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LONDON (EmergencyNet News) - The Sunday Times has reported that terrorist Osama bin Laden, may be preparing to launch an attack. The newspaper said that bin Laden has rebuilt his "terrorist universities" and is constructing a bomb-proof headquarters in a cave beyond the reach of spy satellites in the Pamir mountains in the northern part of Afghanistan. If true, it would seem that the recent rumors of bin Laden being sent to another country may be inaccurate.

According to the Times, bin Laden has created an expanded network of ideological recruitment centers, military training camps and weapon stores. Bin Laden is said to be re-mobilizing al Qaida, his terrorist organization. In the past few months, bin Laden's operatives are believed to have stolen scores of passports and travel documents in London and other western European cities - apparently for use in future operations - while hundreds of new recruits from North Africa, the Middle East and Bosnia have been smuggled into his bases in Afghanistan.

Intelligence and diplomatic sources in Pakistan fear that al Qaida may be about to send teams of terrorists on missions to bomb U.S. targets in the Middle East - a risk that has increased with the bombing of Iraq. A Pakistani intelligence source said last week, "The training of Islamic radicals has been fully reactivated inside Afghanistan. We believe bin Laden may use the month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend, as the starting point for new operations."

Bin Laden is said to have told a senior member of the Taleban, the Islamic fundamentalist group that rules most of Afghanistan, that al Qaida is "preparing to act."

On 20 August, U.S. cruise missiles struck two of six terrorist training camps in the Khost region of eastern Afghanistan. The attack destroyed the Al-Badr II camp, believed to have been run by bin Laden, and Amir Muawiya camp, used by Harakat-ul-Ansar (HUA), a terrorist group. Bin Laden was hundreds of miles to the south.

According to Bakhat Zamin, a fundamentalist commander in Khost, it takes very little to rebuild the camps that were struck in the U.S. attack. He said to rebuild "All one needs are mud and stones and there are plenty of them out here."

There are also plenty of willing recruits. At Edak, a Pakistani frontier town in the lap of the Toba Kakar Mountains, where automatic weapons are worn like fashion accessories, Islamic scholars at the Nizamiah college said representatives from HUA and al Qaida had been regular visitors in recent months. One student said, "They are recruiting for a new jihad. Two hundred boys have already gone from here."

Nearby camps, just over the Afghan border at Khwaja Mastoon Ghundai and Sati Kundao, have been built in weeks and are well hidden in valleys protected by checkpoints and hillside command posts. Hundreds of men are being trained at each base. They are taught in brick and mud barracks and sleep in canvas tents, despite extreme weather. Classroom posters depict men with AK-47s, standing before burning American, Israeli and Indian flags. Behind the bases, large boulders are painted with Urdu and Arabic slogans: "Victory is at hand."

Those chosen to fight undergo a 21-day "foundation" course in light-weapon training and a short period of khidmat duty, or administration work, in their home towns before being cleared for transfer to the camps. Most have come from Pakistan and Kashmir.

The new camps are part of a sophisticated network established by bin Laden in northern and eastern Afghanistan. Two other al Qaida training camps have opened in recent weeks. The Tora Bora base, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, has been rebuilt on the site of a camp first constructed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1980s. The second is understood to have been built from scratch at Galrez, a town 30 miles west of Kabul.

However, Bin Laden's most startling new asset is reportedly a command and control center for al Qaida. It is said to be still under construction in a natural cave system in Kunduz province, near the border with Tajikistan. One U.S. diplomat told the Sunday Times, "The cave facilities are impervious to missile attacks and satellite observation."

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The ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT is a subscription publication of the EmergencyNet NEWS Service, which is a part of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute. This publication specializes in Corporate Security/Terrorism/Intelligence/Military and National Security issues.