NEW YORK, Dec 23: John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old Californian who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan, at one point lived in a secret camp where he attended a small meeting with Osama bin Laden, Newsweek magazine claimed on Sunday.

At the meeting, “the disciple basked in the glow of his master,” the magazine said in its Dec 31 issue.

Citing sources familiar with information Walker provided the FBI after his capture on Dec. 2, Newsweek said Walker was eventually trusted enough by the Al Qaeda network to live in its Farouk camp in the mountains near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

The magazine said the site was where at least one of the Sept. 11 hijackers trained and where Osama often moved among the troops.

In the months preceding the attacks, Newsweek said al Qaeda leaders presented Walker with a choice: he could follow a course of intensive terrorist instruction or fight as an al Qaeda warrior against the Northern Alliance.

Walker reportedly told US authorities that he chose to fight, avoiding what a Justice Department official described as “martyrdom training,” the magazine said.

Walker was captured after a prison uprising among Taliban fighters at which CIA agent Mike Spann was killed. He was wounded during the uprising outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

He is being held aboard a US vessel in the Arabian Sea and could face charges that would bring the death penalty.

The Justice Department was described by sources as leaning toward recommending that Walker be charged with violating a law against supporting terrorist organizations, which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, rather than treason.—Reuters