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CNN Live Saturday

Number of Detainees Grows at Kandahar Airport

Aired January 12, 2002 - 22:06   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to America's new war. U.S. planes dropped more bombs in eastern Afghanistan today. And the number of detainees is growing at Kandahar Airport.

The detention facility is preparing for new management as members of the 101st Airborne Division are getting ready to replace the Marines.

CNN's Jonathan Aiken joins us now from the Pentagon with more of what's going on there. Hi, Jonathan.

JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Well, for the fourth straight day U.S. warplanes were hitting a suspected Al Qaeda training complex. This one in eastern Afghanistan about 30 miles southwest of the city of Khowst. It's an area where there is still a strong Al Qaeda presence. The facility itself is known as Zawar Kili. It has been a favorite target of U.S. war planes this week -- not only hit four days running but a total of seven times.

As CNN's Kamal Hyder told us earlier this morning that he saw B- 52s dropping laser-guided ordinance onto the area very similar to what you see here.

We're told by Pentagon officials that this is a sprawling complex -- more than 60 buildings altogether, more than 50 cave complexes. And it is a logical place, says the Pentagon, for remnants of Al Qaeda, possibly even some rogue Taliban elements in the region to come together and try to regroup at what was an existing training facility.

And the Pentagon said today, as it has said all along, that as it ceases what they called these targets of opportunity they will go after them. And that appears to be the ongoing case in this particular target.

Moving on -- today, speaking of opportunities -- an opportunity for U.S. Senators in Afghanistan to pay a visit to that country's interim leadership. Senator Joe Biden, who heads up the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with the head of Afghan's interim government, Hamid Karzai. And Senator Biden said it is likely that millions of dollars in Afghan assets currently frozen in the United States should be thawed soon and he urged other Western government to do the same saying the government in Kabul needed an influx of money and a guarantee of security. Well, turning our attention now to the U.S. base at Kandahar. There was a moment of pause today for the six men and one woman who were killed when their Marine KC-130 tanker plane crashed in Pakistan this week.

Five of the seven bodies have been recovered. Those bodies are going to be flown to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. From Ramstein they'll move on to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where the Army will conduct postmortems on the bodies before releasing them to their families. Those bodies could arrive at Dover possibly tomorrow -- or probably on Monday.

Meanwhile, at the crash site in Pakistan investigators were on the scene. And, Carol, they were looking not only for the two bodies that have yet to be recovered but also looking for a cause into the crash -- a cause as to what happened. And the last word we had they had found neither. Carol?

LIN: Yeah -- they still don't know. And it's pretty rough terrain up there so I know the search is taking quite some time.

John, we've been talking a lot about these detainees over at Guantanamo in Cuba. But I understand there are more detainees now at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Do you know who they are?

AIKEN: Indeed a lot of coming and going from Kandahar. As to who they are, the Army will not -- the Army -- the Pentagon will not tell us exactly the identities of any of these people but they are people who have been brought largely from the thousands that have been held by Afghan opposition forces.

The U.S. military has been taking a look at exactly who the Afghan opposition forces have been holding. And as the U.S. gathers intelligence it gets very curious -- collects more names, wants to talk to more people. And these are the people that you're seeing coming and going into Kandahar. These are the people the U.S. military really wants to talk to about the goings on -- not only within the Taliban but also the Al Qaeda organization itself.

Now there were about 20 detainees who had left Kandahar and they're in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And we're going to have more about that in just a moment. As you mentioned, more came into Kandahar today -- another 30 arrived at the base. And that brings to 391 the number of detainees there -- and that's about twice as many as the base was designed to hold.

So, not surprisingly, commanders at Kandahar eager for the arrival within the next two weeks of about 2,000 members of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. They will be taking over from the Marines. And the commanders say that the Marines are going to stay put and hold the fort until the Army arrives.

LIN: And doing a good job. Thank you very much -- Jonathan Aiken -- live at the Pentagon there.

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