By RICHARD LLOYD PARRY
JALALABAD - It has its own ventilation system and its own power, created by a hydro-electric generator.
Its walls and floors are smooth and finished, and it extends 350m beneath a solid mountain. It is so well defended and concealed that - short of poison gas or a tactical nuclear weapon - it is completely immune to outside attack.
And it is filled with heavily armed followers of Osama bin Laden, with a suicidal commitment to their cause and with nothing left to lose.
Yesterday for the first time a witness spoke in detail about one of the greatest remaining challenges for the effort to destroy the al Qaeda network - its underground cave complex in the Tora Bora area of the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
He described a purpose-built guerrilla lair, in and around which up to 2000 Arab and foreign fighters and remnants of the Taleban are reported to be preparing for a new guerrilla phase in their battle against the West.
The witness is an Afghan from Jalalabad who visited the Tora Bora base six months ago as a guest of the so-called "Arabs" - foreign fighters, including Saudis, Pakistanis and Chechens, who make up the rank and file of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Many more converged on the base when the Taleban retreated from Jalalabad nearly two weeks ago and, according to reports received by the anti-Taleban mujahideen who have taken over Jalalabad, the Arabs have employed local people to extend and fortify new caves.
The journey to Tora Bora begins on the road south from Jalalabad, along which bin Laden rented a house for his family until two months ago. Soon after the town of Bachera Gam, the road peters out into a narrow track to Tora Bora, which can be reached only on foot. Here are parked 450 pick-up trucks, which the Arabs leave in the care of local retainers. The Arabs operate a business here, felling the timber from the broad forests in the foothills of the White Mountains.
"Tora Bora means 'black dust'," said the Afghan witness, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear that his Arab connections will get him into trouble with Jalalabad's new mujahideen rulers. "It is a place completely surrounded by mountains and they have to bring in their supplies by asses, camels and horses. A strong man with good legs can walk it but it takes three hours from the nearest village."
Ironically, the caves - in the side of a mountain called Ghree Khil - were first developed by the men who are now the Arabs' great enemies: the mujahideen, during their war of resistance against the invading Soviet Union. But the al Qaeda have turned rough natural cavities into a sophisticated military base.
"It's like a hotel, with doors on the left and the right," said the witness.
"They have an electrical system which provides power for the caves, driven by water from the peaks of the mountains. The entrance is wide enough to drive a car inside. You walk for 15m until you reach a door made of wood. After the doorway, it divides into branches."
Winters are bitterly cold in the White Mountains but, says the witness, the Arabs are well equipped.
"The villagers carry necessities to them from the other side of the mountain," he said. "They don't need to burn coal because the rooms have electricity, but there is a kind of [ventilation] station which picks up the smoke and carries it out to the sky.
The rock in the area is black and glistens with crystals. "There are small rooms and big rooms, and the walls and floor are cemented," he said. "You can only make out what they really are because you can see the sharp rock in the ceiling.
"Outside the entrance to the cave there are a lot of trees so it's hard to see from the sky. The local people are not allowed to walk near the cave, and Osama warned that if they go near it they will die."
An assault on Tora Bora would be a daunting task for any Army, and it is becoming clear that the mujahideen rulers of Jalalabad are incapable of such an undertaking.
Mujahideen commander Hazrat Ali said yesterday that he believed bin Laden was in the White Mountains area.
"We don't know the exact number of al Qaeda and Taleban there, but I'm 70 per cent sure Osama is there."
- INDEPENDENT
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Inside a purpose-built guerrilla lair
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