We have closed all the caves - so it is now time to go look elsewhere

John Stufflebeem US Rear Admiral

The hideout, a mudwalled house equipped with an underground tunnel network, was discovered after a group of seven armed men were seen heading towards the building outside the airport base on Monday night.

In a raid on the site on Tuesday morning, a group of US soldiers discovered a cache of weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, although the men had disappeared.

Demolition experts then blew up the site, located just several hundred metres from the US base.

Suspicions were first raised last week, when unidentified gunmen launched an attack on US marines at the airport just as a plane took off for Cuba, carrying a first batch of Taleban and al-Qaeda prisoners.

The Kandahar base is the main detention centre for prisoners taken during the US campaign against Afghanistan.

Correspondents said that although Tuesday's discovery was small, the fact that a hideout so close to the US base had gone unnoticed for a considerable period of time illustrates the difficulties faced by the Americans in defeating pockets of resistance.

US marines have been using the base for more than a month.

Moving on

The US military has recently been concentrating its air campaign on alleged al-Qaeda hideouts in the east of the country, but officials have now indicated that they are satisfied with the results in the Zhawar Kili area and intend to find new targets.

Some air raids on al-Qaeda camps have clearly been successful

"As I understand it, we have levelled the remaining structures that were found on the surface and we have closed all the caves that we would intend not to be reoccupied," Navy Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem said.

"It is now the time to go and look elsewhere."

The CIA has meanwhile denied media reports that analysts trying to track chief terror suspect Bin Laden had concluded that he had escaped from Afghanistan in early December, before leaving Pakistan by ship for an unknown destination.

"It's completely untrue," a spokeswoman said. "That is not what the CIA believes."

On the 101st day of the US campaign, both Bin Laden and his ally and old friend, Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, remain at large.