Afghan POWs to be Shipped to Guantanamo? Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [Rummy floats a trial balloon... who knows if they will really ship al Qaeda POWs off to the Caribbean. But it makes good copy and distracts the press from stories about how the Brits are hardly seeing a warm welcome, how rival factions appear to be targeting each other, courtesy of the US Air Force, and how some Afghan tribal leaders are demanding that the US cease their airstrikes. (See last two items below.)--NY Transfer] Afghan Detainees Face Time in Cuba by Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON, Dec 27 (AP)--Detaining prisoners of the U.S. war on terrorism is only the latest challenge for the few good men and women at Guantanamo Bay. [A paraphrase of an advertising slogan for the US Marine Corps, which used to claim to be looking for a "few good men." They never found them, though...] The oldest U.S. overseas outpost has repelled enemies and welcomed refugees since 1898, when U.S. Marines fighting the Spanish-American War established camp at the natural harbor on Cuba's southeast coast. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday it could take weeks to prepare the Navy base to hold the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, and described it as the "least worst place" for the prison. He didn't elaborate, but base spokesman Chief Petty Officer Richard Evans noted that Guantanamo already has detention facilities for about 100 people, dating from the mid-1990s, when it housed thousands of Cuban and Haitian refugees. U.S. forces currently hold 45 detainees. Besides its impressive security, the base would offer advantages should it ever host the type of military tribunal President Bush signed into order on Nov. 13, although Rumsfeld says there are no plans for it to do so at the moment. The base is close enough to the United States - just 90 miles away from Florida - to quickly ferry in and out legal teams, and yet its offshore status makes any verdict virtually appeal free. A landmark 1950 Supreme Court decision established, in unusually direct language, that nonresident enemy aliens have "no access to our courts in wartime." Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have said they prefer military tribunals because they better protect U.S. secrets, and because they believe enemy aliens are not entitled to constitutional guarantees. "The Bush administration appears to intentionally be following a pattern of making sure there is no judicial review," said Scott Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer and Duke University law professor who recently expressed his concerns about the tribunals in testimony to the Senate. Most of the time, life for the 2,700 people on the 45-square-mile base is bucolic. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a senior Naval officer described the base in a memo as "a community with overtones of suburbia." Not much has changed: Three quarters of the residents are civilians - family to the sailors and Marines posted there, and maintenance staff imported from Jamaica and the Philippines. This Christmas, residents - whose affectionate term for the base is - "Gitmo" organized a boat parade and a tour of some of the homes on - base. They enjoy a view from John Paul Jones Hill that takes in the bay and the surrounding mountains. Kids attend the airy W.T. Sampson school, run recycling drives and take Tae Kwan Do. There's yoga and fishing expeditions for the adults. The latest issue of the Guantanamo Bay Gazette frets about a couple of "invasions" of the decidedly unarmed kind: "Weight Control During the Holidays" is one headline; "Screwworm: a Threat to You and your Pets" is another. Such determination to create a home away from the American hearth masks the fortress that would keep the detainees secure. The base does not have any entrances from the main island, frustrating any attacks or attempts to help prisoners escape - and hampering protesters and journalists. It is secure, in part, because of obstacles Cuban leader Fidel Castro ordered placed to stop his people from seeking refuge there - among them a ring of cactus plants. The Cuban military controls an area of about 20 miles on the Cuban side around the base, and prohibits all access. U.S. forces stand ready to assume high alert, and have done so during two revolutions on the tumultuous island, in 1906 and 1959, as well as during the missile crisis in 1962, and after Castro's order to cut off the base's water in 1964. The "water crisis" led to the building of a desalination plant, and now the base is fully self-sufficient. Recently declassified Pentagon documents suggest that the base has stored nuclear weapons - probably submarine-seeking depth bombs - since the 1962 crisis. President Theodore Roosevelt leased the land from Cuba in 1903, and his nephew Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered the base expanded in 1939. FDR anticipated the need for submarine patrols should the United States enter the European war, which it did two years later. Since then, it has served as a refueling and maintenance port for U.S ships, and has provided support to U.S. anti-drug operations in the Caribbean. In the mid-1990s it assumed a new role: safe harbor for the thousands of Cubans and Haitians seeking refuge on U.S. soil. Since then "migrant surge ops" have become one of the base's declared missions. AP-NY-12-27-01 1803EST (c) The Associated Press source - JosePertierra@aol.com * BBC - 27 December 2001 http://www.bbc.co.uk Thursday, 27 December, 2001, 22:45 GMT Cuba base to house Afghan prisoners The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Washington is preparing to transfer Taleban and al-Qaeda prisoners to the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Correspondents say the plan could anger Cuban President Fidel Castro, who has opposed the US-led war in Afghanistan. "Its disadvantages... seem to be modest relative to the alternatives."--Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary But Mr Rumsfeld said he was not expecting any objections from Havana. "We don't anticipate trouble with Mr Castro in that regard," he said. The defence secretary said the United States had not made a decision as to whether the base would be used for military tribunals to try the prisoners. The US is currently holding 45 suspected Taleban or al-Qaeda fighters. Not ready Eight prisoners are being detained aboard the USS Peleliu in the Gulf of Oman, and another 37 are being held at a detention centre near Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan. Mr Rumsfeld said Guantanamo base would not be ready to receive the prisoners for a number of weeks. He said he believed the facility, which occupies one of Cuba's best natural harbours, was "the least worst place we could have selected. Its disadvantages... seem to be modest relative to the alternatives." The base was used in the mid-1990s to house thousands of Cuban and Haitian refugees and was considered as a temporary shelter for Kosovo Albanians fleeing the war in the former Yugoslavia in 1999. The American presence in Guantanamo Bay, on the east of the island, has been a constant bone of contention with the communist regime since the Cuban revolution in 1954. Mr Castro has described the 116 sq km (45 sq miles) base, which was leased to America under a treaty in 1903, as a "dagger pointed at Cuba's heart." * Radio Havana Cuba - 27 December 2001 http://www.radiohc.org *40 MORE AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED; TRIBAL LEADERS DEMAND IMMEDIATE HALT TO BOMBING Kabul, December 27 (RHC) -- Afghan tribal leaders have appealed for an immediate end to US air strikes on their territory amid reports of another 40 civilians killed by US bombs in the eastern Paktia province. Eyewitnesses told western media outlets that numerous homes were destroyed as their occupants were sleeping, with 60 people wounded. Residents of the area reportedly don't understand why they were targeted since they say there are no Taliban or Al Qaida fighters in the area. The tribal leaders said they also made the demand in a meeting Wednesday with interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, who promised to press the United States to stop the bombing in that province. A week ago, US bombs hit a convoy in the mountains of Paktia. The Pentagon insists that it received intelligence that the convoy was carrying Al Qaida members who fired at high-altitude bombers, but Paktia tribal leaders said the US mistakenly hit a convoy heading to Kabul to congratulate Afghanistan's new interim administration, and that there were no Al Qaida members among them. As many as 65 people were killed, according to tribal leaders - 15 men in the convoy and the rest in nearby mountain villages. In related news, a U.S.-based humanitarian aid organization working in Afghanistan says that if people were provided with the truth about the extent of civilian casualties, they would not be so enthusiastic about Washington's war. Upon his return from a recent trip to Afghanistan, the president of Conscience International, Jim Jennings, told reporters that he witnessed "collateral damage" in the form of children with legs blown off, eyes blinded and internal organs damaged. Jennings said that the children were reportedly playing with a U.S.-dropped cluster bomb when it exploded. One boy, about 10 years old, lost his left foot. He said they drove the young victims over bombed-out roads for two and a half hours to the only pediatric hospital in the country. The head of the Washington-based humanitarian organization said he also saw a number of babies suffering from acute malnutrition and starvation in the hospital and more starving children on the streets of Kabul. While it was hard to estimate the numbers, Jennings said that United Nations agencies estimate that malnutrition for the population generally is 70 percent. * Friday December 28 3:07 AM ET (via Yahoo) Afghan Demands End to Bombing; Osama Overshadows By Sayed Salahuddin KABUL, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's new government marked its first Friday in power with ritual Muslim prayers and demands for an end to U.S. bombing, as the possible presence of Osama bin Laden still cast a shadow over the land. Even as the Defense Ministry tried to assert its new-found authority, a group of 70 British staff officers left Britain en route for the Afghan capital, Kabul, where they will prepare and staff a base for an international security force. Details of that force, mandated by the United Nations, are still under negotiation with the Defense Ministry, which, unlike other members of the interim leadership, is not eager to see foreign troops deployed on its soil. By contrast new leader Hamid Karzai has welcomed the force. Other commanders, tribal elders and ordinary Afghans are also eager to see international troops in place, to prevent a return to the warlord conflicts of the early 1990s. Afghanistan has demanded the United States halt its bombing, possibly within days, as almost all remaining border hideouts of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda -- the Base -- fighters have been destroyed, a ministry spokesman said. "Their remaining forces are few in number and may be annihilated in a maximum of three days and once this is done there is no need for the continuation of the bombing," spokesman Mohammad Habeel told Reuters. "We demand America stop its bombing of Afghanistan after this goal is achieved," he said. "Without the approval of local commanders and the Defense Ministry, America cannot bomb Afghanistan at will." His remarks come a day after a tribal elder said interim leader, Hamid Karzai, would ask the United States to halt aerial attacks on an eastern province where a convoy of guests to his inauguration was bombed with heavy losses. The convoy -- apparently double-crossed -- came under attack in eastern Paktia province last Thursday as it was traveling to the inauguration of Karzai's government at the weekend, leaving about 65 people dead, witnesses and survivors said. "All commanders who have been involved in opposing the Taliban and Osama say that these people no longer have the ability and presence to pose a threat," Habeel said. "They are in small numbers in mountainous areas along the border with Pakistan and they should be finished off in a matter of days," he said. TRIBAL RIVALRIES The request was a sign of potential problems between the new Afghan government and the U.S. military whose bombing campaign helped to sweep them to power but which could undermine the government's authority if more mishits are reported. Locals said enemies of those in the convoy may have passed on information on its whereabouts to the Pentagon, calling in planes to bomb it. U.S. officials have insisted the convoy had opened fire on U.S. aircraft just before it was bombed and had been carrying leaders of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the former fundamentalist Taliban rulers. But the incident highlights the tribal rivalries that have riven Afghanistan for centuries and which have intensified in recent years as warlords have battled for territory in the confusion resulting after the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. U.S. warplanes destroyed a compound believed to be used by leaders of Afghanistan's fallen Taliban militia near Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, the Pentagon said Thursday. At least two B-52 heavy bombers and one AC-130 gunship knocked out the high-walled complex using precision and non-precision bombs in the first air strike in three days, Pentagon spokesman Admiral Craig Quigley said. One pocket of al Qaeda resistance was in Afghanistan and under pressure after tribal guards surrounding eight Arab fighters holed up in a hospital in southern Kandahar said they were running out of patience and might storm their ward. BIN LADEN PUZZLE Hanging over the new government was the issue of whether Saudi-born militant bin Laden remained on the run in Afghanistan. Habeel stood by his remarks a day earlier that the fugitive millionaire was in hiding in Pakistan under the protection of supporters of a radical Islamic leader who helped to create the fundamentalist Taliban. Maulana Fazalur Rehman, head of the militant Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party, who is under house arrest, swiftly dismissed Habeel's statement as a "joke." But Habeel brushed aside that denial. "He would say it anyway because he fears America will pursue him there and may start bombing suspected areas there in Pakistan," he said. "I think no one wants to confirm his presence," he said. The vanquished Taliban's chief of intelligence Qari Ahmadullah told the Christian Science Monitor Thursday that "Osama is alive, healthy, and safe." "Last night our friends in Urozgan informed me by phone that he had met Osama somewhere near the border, and he said Osama was safe," the former intelligence chief said referring to the rugged central Urozgan province. Bin Laden was in close contact with Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban, Ahmadullah told the newspaper in an interview conducted in the Pakistani village of Datha Khail, some eight miles (13 km) from the Afghan border. He said Mullah Omar was safe and hidden in an area in the northeast of southern Kandahar province. Bin Laden warns the United States in his latest video message that it will soon collapse, regardless of whether he lives or dies, as Muslims around the world "awaken to its tyranny." Qatar's al-Jazeera television broadcast the full tape on Thursday, after airing excerpts Wednesday. In it, the world's most wanted man described the September 11 attacks as "blessed." The video showed a tired but composed bin Laden dressed in a military camouflage jacket and sitting in front of a burlap curtain, his Russian-made rifle propped by his side. His voice remained calm through most of the address but sounded choked up toward the end, as he recited a eulogy to the perpetrators of September's suicide hijacks. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmid-12.28.01-06:15:44-13815