AFGHANISTAN: US DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD PAYS SURPRISE VISIT TO BAGRAM AIRBASE
Record ID:
184753
AFGHANISTAN: US DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD PAYS SURPRISE VISIT TO BAGRAM AIRBASE
- Title: AFGHANISTAN: US DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD PAYS SURPRISE VISIT TO BAGRAM AIRBASE
- Date: 18th December 2001
- Summary: (W4) BARGRAM AIRBASE, NORTH OF KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (DECEMBER 16, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. SLV SOLDIERS FROM THE U.S 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION GUARDING AIRBASE (3 SHOTS) 0.08 2. SLV PLANE CARRYING U.S. DEFENCE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD TAXIING ON RUNWAY; AFGHAN OFFICIALS INCLUDING GERENAL MOHAMMED FAHIM WAITING TO GREET RUMSFELD; US MARINES (3 SHOTS) 0.20 3. SCU FAHIM GREETING RUMSFELD; MV RUMSFELD AND FAHIM TALKING AND WALKING (3 SHOTS) 0.40 (U4) BARGRAM AIRBASE, NORTH OF KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (DECEMBER 16, 2001) (REUTERS) 4. MV HAMID KARZAI, HEAD OF AFGHANISTAN'S INTERIM GOVERNMENT WALKING THROUGH AN AIRCRAFT HANGER TO MEET U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE DONALD RUMSFELD; MV US MARINES (2 SHOTS) 0.49 5. SLV KARZAI AND RUMSFELD MEETING; KARZAI AND RUMSFELD TALKING 1.02 6. SOUNDBITE (English) HAMID KARZAI, HEAD OF AFGHANISTAN'S INTERIM GOVERNMENT SAYING "One of the areas where I was in central Afghanistan. The moment it became possible for the people to move in, to take control of the province themselves." 1.14 7. SCU RUMSFELD; MV TALKS (2 SHOTS) 1.27 8. SLV US MARINES WITH BARBED WIRE (3 SHOTS) 1.44 (W5) BARGRAM AIRBASE, NORTH OF KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (DECEMBER 16, 2001) (REUTERS) 9. MV US MARINES ARRIVING AT HANGAR; MV US MARINE COMMANDER GIVING BRIEFING; NV US MARINES LISTENING; SCU WEAPON TILT UP MARINE (5 SHOTS) 2.16 10. MV RUMSFELD ADDRESSING TROOPS 2.24 11. SOUNDBITE (English) RUMSFELD SAYING "We can't do it ourselves, but we want to be as helpful as we can to try to see that the new government here is a government that is representative of the people. That it is a government that will see that this country is a good neighbour to the many countries that surround it." 2.41 12. SCU US MARINES LISTENING 2.49 13. SOUNDBITE (English) RUMSFELD SAYING "I have not heard through my sources, I have heard it through some other sources here that there'd been a number of people captured. There have been a number of people killed, there have been a number of people wounded in the Tora Bora area and there is at the present time not a fierce battle taking place. There are people who are attempting to escape and they are being run down." 3.19 14. MV US MARINE LISTENING 3.24 15. SOUNDBITE (English) RUMSFELD SAYING "We have every day watched what is going on in this country and what you folks are doing, with great pride at the skill and the training and the discipline and the dedication that you all bring to what you are doing. And I must say that the President of the United States, your commander in chief has decided that this is an enormously important task for our country. 3.58 16. SCU US MARINE LISTENING; WIDE OF RUMSFELD THANKING TROOPS (2 SHOTS) 4.05 17. SOUNDBITE (English) RUMSFELD SAYING "No they have not. There are still pockets of Taliban and al Qaeda that exist in this country. There are also Taliban and al Qaeda forces that have drifted into the mountains and could reform and there is a good deal yet to be done." 4.20 18. SLV RUMSFELD WITH TROOPS; SCU RUMSFELD SIGNING FLAG; RUMSFELD POSING FOR PICTURES WITH US MARINES (4 SHOTS) 4.46 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 2nd January 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BAGRAM AIRBASE, NORTH OF KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
- Country: Afghanistan
- Reuters ID: LVAAGWIMP2MEBK970ESZWQASAUUO
- Story Text: U.S. defence chief Donald Rumsfeld paid a surprise
visit to Bagram airbase near Kabul, but Afghan fighters said
Osama bin Laden, main quarry of the Pentagon's campaign in
Afghanistan, had evaded capture.
Rumsfeld, the most senior U.S. official to visit
Afghanistan since the start of the war, met Hamid Karzai, who
will head an interim government that takes power next week for
six months and with General Mohammad Fahim, the designated
Afghan defence minister .
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld became on Sunday
(December 16) the most senior U.S. official to visit
Afghanistan since the start of the war, touching down in
triumph near Kabul even as his forces hunted the elusive Osama
bin Laden.
Rumsfeld was greeted at the airport by designated Afghan
defence minister Mohammad Fahim and sat down to talks with
Hamid Karzai, who will head an interim government that takes
power next week for six months.
The venue for talks that Rumsfeld said were aimed at
discussing the large number of tasks still to do was a wrecked
Soviet-era aircraft hangar.
Rumsfeld held talks with Hamid Karzai, head of an interim
government due to take power on December 22.
Rumsfeld told Karzai that the operation was not against
Afghanistan, but against terrorism, as they met in a wrecked
Soviet-era aircraft hangar.
Karzai told Rumsfeld the Afghan people were thankful for
America's help in battling terrorism and the Taliban.
Karzai, dressed in a traditional green and purple striped
robe and a grey lamb's wool cap, chatted easily with Rumsfeld,
who wore a black zippered wind-breaker emblazoned with a red
Special Operations Command insignia on the breast.
Rumsfeld said earlier that U.S. forces had found materials
and documents at a former al Qaeda base in southern
Afghanistan, and were testing them for chemical, biological
and radiation content.
At Tora Bora, one senior commander said his men had killed
200 of bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters and taken 25 prisoner.
The anti-Taliban fighters had spent the day making their
way up two valleys in the jagged White Mountains some 40 km
(25 miles) south of Jalalabad to try to hunt down remaining al
Qaeda fighters and find their leader in caves burrowed into
the hills.
CNN television quoted two anti-Taliban commanders,
including Ali, as saying the bulk of the al Qaeda had left the
area and may have escaped over the border to Pakistan.
But Pakistan's border is heavily patrolled by the
military, who just a day earlier captured 31 al Qaeda --
mostly Yemenis -- as they fled Tora Bora for the lawless
tribal areas of Pakistan.
Rumsfeld addressed US marines in the hangar at Bagram
airbase.
"I have not heard through my sources, I have heard it
through some other sources here that there'd been a number of
people captured. There have been a number of people killed,
there have been a number of people wounded in the Tora Bora
area and there is at the present time not a fierce battle
taking place. There are people who are attempting to escape
and they are being run down," Rumsfeld said about the fighting
in Tora Bora.
Bin Laden had been heard giving orders on a short-range
radio in the last few days, a U.S. official said in Washington
on Saturday. But his actual whereabouts remained a mystery.
"There are also Taliban and al Qaeda forces that have
drifted into the mountains and could reform and there is a
good deal yet to be done," Rumsfeld said to the troops.
Rumsfeld has been on a tour of Caucasus and central Asian
states, but his visit to Afghanistan was kept a secret until
the last moment.
U.S. fighters screamed through the sky before his plane
touched down at the Soviet-era Bagram base, guarded by U.S.
and British troops who secured it shortly after Northern
Alliance forces drove the Taliban out of the capital last
month.
Emphasising the instability of a country at war for 23
years, Rumsfeld was warned before climbing down from a U.S.
military C-17 cargo jet not to step off concrete surfaces into
surrounding fields because the area was peppered with
landmines.
The 69-year-old defence secretary said earlier U.S. planes
had dropped more than 200 bombs on Tora Bora over the weekend.
On Sunday, B-52 bombers again raced through the skies on
the first day of the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of
the holy fasting month of Ramadan, dropping huge bombs on
suspected al Qaeda positions through the night and into the
morning.
Rumsfeld said the place where intelligence and other
materials had been gathered was about six km (four miles) east
of a U.S. Marine desert base known as Camp Rhino.
As Rumsfeld arrived at Bagram, two U.S. Marines were
wounded, one seriously, while clearing ordnance on Sunday at
Kandahar airport, officers said.
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