IF ONLY WE HAD INTELLIGENCE SERVICES TO EXPLOIT SUCH HUMILIATIONS:

U.S. Special Forces using Mullah Omar's compound in Afghanistan to plan missions (The Associated Press, February 1, 2007)

FIREBASE MAHOLIC, Afghanistan: Osama bin Laden built it. Taliban leader Mullah Omar lived in it. But today it's men of the U.S. Army's Special Forces who call it home.

Firebase Maholic, a sprawling and spacious compound on the outskirts of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, is plush living by typical standards of the Special Forces, known as the Green Berets.

There's plenty of serious work here. A constant roar of shooting-range gunfire bounces off a towering granite peak behind the complex. Military missions are planned here. And Special Forces soldiers recently started training 130 new Afghan recruits for the country's fledgling auxiliary police force.

"The irony of this is that the home of the (Taliban's) supreme leader is being used to train forces whose mission it is to destroy the force he created," said Rusty, the team leader of a Special Forces detachment.