Al Qaeda's mule trail to Pakistan

Nasar is only a mile or two from the hill that hosted the tents from where BBC, CNN, and other networks filmed the two-week siege of Tora Bora. The battle ended two days ago on a sour note with the discovery that bin Laden had already slipped away, along with hundreds of his Al Qaeda fighters.

After leaving Nasar, we entered the Tora Bora mountain redoubt, the preferred residence of bin Laden until about two weeks ago, according to the Saudi financier.

As we entered a narrow stream bed that cut into a vast gorge, we could see fighters loyal to Afghan warlord Hazrat Ali.

Our entourage of former Al Qaeda sympathizers hesitated to move forward, fearing the warlord's men. "They arrested 11 villagers yesterday and are still holding them hostage," said one of our escorts.

We left the mules and continued up the gorge on foot. Above us in the clear, blue sky was a white American reconnaissance aircraft. It buzzed, hovered, and then zipped off.

When our bodyguard spotted Ali's men coming toward us, he turned and ran down the mountain, only to explain later that he was afraid he would have been disarmed.

Within 30 minutes, we came out of the gorge and saw the first sign of the vast network of caves and bunkers that is known as Tora Bora. On a hillside, 12-year-old boys lifted 30-pound boxes of anti-aircraft shells and tossed them down the hill onto another pile of ammunition. There were tens of thousands of the boxes in two caves.

The caves had been the redoubt of a Sudanese Al Qaeda chief, who a month earlier had written us a note in Arabic welcoming us for an interview inside Tora Bora "at a place and time of our choosing." It was an invitation we had declined by explaining our own security concerns.

A few days after his last communication with us, the jovial Sudanese commander was killed by a US airstrike.

Today, a new "security chief," a young Afghan called Commander Nozubilla, reluctantly agreed to provide a "tour of the caves." He said we were the first journalists allowed to tour this site. But just across the ravine, we saw two trucks being used by US Special Forces, who have been combing the caves for evidence of Al Qaeda activities and the possible whereabouts of bin Laden.

Both of the caves we entered closely resembled the entrances to Pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Large entrances are carved into the hillside that lead into longer corridors, which in turn feed into smaller, rounded entrances.

The booty inside was not nearly as interesting; only boxes upon boxes of Chinese anti-aircraft shells and Russian rockets. Discarded boxes of fruit juice and crackers were scattered among the ammunition.

"This was once a great base for Osama and Al Qaeda," said Mr. Nozubilla, who was apparently in charge of cleaning out the caves for Commander Ali.

"I'm afraid this is all I can show you, as bin Laden and his people burned most of their paperwork before they left," he added, a little disappointed.

We left to return down the slope that had served so well as an Al Qaeda escape route. One villager in our party was overheard asking another if they should "kidnap the infidel [me] and take his money."

"No," the other replied. "He might not have much and, besides, there is no Al Qaeda anymore to pay us for his scalp."

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