Food running out for seven al-Qaida men holed up in Kandahar hospital

By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Anti-Taliban troops said Sunday they plan to starve out seven heavily armed al-Qaida members who have been holed up in an Afghan hospital for a month.

Troops with automatic weapons have cornered the al-Qaida members in a few rooms of the Mir Wais hospital in Kandahar. They said they expect the standoff to end within a week.

"The United States wants us to take them alive. It would be easy to finish it now, but they would all die," said Fazil Bali, a commander with the Kandahar security force. He said the men's food was running low, and one doctor said it might already be finished.

"We gave (soldiers) advice and said 'Let the food run out,"' Bali said.

The al-Qaida members have said they will blow themselves up if anyone tries to take them from the hospital, where they were dropped off by comrades as Kandahar fell to anti-Taliban forces. Some are believed to be uninjured, while others were wounded by U.S. bombing or in fighting with Afghan tribal forces opposed to the Taliban.

About 10 days ago, two of the men were captured when soldiers used the only doctor the men trusted to trick them. They had the doctor call the men into another hospital room with guarantees they would be safe.

"When they came into the room, we snatched them and brought them to the airport," where U.S. Marines have set up a detention center for war prisoners, Bali said.

The two al-Qaida men taken from the hospital were both Chinese, said Bali, presumably militant Uighurs, who are demanding outright independence for their Muslim-dominated northwestern province of China.

The nationalities of the other seven were not known.

The men have painted the bottom half of their windows to hide their movements. Their hospital ward has been cordoned off and other patients moved to other parts of the hospital.

"All the patients are afraid because they are right here in the hospital," said Khodi Dad, a patient who was wounded in U.S. and British airstrikes on Kandahar.

He was in the hospital in mid-December when four al-Qaida patients escaped during a bitter firefight with anti-Taliban forces.

Dr. Faiz Rabi, who said the hospital has about 120 patients, last saw any of the al-Qaida men six days ago. Injured in the leg and arm, one man came to a window and asked for medicine, Rabi said, but none was provided.

AP-WS-01-06-02 1436EST