Osama Bin Laden (Tahkhana ke)

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

An unspecified, supposedly natural -cave- but more likely a complex of man-made rock chambers used for secular purposes [tahkhana] that is claimed to have been used as an underground stronghold by the Al Qaida, Central Intelligence Service, Taliban, or even Osama himself. SITUATION: in a so-called Melawa Valley in the -White Mountains- (Siah Koh) in north-east Afghanistan (note 1). CAVE DESCRIPTION: The journalist John HOOPER (2001.12.19) entertains us with a the cave is 1,000ft [300 m] up a shale-strewn incline almost vertical to the narrow valley floor. The entrance is set back at the end of a sloping path between two bulging expanses of rock that form a kind of chicane. It may be natural, but might just as easily have been hewn from the crumbly sandstone. At all events, it is a superb defensive position… The steep walls of the Melawa Valley… ripple like billowing curtains. […] The cave can only be approached by a ridge that has been formed by two bomb craters, about 10ft deep. Betwen the ridge and the cave there is an area of scrub and shale littered with the remains of cluster bombs. Inside the cave, which measures about 8ft by 5ft [2.4 by 1.5 m], there is nothing left amid the ammunition except a mangled book in Arabic …en the ridge and the cave there is an area of scrub and shale littered with the remains of cluster bombs. Inside the cave, which measures about 8ft by 5ft [2.4 by 1.5 m], there is nothing left amid the ammunition except a mangled book in Arabic …