U.S. Strikes Back
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U.S. takes more POWs in Afghanistan
By EUN-KYUNG KIM
Associated Press Writer
12/19/01
WASHINGTON — As more al-Qaida prisoners were rounded up Wednesday, FBI agents and CIA operatives joined American troops to interrogate more than a dozen already taken into U.S. custody.
And there was a deadly revolt among prisoners being moved to a jail in Pakistan. Four foreign fighters and three security officials died when the captives seized weapons from their guards, the Pakistani government said. Others may have escaped.
Inside Afghanistan, a handful of terrorist militiamen were captured overnight without resistance, said an Afghan alliance commander speaking at the cave and tunnel complex in the mountains that had been al-Qaida's last Afghan stronghold.
Twenty prisoners so far have been handed over to the United States. Fifteen prisoners from the northern Afghanistan city Mazar-e-Sharif were turned over Tuesday to U.S. Marines at a newly created jail at the American base in Kandahar, where FBI agents familiar with the Sept. 11 attacks arrived to help with questioning.
From among thousands held by Afghan opposition forces, the 15 were picked "because we concluded, in conjunction with people holding them, that these were people who might have important information and might be themselves senior people,'' said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Officials believe they also may have key al-Qaida figures among the five captives held in a Navy brig.
In addition to American John Walker and Australian David Hicks — both found among Taliban fighters — three other prisoners Wolfowitz described as "Taliban-slash-al-Qaida'' are being held on the USS Peleliu in the Arabian Sea.
"We think we know who they are, and if they're who we think they are, they're fairly important people,'' Wolfowitz said at a Pentagon news conference. "But one of the reasons not to start identifying them yet is we're not sure that their comrades necessarily know that we have them.''
One prisoner is believed to be Abdul Aziz, a Saudi Arabian official of the Wafa humanitarian organization, said a U.S. official on condition of not being identified. Wafa's assets have been frozen by the Bush administration for alleged terrorist ties.
Hicks will also face questions from Australian officials. Attorney-General Daryl Williams said U.S. leaders are allowing the combined Australian Secret Intelligence Organization-Australian Federal Police team to question Hicks, who was captured in Afghanistan.
Thousands of prisoners were taken into custody by Afghan forces as they captured city after city in the 2-month-old war. Americans have been questioning them and taking custody of those who might be of interest to the United States.
So far, however, captured fighters have given little reliable information on what U.S. officials want to know most — where to find Osama bin Laden.
"The task is still ahead of us,'' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said during a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. "It's going to be tough, dirty, hard work.''
Aside from prisoner information, U.S. officials have gathered documents and other items from caves in the Tora Bora region and buildings in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold.
Among things collected were some videotapes that have not been made public. Last week, the U.S. government released a tape featuring bin Laden laughing and boasting as he spoke of the destruction caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
With the Taliban and al-Qaida all but defeated and an interim Afghan government to be sworn in Saturday, the U.S. military says the war in Afghanistan has entered a new phase. No longer is success measured in territory taken; instead, it has transformed into a manhunt for bin Laden and his top deputies.
"It's going to be step by step, cave by cave, and to put a time limit on that would be imprudent right now,'' Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon.
The general said officials were being just as thorough with the additional sites identified inside Afghanistan as places where bin Laden loyalists may have tried to research weapons of mass destruction.
Military officials last month said they had identified more than 40 such sites, but Pace said "it's probably in the vicinity now of about 50.''
Wolfowitz said any nation would be "crazy'' to help shelter bin Laden.
"Any country in the world that would knowingly harbor bin Laden would be out of their minds,'' he said.
"I think they've seen what happened to the Taliban, and I think that's probably a pretty good lesson to people not to do that.''