Washington — About 1,500 soldiers are heading to the U.S. Navy base in Cuba to prepare for the arrival of al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners. The biggest prize Osama bin Laden remains uncaptured, though there's a growing belief he's gone to Pakistan, two U.S. senators said Sunday.
About 1,000 troops many of them military police from bases all over the United States have received orders to go to the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the prisoners will be kept under maximum security, Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Sunday. Another 500 U.S. troops will go to the base in the coming weeks.
"This is our part, and we are going down to take care of business," said Col. Terry Carrico, commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade at Fort Hood, Tex., just before boarding a plane to Cuba to prepare for the troops' arrival.
Some of the troops are being sent to transport the prisoners from Asia to the island, officials said.
Others will quickly prepare a section of the base to keep an initial first group of fewer than 100 prisoners, though up to 2,000 prisoners eventually may be housed there, Davis said. Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the military campaign in Afghanistan, said Friday that some prisoners are to arrive at Guantanamo within 10 days.
The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo predates the communist revolution on the island nation. It is well-defended and would offer few avenues of escape for prisoners.
More than 300 suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members were in U.S. custody this weekend, military officials have said. Soldiers were guarding 275 prisoners at the base in Kandahar, including Ibn Al-Shayk al-Libi, who ran al-Qaida terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Another 21 prisoners are at Bagram air base north of Kabul, and one in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Nine prisoners, including American Taliban John Walker Lindh, are on the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea.
Afghan and Pakistani authorities have thousands more prisoners captured during the fighting.
The highest-ranking Taliban official in U.S. custody former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef has been moved to an American warship in the Arabian Sea.
But the top targets, al-Qaida terrorist chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, continue to elude the coalition hunt.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who is traveling with other senators in the region, said Sunday that Uzbekistan's military intelligence service believes bin Laden has crossed the border into Pakistan. Uzbekistan, like Pakistan, borders Afghanistan and has been a U.S. ally in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
"I fully expect the Pakistanis will do everything they can to help us locate bin Laden," Edwards told "Fox News Sunday."
Omar was most recently thought to be near Baghran, northwest of Kandahar, but Afghan officials now say they believe he escaped.
The tribal leader of the remote mountain village that reportedly served as a hideout for Omar said Sunday that he did not shelter the fugitive Taliban chief.
Abdul Wahed, a former Taliban commander, said his people's code of honor would not allow him to protect the interests of one individual over those of the entire tribe.
"This is our tradition," he said. "We cannot bother our nation for a simple person."
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