US-led troops attack old Laden hideout

US and Afghan troops pressed an air and ground assault Thursday against al-Qaeda militants grouped in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the last known hiding place of Osama bin Laden.
Up to 250 families had fled the area near the Pakistan border as the attack pushed into a fourth day, Afghan officials said.
The US military and the Afghan defence ministry would not give details of the operation Thursday as it was still under way.
But US military spokeswoman Captain Vanessa Bowman told AFP it was intended to disrupt al-Qaeda and other militants who were massing in the region.
Intelligence indicated that the fighters had gathered in dug-in fighting positions, she said.
Bowman said Wednesday, when the US military announced the assault, that the remote and rugged region was an "ideal" area to conceal militant support bases and training sites, as well as plan attacks.
The area, a complex of caves 50km south of the eastern city of Jalalabad, is known as the last stronghold of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden and fighters from Arab countries built the caves during the 1980s during the resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Bowman said Wednesday the assault was using precision munitions to avoid civilian casualties.
"The targets were carefully chosen to pinpoint enemy positions and eliminate the likelihood of harming innocent civilians," she said.
Between 200 to 250 families had fled the Tora Bora valley to other villages, said Mohammad Ali, governor of Nangarhar province's Pachir Wa Agam district which includes the targeted area.
"We have asked the provincial government for help for the displaced people," he said.
Afghan media reports said some 50 Taliban had been killed but the governor had no confirmation, saying: "These are only rumours at this stage."
al-Qaeda was sheltered by the 1996-2001 Taliban government in Afghanistan and allowed to operate training camps there until the hardline Islamic regime was driven out in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda chief behind the September 11, 2001 suicide plane attacks in the United States that triggered the invasion, was last seen in the Tora Bora mountains in December that year when US and Afghan forces tried but failed to capture him.