(13 Mar 2002)
Kandahar – March 13, 2002
1. Kandahar airport terminal building
2. US flag
3. Sign of the American 101 airborne division
4. Airport sign
Recent File
5. Various, barbed wire outside detention area
6. US guards in guard post outside detention centre
7. Barbed wire
Kandahar – March 13, 2002
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Major A.C. Roper, U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne division:
"Earlier this week, Afghans in the Herat province turned over 12 individuals to US military forces. Those individuals are currently being held in a short-term detention facility here in Afghanistan. Their identities, nationalities and recent activities remain unclear. We are focusing our efforts on resolving those issues.
9. Various Apache helicopters
10. Infantry soldier walking through t edust
11. Apache helicopter flying past American Flag
STORYLINE:
After days of official silence, the US military on Wednesday confirmed it was holding 12 individuals seized recently in western Afghanistan.
But no information was given on the men’s identities or nationalities.
An Afghan source, royalist politician Izzatullah Wasafi, on Saturday claimed the group was largely Iranian.
Wasafi said that the group had been clandestinely distributing money and arms to Iranian allies in western Afghanistan’s Herat province when they were seized by other Afghan forces on March 5.
He said the group was led by a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, named Razavi, and included eight other Iranians and three Afghans.
They were quickly turned over to the US military, who are holding them at the army detention centre at Kandahar airport.
The Kandahar detention centre also holds scores of suspected members of the al-Qaida terrorist organisation and Afghanistan’s Taliban movement.
Any US detention of Iranian nationals in a third country – possibly including a high-ranking officer – could deepen US-Iranian animosity.
Washington has complained that the Tehran government has been trying to buy allies in western Afghanistan to undermine the new US influence in this country, whose unity is threatened by regional factionalism.
Iran denies any interest in destabilising Afghanistan.
An Iranian government spokesman has denied that any Iranians are in US custody.
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