KANDAHAR, Dec 13: Kandahar airport is unlikely to reopen for at least another week because it has been so badly booby trapped by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda fighters, officials said Thursday.

Airport officials had said provincial governor Gul Agha had ordered them to reopen the airport on Friday, one week after the withdrawal of the Taliban militia and their al-Qaeda allies.

But Yusuf Pashtun, a spokesman for the governor, said the order had been delayed because the airport was more extensively mined than first thought.

“We have lost three men there because of booby traps, there are even mines in the showers,” he told AFP. “Demining is quite a difficult and slow job. We hope we can open the airport next Thursday.”

Around 60 Arab fighters were killed in the battle for the airport, according to Agha. A tour of the area Thursday revealed how US bombers had pounded their trenches and accommodation.

Six three-storey apartments took direct hits and the paths outside were scattered with clothing and books.

“The Arabs moved in here in November. The regular airport workers (the former occupants) had moved out by then,” said the base deputy commander Gul Ali.

The Arabs mounted a fierce defence of the airport as forces loyal to Agha attacked them on the ground and US planes bombed them.

According to Ali, 300 fighters, mainly Arabs, took part in the battle but most had deserted the complex by the time the airport finally fell last Friday.

Ali said many had by then joined fellow al-Qaeda members at the Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan.—AFP