TORA BORA (Afghanistan), Dec 16 (Reuters) Hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters have battled to the death in a last stand in eastern Afghanistan, but their leader Osama bin Laden eluded the US dragnet, Afghan commanders said today.
"He has not yet been captured," said Hazrat Ali, commander of Afghan anti-Taliban forces advancing cave by cave against Al Qaeda fighters burrowed into the Tora Bora or black dust canyons.
Hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters mainly Arabs had been killed in days of relentless US bombing from the skies and by Afghan fighters inching forward on the ground, he told Reuters early today.
Huge US B-52 bombers raced through the skies on the first day of the Eid Al-Fitr festival that celebrates the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, dropping huge bombs on suspected Al Qaeda positions through the night and into the morning.
US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived at an airbase north of the capital Kabul where he was to address American troops.
It is the first visit to Afghanistan by the man who has been the driving force behind the US campaign to hunt down bin Laden and to destroy his protectors the hardline Taliban who ruled Afghanistan until they collapsed under US attacks last month.
US forces have also found materials and documents at a former Al Qaeda base in Southern Afghanistan and they were being tested for chemical, biological and radiation content, Rumsfeld said earlier.
He said the bombing around Tora Bora was intense, with more than 200 bombs dropped at the weekend alone.
Those strikes appeared to make surrender by besieged Al Qaeda forces impossible even if they wanted to.
"Weasked them to give themselves up, but they cant because bombs keep falling," Haji Atiqullah, spokesman for Frontline Tora Bora commander Haji Zahir, told Reuters.
It was possible US forces wanted to thwart a surrender, preferring not to see Al Qaeda fighters taken prisoner, he said.
Atiqullah said his anti-Taliban Mujahideen fighters captured three Arab Al Qaeda members in the night, two of them wounded.
"I have seen them and given them treatment," he said outside the mosque in the village of Mia before morning prayers.
"I was with them until 3 oclock this morning," he said, but was unable to give any detail as to the whereabouts of bin Laden.
Ground fighting appeared to have died down, partly as Mujahideen fighters celebrate Eid.
But the most important festival in the Muslim calendar was unlikely to deter the increasing numbers of US special forces operating in the Jagged peaks of the mountains bordering Pakistans lawless tribal areas.
Fuelling their determination to hunt down the Saudi-born millionaire blamed for masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed more than 3,000 people would be reports that his voice had been heard in the area.
The Al Qaeda leader had been heard giving orders on a short-range radio in the past few days in the Tora Bora region, the last pocket of Al Qaeda resistance, a US official said.
The whereabouts of bin Laden remained a mystery with US officials saying he could still be with his cornered fighters.
His men numbering up to 1,000 appeared determined and hints of surrender were being seen by some frontline commanders as little more than ploys to buy time by embattled fighters in the mountains about 40 km (25 miles) south of the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Chechen fighters loyal to bin Laden fought to the death on Saturday.
Others fled the blistering US bombardment of the jagged Tora Bora peaks and canyons bordering Pakistan, where authorities arrested 31 Arab militants mostly Yemenis as they crossed the frontier into the Kurram tribal area.
Four more, including a wounded French national, were captured a day earlier as they entered the famed Khyber Pass.
Seeking evidence against bin Laden, Rumsfeld said the latest intelligence material had been found at the Tarnak farms Al Qaeda base, about six km (four miles) east of a US marine desert base known as Camp Rhino.
It was on a list of 25 or 30 sites that have been systematically reviewed by American forces as they came available in Afghanistan.
Speaking at a base that could not be identified for security reasons, Rumsfeld said the materials had been found in the past 24 hours.
He did not say whether actual weapons had been found, stressing that intelligence and materials were being examined.
"There is a place called Tarnak farms that has been interesting.
They have now searched it and gathered up a good deal of materials and documentation and items to be tested for chemical, biological and radiation," he said.
Preparing for prisoners, US Marines were setting up a camp at Kandhar airport for up to 300 Al Qaeda fighters who might surrender or be captured in the Tora Bora mountains, an officer said yesterday.
"Our primary focus is on receiving prisoners from Tora Bora and building a site for them," at the airport now occupied by the marines, the officer said.
But in Kandhar, former Taliban powerbase, a smaller showdown than the one in the east was brewing.
In ward four of the Chinese hospital in Kandhar, nine injured Arabs loyal to bin Laden clutched grenades to their chests, vowing to blow up anyone who tries to capture them.
Outside, two anti-Taliban commanders stood guard, AK-47s draped casually over their shoulders, barring entry to all but one male nurse trusted to changes the Arabs dressings.
Guards said they planned to hand the men over to their own country Saudi Arabia.
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