Inside the caves that sheltered Bin Laden followers to the last

The cave is 1,000ft 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 - and that is precisely how it was used by Osama bin Laden's soldiers in the conflict which ended this week when local warlords claimed victory over the foreigners.

On the floor of the cave, there are eight tins of heavy machine gun ammunition bearing Chinese characters. The lids of some have been removed - not lifted off normally, but ripped up from one edge with a force that spoke of life or death urgency.

The mojahedin who drove al-Qaida's network of training camps yesterday permitted journalists to go deeper than before into the White Mountains where the battle was fought. What they allowed us to see showed forcibly that it would have been almost impossible to dislodge Osama bin Laden's guerrillas from the area without the kind of aerial might that the US inflicted.

The steep walls of the Melawa Valley where al-Qaida had an extensive training camp ripple like billowing curtains. There is scarcely a square yard of low ground that is not vulnerable to devastating fire from defensive emplacements. It had been doubly protected. When a photographer strayed, a mojahedin brought him back with a cry of "Minefield!".

It was unclear how the machine gunners in the cave had been dealt with. They may have been killed by marksmen or caught in the open with the US planes.

The cave can only be approached by a ridge that has been formed by two bomb craters, about 10ft deep. Between 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, there is nothing left amid the ammunition except a mangled book in Arabic.

Miles behind, down a winding track, mojahedin form up on an area of slack land as part of their phased withdrawal from the mountains. Automatic rifles and grenade launchers sprouted at odd angles to the back of pick-up trucks laden with fighters.

For the local Pashtun warlords, al-Qaida has already become a thing of the past. But after visiting its results, it is hard to believe the last has been heard of this extraordinary organisation.

According to even the most conservative estimate, more than 10,000 men have passed through training camps like the one in the Melawa Valley.