Senate report on Tora Bora

The Senate (Kerry) report on bin Laden and Tora Bora says that he could have been captured there. But also interesting is that it reminds us of the US alliances with warlords, commanders and drug traffickers from the early days of the campaign. For instance:

Some of the local allies were allies of convenience, Taliban rivals who held power by force and
paid their men by collecting tolls and taxes on legitimate commerce and trafficking in heroin. By providing money and weapons, the U.S. forces helped the warlords destroy their rivals and expand their personal power. Many later entered the Afghan government
and remain influential figures. The strategy was a short cut to victory
that would have consequences for long-term stability in Afghanistan.
When it came to bin Laden, the special operations forces relied
on two relatively minor warlords from the Jalalabad area. Haji
Hazarat Ali had a fourth-grade education and a reputation as a
bully. He had fought the Soviets as a teenager in the 1980s and
later joined the Taliban for a time. The other, Haji Zaman
Ghamsharik, was a wealthy drug smuggler who had been persuaded
by the United States to return from France.

The report says:
our Afghan militia allies did not have the same incentives to stop bin Laden and his associates as
American troops. Nor did they have the technology and training to carry out such a difficult mission. The responsibility for allowing the most wanted man in the world to virtually disappear into thin air lies with the American commanders who refused to commit the necessary U.S. soldiers and Marines to finish the job.
The same shortage of U.S. troops allowed Mullah Mohammed
Omar and other Taliban leaders to escape. A semi-literate leader
who fled Kandahar on a motorbike, Mullah Omar has re-emerged
at the helm of the Taliban-led insurgency, which has grown more
sophisticated and lethal in recent years and now controls swaths
of Afghanistan.