virtually dig a hole down through a mountain."
After the search of the Tora Bora area and other former hideouts, the U.S. Central Command reported that it had found loads of intelligence data, including computer disks and programmed cell phones.
Using B-52 and B-1 bombers to close the Zawar Kili caves with 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs probably ended all chance of gathering further data there.
Air Force Maj. Bill Harrison, a Central Command spokesperson, said that before caves were sealed they were searched by what he called "evidence-intelligence exploitation teams."
