TORA BORA/KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Chechen fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden fought to the death Saturday in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan in battles with U.S. special forces and their Afghan tribal allies.
But an Afghan commander returning from the front among the caves, tunnels and valleys near Tora Bora said that while the Chechens fought on, 50 other members of bin Laden's al Qaeda network had surrendered.
The whereabouts of bin Laden himself, the man Washington accuses of masterminding the bloody September 11 suicide attacks on the United States, remained a mystery -- with U.S. officials saying he could still be with his cornered fighters.
Others fled the blistering U.S. bombardment of the jagged Tora Bora peaks and canyons bordering Pakistan, where authorities arrested 31 Arab militants as they crossed the frontier into the Kurram tribal area.
Four others, including a wounded French national, were captured a day earlier in the famed Khyber Pass.
Mohammad Pahlawan, an Afghan tribal commander returning from the front line in the rugged White Mountains around Tora Bora, said the ground battle was relentless.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier that 50 al Qaeda fighters had surrendered in a new thrust by Afghan forces and a small but growing number of U.S. special forces in the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora.
Between 300 and 1,000 al Qaeda are believed to fighting a last stand in Tora Bora.