Kabul | Friday
AS US strikes against Afghanistan appear more and more likely, the whereabouts of terror suspect Osama bin Laden remain a closely guarded secret.
Rumours are rife that he has been on the move since Tuesday’s horrific terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but no one outside his inner circle of close confidantes knows exactly here he is.
Even officials with the ruling Taliban militia, who protect him as their honoured “guest”, are often unaware of his movements, according to bin Laden’s associates in neighbouring Pakistan.
Nevertheless he is believed to spend most of his time at the militia’s southern stronghold of Kandahar, a desert oasis town which serves as an important trading point with the subcontinent, Middle East and Central Asia.
It is here that bin Laden has regular contact with the Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, with whom he shares long talks on the rise of Islam and the military situation in war-torn Afghanistan.
“No one knows where he hides — he doesn’t tell anyone. You can see him in the streets of Kabul or Kandahar. He has several houses and they’re generally small, but he prefers a lot of open space around the house,” said a Pakistani who has met the Saudi millionaire several times.
Omar and bin Laden both own houses in Kandahar — two-story concrete villas — on the city’s only tarmacked road which stretches about two kilometres across town.
Nestled within a mountainous buffer near the border with Pakistan, the city is a two-day drive south of here and a safe distance from the bloody fighting that has dominated life in Kabul for more than a decade.
The Taliban movement of “Islamic students” seized Kabul in 1996 when bin Laden was based with his family near the northeastern city of Jalalabad.
It was from there that he operated against the Soviets during the 1979-89 occupation, and he is still believed to visit the area as he moves between several secret bases around Afghanistan with his core of bodyguards and advisors.
As the Taliban became the dominant force in Afghanistan, he was invited to the militia’s spiritual heartland in Kandahar, where he offered funds and Arab soldiers to help the Taliban fight the civil war.
But after he became America’s most wanted terrorist in the wake of the 1998 twin US embassy bombings in East Africa — which led to US missile strikes on his camps in Khost — the militia put a price on his protection.
He was denied the use of phones and faxes, according to the Taliban, and was strictly forbidden to use Afghanistan to launch any operations overseas.
“After the attacks he left Kandahar but he is no longer in Taliban territory,” said one of his friends in Pakistan, on condition of anonymity.
“He moves and he doesn’t inform the Taliban about it because he doesn’t like the restrictions he is under.”
His various bases in Afghanistan are said to include Sherbaghan in the west, Ghazni in the centre and Hadda Farm outside of Jalalabad in the country’s east.
More recently, bin Laden has been reportedly sighted in Omar’s offices in Kandahar and provinces north of Kabul, where a series of battles has been fought in recent weeks along the frontlines.
Increasing numbers of suspected Arab mercenaries have also been sighted around the capital in recent months, bin Laden’s raw recruits to his radical vision of jihad, or holy war.
“He used to have some Pakistani guards with him but last month he turned them away and now they are Egyptians and Bengalis,” said a source in Pakistan.
“He’s generally very hospitable — he likes his food. He likes to wash the hands of his guests himself rather than letting his servants do that.” – Sapa-AFP
ZA*NOW:
Understanding Osama bin Laden September 13, 2001