Posted on 12/25/2001 10:43:28 AM PST by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. Marines guarding an airport in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar moved to a state of alert Tuesday, girding for what officials said was a possible Christmas Day threat. In eastern Afghanistan, tribal commanders searched cave to cave at a former al-Qa'eda mountain base. A media pool report from Kandahar airport said Marines and other service members were bracing after receiving information on possible increased danger at their base there. "There are a number of factors that have driven us to this heightened state of alert, one of which is the holiday season," said Maj. Chris Hughes, a Marine spokesman.
On a visit to sailors in the Arabian Sea, the commander of U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan said there are countries in the Middle East and throughout the world on Washington's potential anti-terror hit list as U.S. forces continued to search for terror suspect Osama bin Laden.
"It is too early to suggest which countries, but it is not too early to remind ourselves that September 11 put us on course ... to root out this terrorist problem around the world," Gen. Tommy Franks, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, told The Associated Press after addressing about 1,000 sailors in the hangar bay aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
On Christmas Day in Kandahar, U.S. forces tried to re-create some semblance of home — and the celebrations that they were missing. They even got, in the middle of this overwhelmingly Muslim nation, a visit from Santa.
"It's always very hard to be away from my family at a time when we usually all come together," said U.S. Marine Sgt. Joseph Chenelly. "I usually see everybody in my family on this day, so that makes it that much more difficult because I know what I'm missing. But I know it's for a very good cause, and I'm proud to be here and happy to have the opportunity."
The Rev. Lewis Isolo, a U.S. Navy chaplain, called his duties this Christmas "one of the greatest honors of my life."
"To be with them at a special time like this, it's where a chaplain needs to be," Isolo said.
Anti-Taliban forces, meanwhile, detained an Afghan commander in eastern Afghanistan for alleged ties to bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network, a news agency reported Tuesday. Awal Gul, who played a key role in persuading Taliban commanders to surrender Nangarhar province to a council of tribal leaders, was arrested Sunday, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.
The agency said Gul had helped the Taliban when its forces moved into Nangarhar in 1996, but it did not provide details on his alleged collusion with al-Qa'eda. Gul had commanded a military unit in Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan.
Mohammed Zaman, the defense chief for Nangarhar, confirmed Gul had been arrested, according to the Afghan Islamic Press. It was not immediately known whether Gul was handed over to U.S. forces, who have taken custody of some suspected Taliban and al-Qa'eda members.
On Monday, Afghanistan's new interim leader, Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, appointed well-known warlord Rashid Dostum as deputy defense minister. The move was designed to defuse a potentially disruptive force by bringing him into government.
Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek who controls the largest northern city, Mazar-e-Sharif, with his own private army, had been angry because the key ministries of defense, foreign affairs and the interior all went to an ethnic Tajik group from the Panjshir valley.
"I have just signed the letter naming him deputy minister of defense," said Karzai, a member of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. "It is the first step toward a national army."
Dostum said his soldiers have earned the right to be part of the Defense Ministry after fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.
"I think that this will be good. We need to cooperate," he said, standing beside Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim. "We have to have a national army."
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