Special ops using Mullah Omar's compound

AP/Washington Post:

Osama bin Laden built it. Taliban leader Mullah Omar lived in it. But today it's the Green Berets 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 U.S. Special Forces standards.

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. Teams usually consist of 12 members. Rusty, like all Green Beret soldiers in the field, is not allowed to be fully identified.

But soldiers here readily acknowledge that Omar's digs aren't a bad place to refresh in between multi-day missions conducted in the barest of conditions.

The Green Berets can relax in front of a doublewide fireplace in the cafeteria, admire the three catfish in the nearby two-tier fountain or take a dip in the swimming pool _ a rarity in Afghanistan.

Meant to be the Taliban's presidential palace and once used as a militant training ground, the complex is big enough for a looping five-mile run through the rolling hills that obscure the complex from a distance. Canadian and other elite units are also based at the complex, which was shattered by U.S. bombs in late 2001 but has since been rebuilt.

...

There is more. There are still some spoils of victory. It is certainly being put to better use now. These guys deserve every bit of comfort they can find.