Three months after the missile strikes, two luxury jets landed at Kandahar air base. One brought Prince Turki al Faisal, bin Laden's student friend and the head of Saudi Arabia's security services. The second was empty. It was there to take bin Laden back to Riyadh.

Prince Turki, who had been crucial in getting millions of dollars of official aid for the Taliban, went straight to Mullah Omar's residence where a magnificent lunch had been laid out. The prince began to lecture the Taliban leader about his ingratitude to his former benefactors. In the middle of his tirade Omar took a water jug from an attendant and emptied it over his head.

"I nearly lost my temper," he told the astonished prince. "Now I am calm. I will ask you a question and then you can leave. How long has the royalty of Saudi Arabia been the hired help of the Americans?" Lunch went uneaten and the second plane returned to Riyadh empty. Shortly afterwards bin Laden pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar and recognized him formally as amir ul momineen -- leader of the faithful. His fate and that of the Taliban were now inextricably linked.

He issued a statement denying all involvement in the Nairobi attacks -- though he said that he welcomed them. No one believed him. The Taliban then said bin Laden had "disappeared." No one believed them either. In fact he was spending most of his time at an old Soviet agricultural collective, Farm Hadda, five miles south of Jalalabad.

The Saudi's life there was described to The Observer by a defecting al-Qaida associate in June 1999. Bin Laden's daily routine reflected the rigor of his surroundings. After dawn prayers, he studied the Koran for several hours. Breakfast was dates, yogurt, flat Afghan bread and black tea. Lunch and dinner was equally plain. Bin Laden's life was dominated by security concerns. Instead of using satellite phones -- he believed the Americans used their signals to track him -- bin Laden dictated messages to an aide who telephoned them from a separate location. He is currently guarded by a select group of mainly Arab fighters led by Saifu al-Hasnain, a 35 year-old Egyptian.

As al-Qaida's operations expanded security has become simpler. By the beginning of this year, according to Russian intelligence, the group had more than 50 individual bases in Afghanistan. There were units of Arab fighters on at least three front lines, others stationed in Kabul and still more in newly built bases, some with airstrips, in the desert south of Kandahar. Every location was -- and is -- another safe haven.

As al-Qaida's infrastructure expanded inside Afghanistan so did its profile beyond its frontiers. Throughout 1999 and 2000, rattled Western intelligence services blamed bin Laden for hundreds of threats and scores of attacks all over the world. Though many were only tenuously linked to him, bin Laden was happy to take the credit. Clever publicity stunts helped too. When the Americans posted their reward for him, 100-rupee notes were stamped with a picture of bin Laden and distributed throughout Afghanistan. Thousands of cassettes of his speeches were distributed across the region too and, according to a letter signed by bin Laden, journalists were bribed.

To reporters who did meet him he denied everything and nothing at the same time. When asked if he had chemical weapons, he merely said that the duty of all Muslims was to try to obtain the means to defeat tyranny. Questioned about terrorist attacks, he denied responsibility, but welcomed the actions of his "Muslim brothers." Last year suicide bombers attacked a U.S. warship in a harbor in Yemen. Seventeen servicemen died. Once again Bin Laden hinted at his involvement but nothing more. And he made more threats.

In June he released a video showing al-Qaida operatives training and footage of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers. He was shown standing by a map of the world and promising spectacular events in the near future. Also in the summer, arms dealers in Peshawar told The Observer, bin Laden's representatives had started buying Stingers and other surface-to-air missiles.

He also made massive purchases of small arms and ammunition and gave them to the Taliban, possibly in a bid to build up his credit with them. At a camp in the desert southwest of Kandahar -- close to where U.S. Rangers landed nine days ago -- al-Qaida completed the construction of a new airstrip. Every night throughout the summer, flights from the Middle East brought extra recruits and supplies. A concerted fundraising operation in the Gulf also replenished al-Qaida's coffers. There is also evidence that in the days before 11 September a number of al-Qaida members tried to flee Afghanistan. Several were arrested by Pakistani police.

No one knows where bin Laden was when the Twin Towers crumbled. Most sources believe that, though he has been "sighted" at a number of locations in Afghanistan, he was, and remains, in the desert south of Kandahar or in the remote mountains of Oruzgan. We know he is with al-Zawahiri, almost certainly with Mohammed Atef, a number of other prominent extremists and probably his son. An elite group, drawn from the three or four thousand Arab fighters currently in Afghanistan, is guarding him, along with a detachment of Taliban. We know he met Mullah Omar close to Kandahar a few days after the strikes began and analysis of the rocky background in the video released on the day of the U.S. attacks reveals the tape was most likely filmed there or in the eastern province of Paktia, close to the Pakistan border.

"These events have divided the world into two camps, the camp of the faithful and the camp of the infidel" he said. "Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion." He ticked his targets off one by one -- the Israelis, the "apostate, hereditary rulers" of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and other Middle Eastern states, "those killers who toyed with the blood, honour and sanctities of Muslims." And he listed the victims -- the Palestinians, the Iraqi children dying because of U.N. sanctions, the whole Muslim nation.

Five thousand people were dead in America. The greatest power on the planet was angry and frightened and looking for him. Hundreds of its warplanes filled the skies above his adopted homeland.

At dusk tonight, somewhere in Afghanistan's blasted and baked mountains and deserts, a small group of men will face the setting sun and kneel. As is customary, the most senior and respected among them will take a step forward and lead the group in prayer. Osama bin Laden will give thanks to God.

Recent Stories