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CNN Saturday Morning News

U.S. Marines Create Detention Facility in Kandahar

Aired December 15, 2001 - 10:01   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Al Qaeda fighters in the Tora Bora region said to be cut off from food and water and ammunition and that is critical. U.S. bombs raining down on them around the clock and the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying more than 400 bombs dropped over the past 48 hours alone. CNN's Ben Wedeman is there. He's reporting that he has heard talk again of a possible surrender of some fighters, but has seen no indication that such an event may eminent there.

If al Qaeda fighters do surrender, some may be held at a detention facility that the Marines now are getting ready at the Kandahar Airport. U.S. Marines took that airport yesterday without firing a shot. CNN's Mike Chinoy with those Marines. He flew in yesterday from Camp Rhino.

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MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After a little more than three weeks here at Camp Rhino, the mission of the U.S. Marines here in southern Afghanistan is changing. In the coming days, the Marines will be moving in large numbers over to Kandahar Airport, which has been secured in the past 24 or 36 hours.

The Marines say now they have stopped the killer -- hunter-killer teams that have been out interdicting traffic on the roads, looking for fleeing Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. We are told that in a war situation, the Marines felt that was an appropriate task for them. But in the post Taliban situation that exists now, they say that's more of a policing action best handled by the local anti-Taliban forces who control Kandahar. The Marines say they don't want to get into a policing action.

The Marines say that once the airport at Kandahar is completely secure, the runway repaired and its fully operational, that their part of this whole operation is likely to end and they're expecting, in the coming weeks, to leave Afghanistan and be replaced by forces from the U.S. Army to continue making the airport in southern Afghanistan, here in Kandahar, the key staging post for the U.S. military in this part of the country.

I'm Mike Chinoy with the U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan.

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