The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military will send hundreds of additional troops to help search al-Qaida cave and tunnel complexes in eastern Afghanistan for intelligence that could be used to identify and arrest members of the terrorist network around the globe, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday.
Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, could send Marines who have been operating in southern Afghanistan or Army troops from the 10th Mountain Division in the northern part of the country. But he has not yet decided which units to send or how quickly to dispatch them, senior defense officials explained.
"Whatever is needed will be sent," Rumsfeld said.
Briefing reporters at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also reported that carrier-based fighter jets and AC-130 gunships had destroyed a convoy of 10 to 12 vehicles carrying Taliban leaders west of the city of Khost in southern Afghanistan, as well as a compound from which the convoy departed.
"It was a large convoy, and there were a lot of people killed and a lot of vehicles damaged — or destroyed, I should say," Pace said.
He added that the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, which is in charge of the Afghan campaign, ordered the attack after intelligence reports indicating the presence of senior Taliban leaders were "cross-referenced" and verified.
The Afghan Islamic Press reported that the convoy was carrying tribal elders to today’s inauguration of an interim government in Kabul, killing 65 people. But U.S. defense officials denied the report.
"They were senior Taliban guys," said one senior officer. "We hit exactly what we shot at."
Rumsfeld said the additional troops from the U.S.-led coalition would join anti-Taliban fighters and U.S. special forces now combing through the rubble in the Tora Bora area. He said the caves are being "triaged — put in priority order" to expedite the search.
Information gathered inside Afghanistan during the war has already led to the arrest of al-Qaida operatives around the world, he said, declining to elaborate. "The faster we do this job, and the more information we can get, and the more we can disseminate that intelligence information to people around the world, and the more people that get arrested, and the more bank accounts that get closed, the better off we are," Rumsfeld said.
Associated Press
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