We obtained an album of photographs taken by a Navy SEAL commando team as it scoured the Zawar Kili terrorism camp in January.

The photos show a maze of caves, brick-lined tunnels, living quarters and classrooms from which Osama bin Laden ran part of the al Qaeda terror network.

Inside the Tora Bora Caves

As Al Qaeda troops flee the region, TIME's Matthew Forney goes inside their former hideouts

BY MATTHEW FORNEY

Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2001
Inside the Tora Bora Caves
As Al Qaeda troops flee the region, TIME's Matthew Forney goes inside their former hideouts
BY MATTHEW FORNEY

Crazy led the charge on the caves. The six-foot-tall mujahidin fighter who chose his own nickname is famed in Jalalabad for killing five Arab fighters who fled town a little too slowly when the Taliban fell. Just before taking his usual place leading the charge on Monday, Crazy found a white coat left by Al Qaeda fighters who had held a forward ridge the day before. "This is Osama bin Laden's coat!" he yelled as he pulled in on, twisted a white head scarf around his head, and called his commander, Haji Zahir, one more time on the wireless. "I told him, "if you return unsuccessful, I'll kill you,'" says Zahir. "It was sort of a joke, to push him further."

It worked. The mujahidin shoved far enough into the craggy Tora Bora landscape on Monday and Tuesday to drive the last Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan so deep into the mountains that they're offering to surrender. Small-arms fire crackled through Tuesday morning, but by afternoon the caves were secure, both sides had declared a cease-fire and the attackers were combing the area that once seemed unassailable for war booty. One of three top commanders, Haji Zaman, spoke with an Arab leader by wireless. "He said don't fight, we want to surrender," says Zaman. He ordered them to give themselves up by 8 AM Wednesday or face a renewed assault.

Despite the stunning victory in the field, the ultimate objective remained elusive. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, although he is running out of Afghan aeyries in which to hide. The two-day attack and relentless bombing destroyed what was probably the last of his Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, located just above the caves. The area is a picture of devastation. Strewn across the terraced slopes that climb a tight valley are torn strips of Arabic training manuals, some shreds of clothing, a set of parallel exercise bars and a shooting target printed by the National Rifle Association. Trees blown from the earth lie with their roots twisted into clumps like charred driftwood. Bomb craters 50 feet across and 20 feet deep are filled with rubble and cross beams. "I think yesterday he was around there," says commander Zaman. "I don't know if bin Laden is dead or alive," he added, saying he's waiting to see who, if anybody, turns themselves in on Wednesday morning.

For the first time, the infamous man-made caves of Tora Bora were thrown open. These weren't the five-star accommodations with internal hydroelectric power plants and brick-lined walls, areas to drive armored tanks and children's tricycles, and tunnels like capillaries that have captured the world's imagination. Such commodious quarters might exist higher in the White Mountains, but these were simply rough bunkers embedded deep into the mountain. They were remarkable nonetheless.

I entered my first cave by walking through a narrow 20-foot passage chiseled into a 60-degree mountain slope. The effect was of walking through a deep cavern open to the sky. I walked down the passage, stepping over two rows of sandbags that blocked my way, and came to a three-foot opening. I ducked into the mouth and dared go no further. Not even the mujahidin would follow, and several were making "boom" noises and gesturing about flying body parts. Everybody expected booby traps or mines.

After my eyes adjusted I saw a chamber of about eight square feet and high enough for a tall man to stand in. The floor was dirt and rubble, but there were signs of habitation. It contained two empty white boxes decorated with palm trees and the words, "Sherjah Dates." Scattered on the floor were a few green metal boxes of ammunition with Russian writing on them, and a canister about the size of an unexploded cluster bomb but the wrong color — red instead of yellow. Another cave next to it was about the same size and filled with ammunition, mostly bullets for Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades. Another nearby was much bigger and also filled with ammunition. Its cavern sloped up and back and seemed to lead to a passage, but nobody ventured in.

The caves faced a narrow valley that twisted its way through mountain ridges that seem to overlap as they rise toward the White Mountains. As Tuesday afternoon waned and it was clear that the Al Qaeda fighters had accepted the cease-fire, the area took the appearance of an archeological dig. Across one ridge 20 mujahidin fighters scratched at the ground with sticks looking for fragments of U.S. bombs, which they loaded into a huge cooking pot and carried to a pickup truck. One fighter handed me a rubber jug with a strap. "Al Qaeda," he said with a nod. Arabs drink water too. Another fighter with pale green eyes carried a backpack that he had taken from a cave. It contained a stick of Mum Cool Blue roll-on deodorant. He wouldn't let anyone touch it, but he would let them sniff.

The victory they were celebrating came with relative ease — one mujahidin fighter died and seven Al Qaeda fighters, according to commanders. Gul Karim led a group of about 30 fighters, including Crazy, in the Monday assault on the caves and a cluster of mud-earth houses nearby. The first thing he did was raise the enemy on a walkie-talkie. "He said they don't want to fight us, that we all are Muslims. They said leave us the Americans and we will fight them." It had no effect. "Our troops had orders to attack," he says. His soldiers, most of whom had spent the past five years living in Pakistani refugee camps and had never fought before, first occupied the ridges above the caves and swept down the hills. The defenders withdrew quickly. One fighter with a yellow flower in his hat said his friend had killed two as they fled up the mountain.

By Tuesday morning nearly all the Arabs had followed to higher ground, where they fired mortars and machine guns at the advancing mujahidin. Three fighters on a strategic ridge held off the advance for much of the morning before a volley of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades blew them apart. Two were later dragged to a command post and dumped on the ground for mujahidin fighters to gawk at. One was so mangled that his torso faced the sky and his legs faced the ground.

If they choose not to surrender by the Wednesday deadline, the Al Qaeda remnants will have to fight or flee. They still control the highest ground and it's not known what kind of fortifications they maintain there. "We can't say they are completely surrounded; they have many ways to escape," says a commander named Atiqullah. "They could cross into Pakistan" by traversing the snowy passes along the border a several miles away, "but that way is very difficult."

Inside Osama's mountain lair

In 1996, journalist Abdul Bari Atwan spent an uncomfortable night sleeping above several boxes of grenades in an Afghan cave - with Bin Laden in a bed nearby. Here he describes his extraordinary visit to the hideout.

Monday November 12, 2001
The Guardian

It began in London. A bearded man whispered into my ear that all was set for the journey to Afghanistan and my meeting with Sheikh Osama bin Laden. The plan was to travel to Peshawar in Pakistan, where someone would collect me and escort me into Afghanistan. Bin Laden's supporters would then pick me up and take me to the man.

I kept my plans absolutely secret, so I was astonished when, on arrival in Peshawar late at night, a man jumped on me - embracing and kissing me - in the hotel reception. He was an old friend returning with a Saudi delegation from a fact-finding mission in Afghanistan. When he asked why I was there, I told him it was for the same reason that he and his delegation had been there: fact-finding. He advised me to send a colleague instead. "The country is dangerous and security is nonexistent," he said.

At 10 the next morning a young man who called himself Faysal knocked on the door of my room. Bearded and with a dark complexion, he wore Pakistani-style clothes, but from the few words he uttered I guessed he was a Saudi from Jeddah, or perhaps from Mecca.

Faysal brought me an Afghan costume consisting of baggy trousers, a long shirt and a turban. He told me to put them all on and to leave everything else in the hotel. He assured me that the Pakistani security forces, who prevented Arabs from going to Afghanistan and detained them, would not recognise me in my new garb - I would pass for a Pashtun tribal leader.

Two Taliban men then took me to the bus station, where we squeezed into a Toyota pickup with 15 other passengers. Although I was dressed in the same style as everyone else, there was one distinguishing feature: my garments - including my turban - were new. It was for this reason alone that I attracted the attention of all the passengers, and the curiosity and suspicion of the assistant driver.

My two Taliban companions were in their early 20s. They were humble and spoke neither Arabic nor any other language apart from their own - which I didn't speak. We travelled in silence.

The driver was also a young man. He drove the ramshackle vehicle at a terrifying pace along the twisting mountain road. Pakistan had been in a state of emergency and security measures were at their highest, but - despite the numerous roadblocks and the driving - we got to the border.

The crossing point was a pathway, no wider than 10 metres, between two mountains. Pakistani soldiers and intelligence officers scrutinised those passing through, but stopped only those carrying bags or suspicious items. I was carrying nothing apart from a small bag (with a camera, a small tape recorder, some papers and batteries concealed inside it) and we were not stopped - though I guessed that my two Taliban companions, who seemed to be on good terms with Pakistan and its army in particular, were more powerful than a diplomatic passport.

From Pakistan, we walked for about half a kilometre to the Afghan border checkpoint. All it consisted of was a soiled white banner hanging from a stick. Next to the banner sat a ghostly, bearded man in a turban. He spoke to no one, as if the matter of our passing was of no concern to him.

We arrived at a small market, and after a lunch of broth we went on to a bus station. My two companions succeeded, by virtue of their affiliation to the ruling party, in seating me at the front, next to the driver and another passenger - that is, in first class.

The journey to Jalalabad takes about four hours, depending on the zeal of the driver, the type of his vehicle and the cooperation of the passengers. Our vehicle was of the old type that had lived through the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and might even have taken part in it one way or another. We had to disembark three times - twice because of burst tyres and once to help lift the vehicle out of mud.

In Pakistan people drive on the left, as they do in Britain. In Afghanistan, it all depends on the mood of the driver and the state of the road. The vehicle we were on constantly swerved from left to right and back again, avoiding bomb craters, tank tracks and flood damage.

I arrived in Jalalabad suffering from severe pains in the neck and the back, and was directed to one of the city's hotels. The Ever White Mountain was a reminder that Afghanistan once had a settled past. Spacious and surrounded by gardens full of all types of orange trees and roses, the hotel was almost empty of guests.

The next day Bin Laden's "envoy" in Jalalabad came to the hotel and apologised that the sheikh could not meet me that day. I told him I was in a hurry and had commitments in London that required my presence there on Monday.

At 3pm a red car pulled up in front of the hotel. Inside was a man I hadn't met before, a driver and two armed men. They told me we would go to meet the sheikh but the journey was going to be arduous and exhausting, not to mention dangerous.

It was soon dark, and the journey was indeed arduous. The road through the mountains was unpaved and dotted with boulders. After seven hours of agony and wrestling with rocks, communication equipment started buzzing, and then a vehicle bristling with armed men, rockets and a machine gun intercepted us and accompanied us the rest of the way.

When we arrived at Eagles' Nest - the Arab Afghans' base at an altitude of around 3,000m - I could see caves dug in mountain edges amid the snow, and armed bands moving here and there. The cold wind almost blew my turban off as I climbed out of the vehicle. Someone led me to a cave where Bin Laden was sitting.

I had expected to be searched, especially since the man in front of me was being chased by the entire world's intelligence services, but nobody even asked to look inside the bag I was carrying.

Bin Laden's cave is a 6m-by-4m room. In the foremost part of the room sits a library full of Islamic heritage and tafsir (Koranic commentary) books including Tafsir al-Jalalayn, Fataw ibn Taymiyah, Ibn Hisham's biography of the Prophet and others.

There were also five wooden beds that looked more like the wooden platforms used to display fruit and vegetables in poor Arab markets. The walls of the cave were hung with Kalashnikov rifles.

Bin Laden met me with a smile that soon turned into laughter when he saw the way I, the one who had come from London, was dressed in baggy trousers, turban and long shirt. By his side was an elderly Arab journalist, a descendant of a prestigious and well-placed Egyptian family. He had come to Afghanistan as a correspondent for a Gulf newspaper, but left journalism and joined the mojahedin, and had been living in the mountains of Afghanistan ever since.

In another corner of the room was a third cultured person who took part in the conversation from time to time and a fourth who sat reading a book that might have been Ibn Kathir's commentary on the Holy Koran.

Bin Laden, tall and slender, had given his beard free rein. Dressed in Afghan costume, he had a red scarf on his head and shielded himself from the cold with a jacket of the type worn by special commando groups. His voice is soft and his smile reassuring.

As we talked I complained to him of the pains I had endured during the journey. He laughed and said he had made things easy for me by deciding to meet me half way, for he had been at another base much further and higher in the mountains.

In the midst of our conversation, shouting began outside, then gunshots, artillery shelling and rocket firing. My host rushed out, leaving me alone in the cave. Imagining this must be the end, I recited a Koranic verse. But Bin Laden returned shortly and apologised. It was nothing serious, he said - just a mobilisation that takes place from time to time to maintain the highest level of preparedness.

As the conversation ended I was told that dinner was ready. I had imagined that they might offer some fat-free mountain goat, or perhaps locally produced chicken. It was a great surprise to discover that dinner consisted of chips soaking in cottonseed oil, a plate of fried eggs that could hardly be sufficient for one man, salty cheese of a kind that has long been extinct even in the villages of upper Egypt, and bread that must have been kneaded with sand because chewing it made my teeth screech. I took a few bites, but then told them that I usually avoided dinner for health reasons.

After midnight, following a splendid off-the-record conversation about many things including Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Algeria, they pointed to one of the beds and said: "This is yours, so take care of yourself." Bin Laden slept on a similar bed in the same cave.

The mattress was featureless and grey after so much use and lack of cleaning; the same may be said of the pillow. But more alarming was what lay under the bed: boxes of grenades.

Heating in the cave consisted of a water tank and a wooden stove. A pipe extended out of the tank to the ceiling. Primitive as this seemed, it is widely used in Afghanistan and, I was told, is more effective than all the modern heating equipment in Europe.

I couldn't sleep that night. The wind outside sounded like alarm sirens, and a squint-eyed cock that started crying at 1am produced a sound I had never heard before. Worse still, the base's vehicles took turns to rev their engines one after another. When in the morning I sought an explanation for this, I was told that it prevented the diesel fuel from freezing.

At 4am things started moving at the base with the call to dawn prayer. Prayers had to be performed strictly on time and, of course, before prayer came the mandatory wudu (ablution).

I rose sluggishly. The brothers provided some lukewarm water and I asked: "Where is the toilet?" They laughed - "Where do you think you are, at the Sheraton?" - and pointed outside. "There you may fulfil your need and make ablution."

The temperature was around 20 degrees below zero, if not lower. All I remember is that my lower limbs, from the waist to the feet, were completely frozen.

As daylight crept in, the features of the base became clearer. There was a special beauty in the landscape: pine trees embracing the mountain as snow covered it from all sides; fresh air filling the lungs; and a scarlet dawn. The base was guarded by an anti-aircraft gun, tanks and armoured vehicles on the roads leading in, and, it was claimed, Stinger missiles, although I never saw those.

Breakfast was not much different from dinner: the same cheese, or what remained of it, some cane syrup, and tea with milk. The meal was accompanied by a recitation from the Holy Koran. I observed that Bin Laden ate very little and drank nothing but water.

Simple as it appeared, the base was supplied with a small power generator, computers, modern communications equipment and a large archive, which included cuttings from all the Arab and foreign press. Bin Laden received a daily news service from London and the Gulf.

The mojahedin around the man represent most of the Arab nationalities and all ages. Most of them are young men with high academic qualifications. Some are doctors, engineers and teachers who left their families and jobs to join the jihad.

The Arab mojahedin respect their leader and hold him in high esteem. All said to me that they were prepared to die in his defence and that they would take revenge on anyone who might harm him. Most of the young men come from the Arabian peninsula and Egypt. A high proportion come from Al-Qasim, Mecca, Medina and the Gulf emirates.

All are known by old Islamic names, especially those of the Prophet's companions, those who were told that their places were guaranteed in Paradise, and the commanders of early Islamic conquests.

Together with Bin Laden, or Abu Abdullah as his followers and disciples call him, I toured the mountains adjacent to the base. All the time he wore his Kalashnikov rifle, which is clearly precious to him. He told me that it used to belong to a Soviet general who was killed in battle.

We spoke about the past, the present and the future, about the corrupt Arab regimes and about American injustice to Muslims. He talked to me about the days he spent in Sudan and Somalia, attempts made on his life and the enormous financial rewards he was promised if he would give up his mission and jihad.

My time in the Arab Afghan Emirate was soon over, however, and I had to bid Bin Laden farewell and return to the same car, the same road and the same back and neck pains.

· Abdul Bari Atwan is editor of the UK Arabic weekly news magazine Al-Quds al-Arabi.

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