Terrorists traces left in Kabul

The flight-simulator software was found with more than a dozen French-made Milan antitank weapons in a house belonging to the Taliban Defense Ministry. It's inside walls are painted with a map of Saudi Arabia with American, British, and French flags, very loosely marking Western troop concentrations. The map is labeled: "Occupation of the holy lands of Islam by the Crusaders" - a touchstone issue in many parts of the Islamic world over the presence of as many as 20,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region. Pamphlets in other houses show an American soldier superimposed on a picture of the Islamic holy city of Mecca.

President Bush warned earlier this month that Al Qaeda was "seeking chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons." Though there is no proof bin Laden has acquired any, the accused terrorist mastermind recently told a Pakistani journalist that he would unleash chemical or nuclear weapons on the US if he was targeted with them by American forces.

While American officials maintain that bin Laden and his men are responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, much possibly useful evidence in that case and others - including a smorgasbord of names, phone numbers, maps, and other details related to Al Qaeda operations - may have been lost in the swift turnover of Kabul.

Rebel officers collected some material their first day, and journalists have gathered suitcases full. Local residents say many documents disappeared in the wind or into their stoves. Only yesterday did rebel guards receive orders to protect any remaining evidence.

"People knew they were Osama's soldiers," says Atiq Shams, who lives two doors down from an Al Qaeda house in the rundown district of Kalola Pushta. "When the Arabs escaped, we saw pictures of Osama on the wall," says Mr. Shams. "We took them and burned them." All that remains, as alliance troops begin to move in, are torn fragments of the Arabic edition of a sort of "terrorist cookbook," which describes everything from how to make TNT and propellant for rocket grenades to mine-laying methods.

The fact that these Al Qaeda houses were open for looting is seen by many as a lost opportunity for American investigators.

After the first reports late last week of the likely significance of the Al Qaeda houses, US officials say they are listing the locations. "Now, we are about the business of checking those sites as they fall under our control," said Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of US operations in Afghanistan.

Already, the picture of the Al Qaeda lifestyle here is becoming clearer. All but a few of the base houses are in poor neighborhoods. Appearing neglected - but armed with everything from plastic explosives to Western-made detonators - they suggest a Spartan existence of extreme single-mindedness. "Do not be afraid that you may be killed," reads a tract in the bomb-making house, in the Wazir Akbar Khan district. "You will be alive in the other world."

In one house, a slightly out-of-focus image of one pale-skinned resident shows a young man with short hair and a bushy black beard. Unseen in the photo are the soldering irons and tweezers, or the plastic sack with a cannibalized Casio watch, used to make a timing device. Also out of frame are the ink-on-velum and film negative images used to produce fake visa and immigration stamps. Among them: ones purporting to be from the Pakistan Embassy in Rome the Tajikistan consulate in Islamabad.

"The people doing this work are not Afghans. They are Arabs - they are terrorists," says Mullah Baligh, who leads a Kabul mosque. "They are interpreting the Koran to favor their views and only appeal to the uneducated by saying: 'Come on, it is a jihad.'"

Today, many of the Al Qaeda houses smell of rotting food and dust. Detailed expense sheets for fuel, salaries, and rent point to a high degree of organization. So do the ammunition request forms.

"It was obvious they were from Al Qaeda," says landlord Gul Ahmat, who owns the most luxurious of the houses. "I regret renting to them, because they left a big, unpaid electricity bill," he says. "They paid three months in advance, then they didn't let me come back."

Correspondent Philip Smucker in Deh Bala, Afghanistan contributed to this report.

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