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From: NY Transfer News
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 3:48 PM
Subject: [US Announces 1,500 Troops Headed for
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source - [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1,500 American Troops Head to Cuba By JOHN J. LUMPKIN WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (AP) - The Pentagon plans tight security for hundreds of
al-Qaida and Taliban captives expected
at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, and is sending 1,500 military
police and other troops to build a
prison
there.
Already, 1,000 U.S. troops have orders for Cuba - some by way of
southwest Asia, where they will
help transport the prisoners around
the world to the base, officials said.
Five hundred more soldiers will be
ordered to base in the coming weeks.
They will first build a prison on a section of the base,
and
then guard it, Lt. Cmdr.
Jeff
Davis, a Pentagon spokesman,
said Sunday.
Fewer than 100 prisoners are
expected at within a week;base
officials have been told to
prepare for as many as 2,000
in the coming months, Davis
said.
The security is being planned with an eye toward the riot by
al-Qaida
prisoners at Mazar-e-Sharif,Afghanistan,
that left hundreds dead,including
CIA
officer Johnny "Mike" Spann.
"We are cognizant of the incident that took place in Mazar-e-Sharif,"
Davis said. "Many of these people
have demonstrated their determination
to kill others, kill themselves or
escape."
Meanwhile Sunday, two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said
there's a growing belief that Osama
bin Laden, the top target in the
U.S.
war on terrorism, has fled Afghanistan
and slipped into Pakistan.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who is traveling with other senators in the
region, said Uzbekistan's military
intelligence service believesbin Laden
has crossed the border into Pakistan.
Uzbekistan, like Pakistan, borders
Afghanistan and has been a U.S.
ally
in the fightagainst the Taliban and
al-Qaida.
"I fully expect the Pakistanis will do everything can to help us locate
bin Laden," Edwards said on "Fox
News
Sunday."
Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said bin Laden and
other top officials may well have fled
Afghanistan.
"Increasingly as our efforts to get them in Afghanistan have been futile,
there is a greater sense that they
have, in fact, escaped, and are probably
in one of those tribal territories just
over the border into Pakistan," Graham
said on ABC's "This
Week."
Bin Laden was thought to be in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, but
he has not turned up in searches by
U.S. and anti-Taliban forces there.
Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar
was most recently thought to be near
Baghran, but Afghan officials now say
they believe he escaped.
In Cuba, the prisoners will be held in "maximum security"
conditions, the Pentagon said,
and will be treated in
accordance
with international standards for
military and have access
to the
Red Cross and other non-governmental
organizations.
No decision has been made whether to hold military tribunals for some
of the prisoners at the Navy base,
Davis said.
Many of the troops will be Army military police from Fort Hood,
Texas.
"This is our part and we are going down to take care of business," Col.
Terry Carrico, commander of the 89th
Military Police Brigade, said before
flying to Cuba to prepare for the
troops' arrival.
Military personnel are also being sent from Fort Campbell, Ky., Camp
Lejeune, N.C., and Norfolk Naval
Station, Va., among other bases,
Davis said. The prison operation
will be commanded by Marine Brig.
Gen. Michael R. Lehnert from Camp Lejeune.
The Guantanamo base predates the 1959 communist revolution in Cuba.
It is well-defended and would offer
few avenues of escape for prisoners.
Fidel Castro's government says the
base should have been closed and
returned to Cuban control decades
ago.
More than 300 suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members were in U.S.
custody this weekend, military
officials. Soldiers were guarding
275 prisoners at the base in
Kandahar, 21 at Bagram air base
north of Kabul, and one in the
northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Nine prisoners, including American Taliban John Walker Lindh, also are
being held on the USS Bataan in the
Arabian Sea. Afghan and Pakistani
authorities are holding thousands
more prisoners captured during the
fighting.
(c) 2002 The Associated Press AP-NY-01-07-02 0645EST ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ================================================================= ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://TOPICA.COM/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ |
