Alliance sets new al-Qaida surrender deadline
Afghan tribal commanders have set a new deadline for the surrender of al-Qaida fighters cornered near Tora Bora.
Terrorist suspects, possibly including Osama bin Laden, have been given until Thursday morning to give themselves up.
US have airstrikes have continued to pound the desolate canyon where the al-Qaida fighters were boxed in after being forced out of their caves.
Tribal eastern alliance leaders gave a new ultimatum, giving the men from bin Laden's terror network until 0730, (Irish time), to give up, but the alliance said it would not accept their surrender unless any top leaders with them also turned themselves in.
This would include bin Laden and others on Washington's list of most wanted terrorist suspects, if they were at Tora Bora, said Ghafar, the mayor of the nearby city of Jalalabad.
"But we don't know where Osama is," he admitted.
He said the alleged terrorist chief might be hiding in thick alpine forest along the nearby border with Pakistan. Other leaders might have escaped during a failed cease-fire overnight, he said.
Some US officials and tribal leaders suspect bin Laden might be in the Tora Bora area, in eastern Afghanistan. Others believe he is hiding in the country's south.
Tora Bora, an extensive network of caves and tunnels in the White Mountains near the Pakistani border, is the last effective stronghold of al-Qaida, according to General Richard B Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
