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From University of Jihad, a Teacher of Terror
Friday, September 21, 2001

The dispensers of Infinite Justice will have trouble finding Osama bin Laden. He has learnt his lessons well, writes Paul McGeough.

August nights are the hottest. There is some relief in a cooling evening wind that whips through the ragged folds of Afghanistan's eastern mountains, but as Osama bin Laden put down the phone, he knew that he had to get away. Fast.

As darkness took hold, his men had gathered for prayer in the Kili al-Badr training camp for terrorists.

Now, food was being prepared and they broke into small groups as the night embraced their rocky hideaway - drinking green tea; talking about their wars; and tuning in to news bulletins from around the globe on crackling short-wave radios.

But others were listening too - bin Laden knew that, even before he lifted the handset of the satellite phone. And when Washington did pick up the signal, it was relayed to Bill Clinton's holiday retreat at Martha's Vineyard.

It was 3am on August 20, 1998. The president uttered just one word: "Go."

Soon and sudden, dozens of titanium-covered warheads thundered in from the Arabian Sea, hammering into the treeless Afghan mountains. Furquan Bhatti was on guard duty at bin Laden's camp: "There was light and explosions all over. There was chaos and fire everywhere."

The telephone intercept allowed the United States to pinpoint bin Laden's precise whereabouts - to within 10 metres. But it seems the superpower didn't bank on the terrorist moving in the hours between his phone call and the Tomahawk missile attack.
(More: smh.com.au News Source)

Dan