The battle of Tora Bora
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2021
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan in 2001, the hunt for Osama bin Laden began in earnest. One American in particular led the search. He was CIA commander, Gary Berntsen, who had been tracking the al-Qaeda leader for years. In December 2001 he ordered a small group of special forces soldiers and Afghan fighters into the White Mountains, close to the border with Pakistan, in the hope of cornering bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora. But as Gary Berntsen tells Rebecca Kesby, in spite of heavy bombardment bin Laden managed to give them the slip.
(PHOTO: Local anti-Taliban fighters help US special forces in the assault on the White Mountains and Tora Bora cave complex in Afghanistan, December 2001. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast from the BBC World Service with me |
| 0:45.8 | Rebecca Kebbe. Today we head for Afghanistan in 2001 in the aftermath of the 9-11 |
| 0:52.4 | attacks on the USA and the Battle of Tora Bora. |
| 0:56.6 | By December of 2001, local anti-Talaban forces supported by intensive U.S. strikes and special forces on the ground |
| 1:05.0 | had retaken the major cities of Afghanistan but Osama bin Laden the man most |
| 1:10.6 | wanted by the US was still on the run. |
| 1:13.6 | In 2015 I spoke to Gary Burntson, the CIA man leading the hunt to catch him. |
| 1:19.6 | This is a different type of enemy than we're used to. |
| 1:24.0 | It's an enemy that likes to hide and burrow in, |
| 1:28.0 | but we're going to smoke them out, |
| 1:30.0 | and we're adjusting our thinking to the new type of enemy. |
| 1:34.4 | I want him hell, I want I want justice and uh, there's an old poster out west as I recall that said |
| 1:40.8 | wanted dead or alive. |
| 1:43.6 | That's what we want. |
| 1:46.2 | In 2001, I had been selected by CIA's |
| 1:49.6 | Counterterrorism Center to lead the jawbreaker team, which was the primary team that would lead the |
| 1:55.8 | invasion of Afghanistan after the attacks of 9-11. |
... |
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