Into the Caves

JAMES NACHTWEY/VII FOR TIME

Anti-Taliban fighters near Tora Bora

The white mountains of Afghanistan are beautiful this time of year. Snow blankets the peaks from Kabul to the Khyber Pass, smothering the ancient smugglers' footpaths that lead out of the country and into Pakistan. With the arrival of winter, human traffic in the mountains comes to a halt and the terrain is enveloped in an otherworldly calm.

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu)
Last week the hush was shattered by the blasts of hundreds of American bombs, the rattle of Kalashnikovs and the roar of tanks and pickup trucks carrying about 1,000 anti-Taliban soldiers into the Tora Bora cave complex to...

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