Waging holy war against the Americans: Another encounter with Osama bin Laden

The journey to meet Osama bin Laden began, as it did last year, outside the facade of the run-down Spinghar Hotel in Jalalabad. An Afghan holding a Kalashnikov rifle invited me to travel in a car out of town. But this time – instead of a journey across the deserts and Russian-bombed villages of the plains – we headed past the roaring waters of a great river and up into the mountains, overtaking trucks and a string of camels, their heads turning towards our headlights in the gloom. Two hours later we stopped on a stony hillside and, after a few minutes, a pick-up truck came bouncing down the rough shale of the mountainside.

An Arab in Afghan robes came towards the car. I recognised him at once from our last meeting in a ruined village. “I am sorry Mr Robert, but I must give you the first search,” he said, prowling through my camera bag and newspapers. And we set off up the track which Osama bin Laden built during his jihad against the Russian army in the early 1980s, a terrifying, slithering two-hour odyssey along fearful ravines in rain and sleet, the windscreen misting as we climbed the cold mountain.

“When you believe in jihad, it is easy,” he said, fighting with the steering wheel as stones scuttered from the tyres, bouncing down ravines into the clouds below. From time to time, lights winked at us from far away in the darkness. “Our brothers are letting us know they see us,” he said.