The Washington Post
WASHINGTON – Troops from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division took control of the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan from the Marine Corps Saturday, a transfer signaling the intention of American forces to remain in the country indefinitely, defense officials said.
No formal ceremony marked the change of command at the Kandahar airport, but soldiers now occupy many of the bunkers and foxholes dug by the Marines.
“They’re going to pick up all the missions the Marines were doing – manning the gates, doing perimeter security and all that,” said Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Klee, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa.
The Marines took control of the Kandahar airport a month ago, moving up from a base they had established about 70 miles southwest of the city, a former stronghold for the deposed Taliban regime.
Marine expeditionary forces are not meant for long-term occupation, a role more typically assigned to heavier-equipped Army forces. Pentagon officials acknowledge that the soldiers could stay at Kandahar much longer than the Marines did, with the base serving as a staging area for military operations, including continued searches for al-Qaida hide-outs.
Many of the Marines have already redeployed to their ships in the Arabian Sea, where officials say they will be available for future, unspecified missions. The changeover is not yet complete, with more elements of the 101st yet to arrive, officials said.
The base at Kandahar remains a dangerous place, coming under fire last week as an Air Force C-17 carried a group of al-Qaida and Taliban detainees out of Kandahar to Cuba.
About 2,000 Marines were at Kandahar before they started returning to their ships. Military officials have said a similar number of Army troops will be based at Kandahar.
“We’re moving some Marine forces out, we’re moving some forces of the 101st in, and the general number of our forces in Afghanistan has remained about steady over the last couple of weeks,” Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the Central Command, said Friday during a news conference in Tampa, the command’s headquarters.
But Franks held open the possibility of expanding the U.S. force in Afghanistan, which currently numbers more than 4,000.
“That doesn’t mean it won’t go up in the future if it needs to, because it certainly will,” Franks said. “But what we’re looking at right now is a reasonably steady force structure inside the country.”
Eight thousand miles from Afghanistan, officials at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said a four-member delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross was continuing to interview al-Qaida and Taliban detainees Saturday. Some human rights groups have expressed concern about the conditions under which the detainees are being held.
Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert, commander of the task force running the prison, disclosed Saturday that one detainee bit a military policeman on the forearm Wednesday as the prisoner was being transferred from one unit to another. The bite did not break the skin on the soldier’s arm, Lehnert told reporters in Guantanamo Bay.
The United States has moved 110 detainees to the base. Six Algerian terrorist suspects transferred to U.S. military custody by Bosnian officials Friday are also expected to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, U.S. officials have said.
An additional 321 detainees remain in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, with many of them expected to be transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
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