It was 1989, just at the end of the bloody 10-year-old Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Twelve kilometres south of Jalalabad, a small mujahideen unit, defending a hill known as Parkan Post, came under attack by Afghan communists.
One by one, mujahideen hiding behind bunkers fell. But a lone soldier remained standing, refusing to surrender. That man was Osama bin Laden.
A brother of the new governor of Jalalabad, who was fighting in a separate mujahideen unit that day, witnessed the scene.
Haji din Mohamad said yesterday he thought no one could possibly have survived the bombardment on Parkan Post. "But the communists never got to capture that place. Bin Laden never gave in and did not allow them to make ground. They never took the hill." He has no doubt that bin Laden will also stand his ground if efforts are made to capture him from Tora Bora in White Mountain, where he and hundreds of Arab al-Qaeda members are thought to be hiding.
It is hard to find anyone in Jalalabad who will admit to knowing bin Laden. People in the town just smile quietly when you mention his name. Few are prepared to talk about him.
Haji din Mohamad said apart from witnessing his bravery at Parkan Post, he only met him a few times since.
"At that time he was not an important man. He was an ordinary Arab doing jihad. Nowadays the press has made him a hero."
He said no one knew bin Laden well, or was aware that he was the son of a wealthy construction family from Saudi Arabias.
"When you focused your attention on him he looked like a sick man. He looked ill."
The secretary to the governor of Jalalabad, former mujahideen Cmdr Sairurahman, met bin Laden once, at a meeting in pre-Taliban times to discuss his security.
Sairurahman was a member of an organisation under the command of a close friend of bin Laden's, Younis Khalis, of the Hizb-I-Islami movement.
Younis Khalis, who brought bin Laden back to Afghanistan when the Taliban took power in 1996, was in charge of his security.
At the meeting, bin Laden was sitting very relaxed, with a kalashnikov rifle standing between his knees. He was moving from Tora Bora as there was inadequate residential facilities and security was being organised for his move to another al-Qaeda camp at Farmada, outside Jalalabad.
"He was very patient and very calm and did not speak very loudly" said Sairurahman.
At Farmada yesterday, we were told Younis Khalis, now in his 80's, was too ill to speak to us. He is one of the few men in the region who knew bin Laden well enough to tell us what sort of man he is.
Both Commander Sairurahman and Haji din Mohamad say bin Laden's presence in Afghanistan is bad for the country.
"We are being distracted by this problem. We don't care if he is captured. We want to solve our problems," said Haji din Mohamad.
I asked Commander Sairurahman about going to Tora Bora, where the United States is focusing its attention on the hunt for the world's most wanted man.
Not realising I was joking, he looked horrified and said: "If you want to sacrifice yourself, you go. If you want to live, you stay."
Then he laughed heartily at the mere thought of anyone daring to approach Tora Bora, the most frightening place in Afghanistan at the moment.