KABUL (REUTERS) — Anti-Taliban forces have captured the main base of Osama bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan but failed to find the Saudi-born militant, a military spokesman said on Friday.

“The last and main base of Osama in Tora Bora was captured last night,” Mohammad Habeel, a spokesman for the militarily dominant Northern Alliance, told Reuters, adding that there had been fierce resistance as the assault was pressed home.

“Our troops led by Commander Hazrat Ali said that we have taken almost all of Tora Bora and its main caves,” he said. “We have staged a mopping-up operation to clear remaining parts of Tora Bora.”

He said Arab family members, including women, had been captured, along with weapons and vehicles, but there was no sign of bin Laden, leader of the mainly Arab al Qaeda network.

“Osama was not in Tora Bora during the past days of fighting, and if he had been, he has probably slipped into Pakistan,” Habeel said.

TALIBAN START HANDING OVER WEAPONS IN KANDAHAR

Taliban fighters began turning over their weapons Friday in the southern city of Kandahar, their birthplace and last bastion, an Afghan news agency reported.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said the defenders of the ancient city had started handing in their guns to a joint commission of tribal elders, Islamic religious scholars and former Mujahideen commanders.

It said the commission was headed by Mullah Naqibullah, a former Mujahideen leader and military chief of Kandahar.

The peaceful handover of Kandahar was agreed on Thursday in negotiations between the Taliban and Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun tribal chief who is set to lead a new interim Afghan government.

AIP had no immediate word on the fate of the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar or his top aides.