It is a heavy burden to be known as the man who brought Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan - and not one that Mr Haji Qadir wants to bear. Mr Qadir was governor of Nangarhar, the second largest opium-producing province in Afghanistan, when the Saudi millionaire returned to the regional capital Jalalabad in June 1996.
"Talk to Professor Rabbani," Mr Qadir replies when asked who offered bin Laden asylum when he was thrown out of Sudan.
Prof Burhannudin Rabbani, the figurehead president of the United Front (also known as the Northern Alliance) is a favourite scapegoat of Front officials. After all, Prof Rabbani is far away in his northern "capital" of Faizabad, a three-day trek from the Shomali plain.
Mr Qadir, a distinguished-looking bald man with a neatly trimmed grey beard, is one of the few ethnic Pashtuns in the Front leadership, and was one of five delegates who went to Rome to discuss the country's future with King Zahir Shah.
"Osama came on an Ariana [Afghan national airline] plane - with a visa," Mr Qadir continues.
"It was a special flight with no passengers. Three or four days later, I went to the head of immigration at Jalalabad and I asked him, 'Is it true that Osama has returned?' He said yes. I asked how, and he showed me the book; I saw the visa number in the book."
About the same time, a British UN representative and two local UN staff were found murdered in Nangarhar. Mr Qadir believes they were killed by bin Laden's men.
When he was fighting the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, bin Laden and his Arab fighters spent a lot of time in Jalalabad. "Osama preached in all the area, 'Qadir is not a good Muslim. He is westernised'," Mr Qadir says, eager to distance himself from the world's most wanted man.
Mr Qadir and his brother Abdul Haq were both mujaheddin commanders during the Soviet occupation. "The Arabs caused a lot of problems," he recalls. "They gave meat to other mujaheddin for the Ramadan feast, but not to our men. We held Shura council elections in 1987 and Osama spent six million Pakistani rupees - but I took 178 seats and Osama's men won only 28."
In the mid-1990s, before bin Laden's return to Jalalabad, Mr Qadir clashed with his Arab followers.
"I sent them a message that I wanted to talk to them. They refused, so I sent more than 2,000 mujaheddin to arrest them - there were at most 70 Arabs. I said, 'Surrender or we'll kill you.' I put them all in prison. Then we signed an agreement saying they would leave Jalalabad. I took their artillery and they left."
After bin Laden's return, the American consul in Peshawar paid Governor Qadir a visit. "I told him Afghanistan would be a centre for drugs and terrorism if the US did not help us. I said, 'Osama is here. If you want to capture him, I can help'. He showed no interest. I am not the Americans' bodyguard. I am not in charge of American security, so I dropped it."
Mr Qadir says bin Laden made his main camp at a place called Turabura, in the White Mountains near Jalalabad. "Osama told all the people to support the Taliban," he continues. "Engineers and chemists came from Egypt and other Arab countries. He was busy in his workshop. We thought he was making something chemical against us - later we understood it was against the whole world." The former governor believes bin Laden is in eastern Afghanistan.
"He never sleeps. He moves around all the time. The problem for him is that the Taliban aircraft cannot fly.
"If we recapture eastern Afghanistan, he can move into the forests and the mountains, and the Americans will never find him unless we help them."
Like most United Front officials, Mr Qadir is bitter that opposition to the Taliban was ignored for so long.