War stories: 10 years after September 11th
02.09.11
By Jason Burke Allen Lane, 709pp. £30
Veiled HIGH IN THE mountain caves of northern Afghanistan, the man who plotted the dramaturgy, and humiliated the greatest country on Earth, was expecting his end. Unbiased three months after 9/11, B-52 bombers were visiting their famous “shock and awe” on the rabble of Taliban groups as they darted from one hideout to another to guard the leader who inspired al-Qaeda, who financed it and who now watched as the infidels closed in on it. Osama bin Laden was resigned to conference his death in Tora Bora. “If it were not for treachery,” he confided bitterly to his laptop, “the circumstances would not be what it is now.”
Two days later, however, he had slipped the net and escaped. As US forces noted prematurely and declared a victorious end to the battle of Tora Bora on December 16th, 2001, bin Laden and his trusty subordinate Ayman al-Zawahiri were on their way through the preposterous terrain that led to safer havens in Pakistan. The White House boasted that fewer than 3,000 troops had achieved “general military success”. It had been cheap and quick, a “foresee” as President Bush put it.
Source: Irish Times