Forensic experts retrieve DNA from Tora Bora dead

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- Canadian troops and U.S. forensic experts returned from the former al-Qaida stronghold at Tora Bora on Tuesday with DNA samples they hope will identify some of those killed there by U.S. bombs late last year.

Osama bin Laden was believed to have fled Tora Bora in December during weeks of heavy bombing as Afghan troops aided by U.S. Special Forces closed in. But there was also speculation he might have been killed by the U.S. airstrikes.

A Canadian military spokesman, Lt. Luc Charron, said Canadian forces combed the rugged mountain region and its caves, tunnels and underground bunkers during a four-day mission.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Bryan Hilferty said forensics experts from the Army's criminal investigation department accompanied the Canadians and collected several DNA samples from bodies found at the site.

23 bodies reburied

But Hilferty said they were not searching for specific al-Qaida or Taliban leaders.

"We were not looking for bin Laden or a rotund little one-eyed man either," he said, referring to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. "That was not the point of the mission."

Reporting from Tora Bora, the Canadian Press news agency said that DNA samples were taken from 23 bodies unearthed from a cemetery in the Tora Bora region, and that the Canadians thought they could have been some of bin Laden's body guards.

One prominently marked grave was initially thought to be possibly that of bin Laden but visual inspection of the body within showed that was not the case, Canadian Press reported. The bodies were reburied in their graves afterward.

Military officials suggested finding and taking DNA samples had not been the main aim of the search of the region.

"Our mission was to conduct sensitive site exploitation and to destroy underground facilities in mountainous eastern Afghanistan, in order to deny al-Qaida access to the area," Charron said. "The mission was a success."

About 400 Canadian troops participated in the mission, backed by Afghan infantry units, U.S. special forces and American air support.

Charron said there were no casualties and no contact with al-Qaida or Taliban fighters. He said the Canadian troops had "conducted a thorough exploitation, investigation and detonation of one major cave complex."

The cave entrance had been bombed, probably in December by U.S. aircraft, and had to be reopened, Charron said. It was sealed again after Canadian troops departed.

Waves of twin-rotor Chinook helicopters escorted by Apache gunships returned the Canadians to the air base at Bagram north of Kabul.

The U.S.-led coalition has been stepping up its search for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, exploring caves and bunkers they were suspected of having used in the recent past.

In the southeast, a 1,000-strong British-led force began a separate but similar operation last week. The missions fall under the umbrella of Operation Mountain Lion, the U.S.-led search for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in eastern Afghanistan.

The main U.S. base is at Bagram, but a small U.S. special operations team is based in Khost, a volatile provincial capital 95 miles southeast of Kabul. Three rockets landed near the Khost base on Monday but exploded without causing casualties, as in a similar attack last week.

Refugees returning

In Kabul on Tuesday, U.N. refugee agency spokesman Yusuf Hassan said that 480,000 refugees had returned to Afghanistan since March, including 12,000 on Monday alone.

Hassan the Afghan government and the United Nations plan to help a total of 800,000 people come home from Pakistan and Iran during 2002 -- double the number they had initially expected.

Some 4 million Afghans fled the country during more than two decades of are and years of drought.