“Bin Laden knew the caves as well as Farivar and Khalis did.”

NYT:

One evening earlier this summer, I asked Masood Farivar, a former Khalis officer who had fought in Tora Bora during the jihad, to tell me why the caves were so important. “They’re rugged, formidable and isolated,” he said. “If you know them, you can come and go with ease. But if you don’t, they’re a labyrinth that you can’t penetrate. They rise in some places to 14,000 feet, and for 10 years the Soviets pummeled them with everything they had, but to absolutely no avail. Another reason they’re so important is their proximity to the border and to Pakistan” – less than 20 miles away.

I found this guy on Google about a year ago and we exchanged an email or two. He’s former mujahedeen and is currently a reporter for Dow Jones in NYC. I was sent this story by Arezou Farivar of Vancouver, another cousin of mine who found me on Google a few months ago and has been emailing me since then. Small world. Weird, yet cool.