Bin Laden paid the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan an unknown sum for the farm, in the village of Farmihadda, last October. He moved there two months ago and was seen in Jalalabad last Tuesday. The US has offered $5 million for information leading to his capture. He was allegedly behind the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last August.

Within a month of the blasts, which killed more than 200 people, US navy ships fired 75 Cruise missiles at guerrilla camps thought to be associated with him in eastern Afghanistan 26 people died, but bin Laden had left one of the camps an hour before the missiles struck.

The disclosure that Bin Laden has built himself a new base in Afghanistan will embarrass the hardline Taliban regime which claimed inFebruary that it had no idea of his whereabouts. Bin Laden's supposed ``disappearance'' allowed the Taliban to avert a threat of further military action by the US . But it appears they are well aware of his location and have even deployed fighters to guard his new home. The US appears to have been unable to mount a successful operation against Bin Laden: At least two assassination attempts have been bloodily stopped by the Taliban or the Saudi-born terrorist's bodyguards, and a third attempt, intelligence sources in Islamabad say, was exposed six weeks ago and all those involved killed. Bin Laden, 44, has also moved part of his operation into a former military base known as Tora Bora, from where the Mujahideen attacked the Russians in the Eighties.

-- Observer News Service