15 killed in armed border escape

At least 15 people were killed today in clashes between Pakistani security officials and Osama bin Laden's fighters arrested while trying to flee across the border.

The gun battle came amid fears that as many as 4,000 al Qaeda fighters and their families escaped into Pakistan after the collapse of their mountain lair at Tora Bora.

At least six of the dead were said to be Arab and Chechen al Qaeda prisoners, while nine were paramilitary police guarding them.

The confrontation reportedly took place while more than two dozen prisoners were being transferred to a jail in northern Pakistan. The prisoners seized weapons from their captors and opened fire. The van they were in overturned.

Roads leading to the area from Peshawar, the largest city in north-east Pakistan, were blocked by security officials.

A local journalist said the prisoners were among 250 al Qaeda members arrested while trying to cross the border yesterday.

After the gunfight at least 41 prisoners escaped in four vans and tribal security officials and soldiers went after them, catching six. The rest remained at large, the journalist said.

Pakistan has poured helicopter gunships and thousands of soldiers into the tribal areas along the border and set up 300 checkpoints to cut off escape routes from Tora Bora.

Al Qaeda fighters fled their caves in the face of relentless US airstrikes and a ground assault by Afghan tribal fighters backed by American and British special forces.

Despite this and attempts by US special forces to seal the rugged 1,340-mile Afghan frontier, up to 4,000 may have escaped across the snow-capped mountains. Pakistani authorities have detained 100 men who crossed the border. They are understood to be under interrogation with the help of CIA and FBI agents.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem said looking for the al Qaeda fighters was like searching for fleas on a dog. "If you see one and you focus on the one, you don't know how many others are getting away."

America's envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins said the hunt for the al Qaeda and Taliban leadership would continue "vigorously" until they are found, and he could not set a date for the withdrawal from Afghanistan of US-led forces.

President George Bush said today that more potentially incriminating videotapes have been found in the al Qaeda caves.

The discovery follows the US government's release of a videotape last week showing Bin Laden laughing and boasting about the 11 September attacks on America which killed nearly 3,300. The Bush administration said that tape sealed his guilt as the mastermind behind the attacks.

Interrogation of al Qaeda captives has so far yielded no credible account of Bin Laden's whereabouts. FBI officials warned Congress that killing or capturing him won't end the global threat from the terror organisation.