Chapter 1: Pictures Don't Lie An aide drew the curtains as the official took the CD out of his bag. The ground rules were clear: everything I would see or be told was for background purposes; I couldn't report this for CNN; I couldn't even tell anyone else this meeting took place. The date was December 12, 2002."This is highly classified, Maria," he said. "No copies exist outside of the military command." He pulled the CD out of its case, inserted it into the computer, and clicked the mouse. Seven files appeared on the computer screen. He clicked on one of the icons, and a black-and-white photograph appeared.

taken from 7,000 feet in the air, it showed the Philippines' southern island of Mindanao, huge tracts of forests making it extremely easy to see where the trees had been cleared and the land put to use."Let me explain," he said, pointing to a large, developed clearing with many structures. "This was the main Abubakar complex" -- referring to Camp Abubakar, a sprawling complex and set of terrorist training camps that had been highly active for several years, despite one major government crackdown in 2000. The camps were run by the MILF, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, for al-Qaeda and its associate groups. One of the camps, named Camp Palestine, was an exclusive Arab facility; another, named Camp Hodeibia, was for Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda's network in Southeast Asia."Camp Hodeibia was set up with al-Qaeda's help in 1994." He clicked on another icon. "When we looked through our files, we found this area had been photographed at the time.

This is what it looked like. You can see here" -- using the mouse to point to a long rectangular shape -- "this long building is the barracks. Here, outside, you can see the clearing and something like an outdoor track which they set up. This must be their main area for training. Around the outskirts of the clearing, you can see a smaller series of structures, houses.""Can we get closer?" I asked.The official clicked on the mouse to zoom in closer. Now I could see the marks of the tracks and what seemed like fencing delineating the perimeter.

"Okay, that was in 1994," he said, closing the file. "Now look what happened in 2000."In six years, the camp had grown significantly. Large swathes of trees had been uprooted to link the small original oblong area through a thick tunnel-like corridor to another large clearing farther south. It looked as if there was a T cut out of the forests, its base slightly enlarged and bulging. I used the mouse to zoom the picture in and saw that the running tracks had been moved from the original spot in 1994 to this bulge-like clearing to the south. At the base of the T was a small circular tract of land with several small structures and one rectangular building at its southernmost tip."See how they expanded?" he asked.

Using the mouse, he traced the route. "Here, these trees were cleared to make room for this expansion. It's twelve by sixteen kilometers here. There are two bridges inside the camps. Here" -- using the mouse to point to a small sticklike structure -- "and here. And here's the football field. So we know as early as 1994, Hashim Salamat [the head of the MILF] had funding.""But that's so early.

Couldn't the Filipinos have set that up on their own?" I asked."No. No. Impossible. Hashim can't do it alone. That place is very inaccessible. Whoever made this had to have a lot of money and support. Look, it's in the northernmost, northeast portion of Abubakar.

"In 2000, Philippine President Joseph Estrada had declared all-out war on the MILF and attacked the complex. But it had not been a successful war, and it was abandoned by his successor's regime."Are the al-Qaeda camps still operating?" I asked."I can't say they're al-Qaeda," the official replied coyly."But can I? Would I be accurate if I did?""We know there are foreigners there. A lot of Indonesians, Arabs, Middle Eas.