Osama bin Laden’s audacious escape from the Tora Bora
An attack on the Indian Parliament opened up an escape route for Osama bin Laden in December 2001
9 December 2001, White Mountain, Afghanistan
A mere two months into the US invasion of Afghanistan, a 15,000-pound Daisy Cutter bomb was rolled out of the back of a C-130 cargo plane. A bomb so large that it literally had to be dropped out of the back of one of the world’s largest airplane. The target was a small section of the Tora Bora in the White Mountains, bordering Pakistan, where a few hundred Al Qaeda were holed up. Tora Bora is a fortress-like section of the White Mountains, 30 miles south of Jalalabad, which stretches six miles long and six miles wide. A collection of innumerable narrow valleys, snow-covered ridge-lines, jagged peaks, and well concealed tunnels — this area was turned into a fortress by Osama bin Laden when he waged war against the Soviets.
The entire mountain range shook when the 15,000-pound bomb exploded.
