Agents working for all kinds of countries meet in the hotels of Kabul. Every nation seems to have sent its own intelligence agents to the Hindu Kush. Competition keeps things exciting. South Africans question just about anyone they encounter. Australians without discernible professions are busily investigating, but the objective of their efforts remains unclear.

The Turkish secret service, Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, has also sent its man to the invisible front in the battle against terrorism. However, he is so poorly disguised that the other residents at the inn where is he staying in the Kabul's Shar-inaf neighborhood have taken to referring to him simply as "the Turk."

The government in Ankara still shows a lively interest in Afghanistan. Turkish generals were in charge of the international peacekeeping force for almost eight months.

The Turk always keeps his ears open, and he prefers sitting close to journalists who talk about their experiences in the areas outside Kabul that have yet to be pacified.

He always spends the next day at his desk, just like other journalists who are also busy writing their reports. Life in Kabul isn't bad. There's European beer, there's pizza and there's satellite television - and there is also an unsolved mystery, one in which a 25 million dollar reward promised by the Americans is at stake: Where is Osama bin laden?

In an effort to solve this mystery, our man in Kabul, a map of Afghanistan in hand, steals down to the reception desk in the morning and whispers: "Where is Kunar?"

The hotel manager, a gaunt Tadjik, points to a small dot on the far right side of the map. "Dangerous?", asks the Turk. The hotel manager nods.

It's a response that will probably keep this particular investigator from hurrying out of Kabul anytime soon. But the question about Kunar was not bad. It's a place where he would have come quite a bit closer to the true object of his curiosity.

Northeast of the provincial capital of Jalalabad, in the mountainous border region of the Afghani provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar, sits a large, corpulent man on a plastic chair and wipes the sweat from his brow.

It is noon, and a dozen pickups and Toyota Landcruisers are parked near a guesthouse on the side of the road, although this dusty track leading up into the mountains barely deserves to be called a road.

"Damn heat!", swears the fat man, "and I'm hungry."

One of his companions immediately jumps up and, a few minutes later, returns with an aluminum bowl full of raisin rice and lamb. The fat mean eats without utensils, using flat bread to spoon the rice into his mouth. A dozen armed soldiers watch him eat. The men are his bodyguards.

Zaman's constant appetite could spell his demise one day. He has to stop to eat. But when Zaman climbs out of his Toyota Landcruiser with its blackened windows, word gets around far too quickly in this inhospitable mountainous region, a place where an assassin can be had for as little as a few hundred dollars.

Mohammed Zaman, 45, military commander of the Kunar border province, has spent the last year and half searching for the "loar sheikh," or great sheikh, which is what the Afghans call the chief of the Al Qaeda terror network, Osama bin Laden.

People say that he is somewhere in this region in the northeastern portion of the country, along the border with Pakistan. After successfully escaping from the nearby caves of Tora Bora in December 2001, bin Laden initially set up a number of bases in the Pashtun tribal regions of Pakistan. These so-called Tribal Areas are formally under autonomous administration. However, the Pakistani military and the notorious ISI secret service are in far better control of this impenetrable region than they admit. "They know exactly where bin Laden is hiding," says Zaman, chewing his food, "and if they weren't helping the Sheikh, I would've caught him long ago!"

The border between Kunar Province and Pakistan is virtually uncontrollable. Even the Americans' advanced technology is not particularly useful here.

A primeval forest of oaks and evergreen conifers blankets the mountains. Camps and bases can be detected from neither helicopters nor satellites. Hundreds of hidden paths link Afghanistan with Pakistan, and "there are more caves than people" in Kunar, says Zaman.

The central government in Kabul, only 150 kilometers away, which commissioned Zaman to capture the Al Qaeda chief, has no control here. Instead, the border region is seething with just about every terrorist and guerilla organization Afghanistan has to offer.

Take, for example, the Pashtun godfather of terror Gulbuddin Hekmatjar. Investigators in Kabul believe he is responsible for ordering the June attack on a bus full of German soldiers. Hekmatjar has allied himself with Arab fighters in Kunar Province who occasionally take matters into their own hands. But the most important man of all in the border region is Osama bin Laden.

Zaman says that three of his sons are fighting at his side. Two of bin Laden's wives - and the commander is quite certain of this - live in the thickets of the pine forests. Apparently the Sheikh visits them regularly.

He never uses a telephone. He communicates by handwritten notes sent by messenger. It takes longer, but it's bugproof. "I don't know where exactly the Sheikh is hiding," says Zaman, "sometimes maybe he himself doesn't know where he will be the next day."

Zaman has long since abandoned any hope of receiving help from the Americans. Here in the border region they hardly ever leave their bases. According to Zaman, "we must wage the war alone" against the Taliban, "and they don't even give us decent weapons."

Zaman's life is more hectic than that of the man he is trying to catch. He doesn't even tell close friends of his whereabouts. "I always try to keep moving, because bin Laden wants to kill me."

He has just barely escaped attack several times. His enemies are constantly on his heels. Their weapons of choice are remote-controlled mines, but so far they have only succeeded in breaking a few car windows.

On precisely the second anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, bin Laden appeared in a video. He is shown walking calmly through an idyllic mountain landscape, accompanied by his deputy, Egyptian pediatrician Aiman al-Zawahiri.

Afghani intelligence agents are certain that the videos were made in Kunar. In their opinion, the tall conifers and the mountainous terrain suggest the region bordering Pakistan.

The world's most wanted terrorist, apparently removed from all worldly concerns, strolls through untouched nature while the voice-over announces coming catastrophes. There is no hint of anxiety or agitation in the video.

By contrast, Zaman is nervous, and he makes no effort to hide it. His eyes dart back and forth as he speaks. Whenever an unknown person approaches, he ducks away and his men assume defensive positions. Their weapons are always loaded.

The entire party is travelling to Jalalabad, the capital of the neighboring province of Nangarhar. Several hundred men are sitting under a giant tent, facing a podium. They are mujaheddin and tribal elders from the region.

The men are observing the second anniversary of the death of the commander of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massud. Bin Laden had him murdered two days before the attacks on the World Trade Center.

A seven-foot tall oil painting of Massud hangs over the podium, on which the tribal warlords are seated. Next to Massud's painting hang the portraits of Pashtun leader Abdul Haq and his brother Adbul Qadir. They were murdered by the Taliban. Zaman knew them well.

Helpers hand out Pepsi and posters of Massud's portrait. The digitally reworked portrait of the hero of the Northern Alliance shown on the posters makes him look like an Afghani cross between Bob Marley and Ché Guevara.

Zaman sips his cola, cautiously shakes hands with people, and listens to the words of Hazrat Ali. The charismatic military leader was a close friend of Massud, and fought with him against the Soviets and the Taliban. Now Zaman's colleague in Jalalabad commands the government's troops. Many believe, however, that these troops only obey his orders - and no longer the orders from Kabul.

"We know exactly who our enemies are," Ali shouts to his holy warriors. "We must be wary of our neighboring country, whose name I do not wish to mention." Zaman claps until his heavy hands turn red.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is actually viewed as an important ally of the United States in the war on terror. However, it is blatantly obvious that the Taliban units numbering in the hundreds that have taken up arms against the Afghan national army and the Americans in recent months are based in Pakistan.

Mullah Omar's fighters have attacked everywhere in the border region, including Kunar Province. "There has been a rapid increase in attacks over the past three months," says Zaman. But the new governor, complains the commander, has recently taken a conciliatory stance toward the Taliban in Kunar - on orders from the government in Kabul.

Because he is unable to beat the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai apparently intends to pacify them. In many provinces, government agents have already established contact with Islamist guerillas.

But his plan isn't working. The Taliban do not see Karzai as a negotiating partner, but simply as the man who, with the help of the Americans, took away their power. "They will never forgive us for that," says Zaman.

This places this bin Laden hunter into an awkward position. "As soon as I arrest some of these scoundrels, the governor releases them again," he complains. The Taliban apparently interpret the government's generous gestures as a weakness, an analysis probably not too far from the truth.