KABUL, Afghanistan — The Islamic State says it has captured Tora Bora, a mountain hideout in Afghanistan once used by Osama bin Laden.
But the Taliban on Thursday dismissed the claim, saying they were still in control of the cave complex.
The Islamic State said its black flag was flying over the area, in a message broadcast late Wednesday on the militants’ Radio Khilafat station.
The group said it had seized several districts and urged villagers who fled the fighting to return to their homes and stay in place.
The Tora Bora mountains hide a warren of caves in which bin Laden and other al-Qaida militants hid from U.S.-led coalition forces in 2001 after the Taliban fled Kabul.
According to testimony from al-Qaida captives in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, bin Laden fled from Tora Bora to Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunar province before crossing the border into Pakistan.
He was killed in a 2011 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.
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