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Date Posted: 10:02:49 01/02/02 Wed
Author: MC Reporter
Subject: HUNT CONTINUES

WASHINGTON (AP) - A former Taliban and al-Qaida compound in southern Afghanistan was searched by combat-equipped U.S. Marines as the hunt for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar continued.

Tuesday's intelligence-gathering mission by about 200 Marines was the latest of about a dozen such forays the Marines have undertaken in the past several weeks, said Maj. Brad Lowell, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command.

The Marines did not come under hostile fire, Lowell said.

The Marines left their base in the southern city of Kandahar late Monday night in a convoy of vehicles, headed for the compound in Helmand province, Lowell said. They and anti-Taliban Afghan forces were searching the fenced compound of about 14 buildings for information about the radical Islamic militia and the al-Qaida terrorists they harbored, Lowell said.

The Marines were equipped for combat supported by strike helicopters, Lowell said.

Another group of about 100 soldiers left the Kandahar base aboard Marine helicopters Monday evening. Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim prime minister, said the troops were Marines helping in an operation to try to capture Omar, who has been missing since Kandahar fell to Karzai's forces early last month.

U.S. officials have refused to say who those soldiers were or what their mission was. Lowell said he had no information about them. U.S. special forces likely would be involved in any search for the Taliban leader, helping to direct airstrikes and advising Afghan forces on tactics.

Meanwhile Tuesday, 25 suspected al-Qaida members captured in Pakistan arrived at the detention center on the U.S. base in Kandahar, Lowell said. They had been captured after heavy fighting last month drove them out of Afghanistan's Tora Bora region, where U.S. officials believe bin Laden had stayed.

The new arrivals brought to 189 the number of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at the Kandahar base. An additional 12 prisoners were being held by the United States at the Bagram air base north of Kabul, and U.S. forces have one prisoner in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Eight prisoners, including American John Walker Lindh, were being held aboard U.S. Navy ships in the Arabian Sea. On Monday, they were moved from the USS Peleliu to the USS Bataan, Lowell said.

The Peleliu is home to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, whose members are preparing to leave Kandahar and return to their ship. Soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division will take over for the Marines at the Kandahar base.

Other Marines at the Kandahar airfield are members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is based on the Bataan.

On Sunday, a U.S. spy drone crashed while returning from a mission in support of the war in Afghanistan, a Central Command statement said. The unmanned plane was not shot down, and its wreckage will be recovered, the statement said.

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