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Taliban, al-Qaida Prisoners Moved to Cuba
Friday, December 28, 2001
By Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer

U.S. warplanes hit a suspected Taliban leadership compound early Thursday morning, defense officials said.

WASHINGTON -- AP
The Pentagon has chosen a U.S. Navy base in Cuba as the ‘‘least worst’’ place to hold Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners after they are removed from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

Rumsfeld said the military has made no plans to hold military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay base. President Bush has authorized military tribunals to try terrorist suspects from other countries, but defense officials said Thursday Rumsfeld has not decided how, where or even if those tribunals would take place.

The base, which the United States has held since 1903, is near the U.S. mainland and highly secure. The Cuban military prohibits all access to areas around the base, and the U.S. military patrols its side from behind tall fences topped with razor wire.

Guantanamo Bay has drawbacks, too, including its location, surrounded on three sides by an island governed by Fidel Castro, an anti-American communist who has criticized the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. But ‘‘we don’t anticipate any trouble with Mr. Castro in that regard,’’ Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference.
(More: Star-Banner.com News Source)
2001 © The Associated Press.

Dan