October 20, 2001	Saturday	Shaba'an 2, 1422

NEW YORK, Oct 19: Hidden in a warren of impenetrable caves, Osama bin Laden and his men are unlikely to be flushed out without the help of Afghan forces, according to a military expert.

Ali Jalali, current head of the Farsi language service for the US government-funded Voice of America, is a former Afghan army colonel who served from 1979 to 1982 in the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union. He is also the author of a military history of the central Asian nation.

Afghanistan’s intricate mazes of caves have been employed by the stealthy to escape their pursuers and wage their guerrilla war since the dawn of time, he said. Osama has had years to modify and improve the subterranean system — a wise investment as he is now in the sights of a US military and public bent on revenge.

“During the Gengis Khan invasion people used to go there and hide and protect themselves from the invading soldiers,” Jalali said. In their ultimately successful defense against the Soviet forces, he added, “the mujahedeen used those caves in remote mountain areas and canyons as bases for their operations.”

Al-Qaeda has since allegedly taken over the caves in eastern and southern Afghanistan, in Paktia province near Kandahar, the stronghold of the Taliban.

“These are places where they can hide for a very long time,” Jalali warned.

Like the US army in Vietnam, the Soviets tried from 1979 to 1989 to conquer fighters steeped in the art of stealth and camouflage, skills the militants seem to have inherited.

“One of the most elaborate cave systems was in Jawar, in Paktia province,” Jalali said, describing its 11 tunnels, dug into a ridge, that have cached stores, hotels, a library and mosques.

“In 1986, the Russians tried to destroy the Jawar cave system; it took them 57 days,” he continued. Bombings failed and a first wave of ground troops was unsuccessful — when they arrived, the Mujahideen had disappeared, having taken to the mountains ringing the barren landscape.

US special forces, confronted by a well-armed, well-protected highly mobile man flanked by devotees ready to die to defend him, would do well to enlist the aid of Afghan troops who are familiar with the landscape, both above and below ground, Jalali advised.

“The caves can be damaged by smart bombs from the air, but eventually, the commandos have to go in and finish the job,” he said. “But if there is a local support and clear intelligence about the area, it is easier to go like a flash. That’s essential.”

In a 1998 book about subterranean combat co-written with Lieutenant Colonel Lester Grau of the Foreign Military Studies Office in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Jalali concluded that any high-tech military operations to destroy the caves will ultimately be unsuccessful. —AFP