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In Afghanistan, Interim Defense Minister Escapes Apparent Assassination Attempt

Aired April 08, 2002 - 12:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In Afghanistan, the interim defense minister has escaped an apparent assassination attempt. It happened in Jalalabad. The bomb went off in an intersection, as a convoy approached bearing Mohahammed Hasim Fahim (ph). The blast killed four bystanders and wounded 20 others. Fahim was not among the wounded, says the attack was a clear attempt to stabilize Afghanistan's government.

For latest now on the U.S. war in Afghanistan, we go to the Pentagon and CNN's Barbara Starr.

Hello, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Kyra.

Well, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to meet with reporters later this afternoon, provide one of his usual updates, and we do expect to hear the latest on a number of issues. Perhaps first will be the fate of Yasser Esam Hamdi. That second so-called American Taliban. He remains in custody at the brig, at the Naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, but now some difficult questions are being raised. Hamdi, we are told, is not of particular interest at the moment to the Justice Department for prosecution. They have interrogated him a number of times; they don't believe he was in a leadership role of any sort when he was captured in Afghanistan last year, at least not at this point from what they have learned from him.

So, if he is an American citizen, and the Justice Department has no interest in prosecuting him, the question now for the Pentagon is what to with Mr. Hamdi. The question is, can the U.S. military really continue to hold a U.S. citizen in detention indefinitely because he say he is a battlefield detainee. No easy answer to that question, and Don Rumsfeld will probably have to address it.

We may also soon see a couple of other detainees on the move. We have been told that at least two of detainees at Guantanamo Bay are seriously mentally ill; they have real psychiatric problems, and the Pentagon is trying to decide what to do with these men. We've not been told what country they are from, and whether or not arrangements are under way to send them back to those countries.

In Afghanistan, it's now being called Operation Mountain Lion. We expect to hear more that today. This is the ongoing effort to conduct duck surveillance, reconnaissance, patrols in key areas that you see here of southern Afghanistan and southeastern Afghanistan. U.S. troops have been moving through these areas for the last several days. We expect to see more of that in the days ahead. They are looking for pockets of Al Qaeda. Very interestingly, so far, we're told, they are coming across no large groups. There have been no encounters with Al Qaeda personnel in weeks now.

The question is, where are the Al Qaeda? Speculation is that many of them may have melted back into countryside or escaped across the border in Pakistan, but Operation Mountain Lion remains ongoing, we are told.

And finally, the aircraft carrier John Stennis, one of the two carriers in Afghanistan, is going to be headed home in the weeks ahead. We have been told the decision has now been made that the Pentagon only needs one aircraft carrier in the region for the present. They would like to get the Stennis home and get back into regular crew rotation schedule, we are told, in case is more military action later in the year, perhaps in Iraq -- Kyra.

PHILLPS: All right, thank you. Barbara Starr, live from the Pentagon.

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