FARMADA (Afghanistan) Nov 23: Osama bin Laden, part of his family and about 2,000 Arab fighters were staying in a housing complex in eastern Afghanistan shortly before the United States launched its bombing campaign against his Al-Qaeda network and the Taliban, an area commander said on Friday.

Standing outside a compound where one of Osama’s wives lived with their children, local militia commander Mohamed Nawab said Osama often spent his days in the eastern provincial capital of Jalalabad, but would come to the mud-brick compound to visit his family at night.

Nawab said Osama rented the compound from militia commander Mullah Yunus Khalis, a hardliner who fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, later allied himself with the Taliban and only recently defected to anti-Taliban forces.

Khalis’ militia, which controls Farmada, remain suspicious of militiamen loyal to Abdul Kadeer, the main anti-Taliban leader in Jalalabad, creating tension in the area.

The compounds were nicknamed “Families” because they were home to the wives and children of Arab fighters, he said, adding that Osama moved there shortly after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“He was living here for quite a long time,” Nawab said. Anti-Soviet fighters were given these houses in 1992, he said.

The walled compound, with running water and electricity from a generator, had six one-bedroom apartments inside, including a workshop and what appeared to be a library.

Next to stacks of Islamic texts were manuals for military communications equipment and weapons, as well as a brochure for a US-made chemical and biological weapon detection and alarm devices.

Among the debris were electronics components, empty film canisters and an American Red Cross directory.

Even though the area is nominally under the control of an anti-Taliban militia, US warplanes dropped bombs on Thursday night on a training camp 700 metres from Osama’s former home in Farmada, 10kms southwest of Jalalabad.

Throughout the area, disabled Taliban tanks sit under trees and the centre of the training camp is littered with yellow cluster bombs, some unexploded with their tiny parachutes still attached.

“Why are the Americans bombing us?” asked Azat Allah, a militiaman loyal to Khalis guarding the former al-Qaeda base. “I think there is nothing around here, so the Americans should stop bombing us.”—AP