-Caveat Lector- From http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,553726,00.html }}}>Begin Prime target Bin Laden may flee in tunnels Underground escape routes funded by CIA Special report: Afghanistan Special report: terrorism in the US Jonathan Steele Tuesday September 18, 2001 The Guardian Osama bin Laden, the United States' prime suspect in last week's attacks on New York and Washington, could escape an American revenge mission in Afghanistan by hiding in tunnels that he built with funds from the CIA. At the height of the Afghan mojahedin's war against the Soviet invaders, the CIA provided money for a very ambitious project. A series of defence tunnels was built in 1986 near the town of Khost in the mountains of Paktiya province, a few miles from the border with Pakistan. The aim was to store weapons and create an underground field hospital as well as to provide shelter against Russian air attack. Bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi building tycoon, had been one of the first foreign Muslims to rush to Afghanistan - within a few months of the Soviet invasion in December 1979. He brought his engineers and equipment to help with the job. Although evidence is slim that he ever took part in combat, he was known as a well-connected donor in Peshawar, the hot and dusty Pakistani city which was to become the capital of the Afghan resistance in exile. Bin Laden brought in other "Arab Afghans" and funded their training as well as the spread of hardline Wahabi extremism among the Pashtuns of southern Afghanistan. >From Peshawar, weapons were carried across the border by smugglers on foot and on the >backs of donkeys, movements aided by the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as >well as the CIA. The tunnel complex at Khost was a useful addition. However, Bin Laden may not have known the true source of the funds, which had been channelled through Pakistan's secret agency, the ISI. The CIA-assisted tunnels were particularly useful after the wheel of history turned and Bin Laden became the Clinton administration's number one enemy. With the Russians out of Afghanistan, Bin Laden had turned his wrath on the United States, furious that his own government in Saudi Arabia had invited the US to base its troops on holy soil near Mecca and Medina. To avenge the destruction of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, President Clinton launched 70 cruise missiles at Bin Laden's training camps in Khost and Jalalabad. Fourteen foreign Muslims and 20 Afghans were killed. Bin Laden may have escaped from the bombardment by hiding out in the myriad defence tunnels, although it is much more likely that he was nowhere near where the missiles landed. Rumours had developed a year earlier that the CIA was organising a snatch squad in Peshawar to grab him. Bin Laden responded by moving his headquarters to Kandahar, 200 miles away. 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