Likely al-Qaida Weapons Cache Found

(AP) ^

[Dallas]

ATALAY, Afghanistan --

In a mud-brick barn used to dry grapes into raisins, U.S. and British troops uncovered a cache of weapons and explosives during a raid on a tiny farming village that soldiers said al-Qaida had turned into site for planning attacks.

Around 120 U.S. special forces and British marines swept into Alatay, in southern Afghanistan, in the pre-dawn dark Thursday. They seized four compounds and took 17 people into custody, British Lt. Com. Gary Lydiate said.

All but five of the prisoners were later released, U.S. spokesman Roger King said Friday. Those five were thought to have "intelligence value," he said, though they were still being questioned to determine if they were linked to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Troops found weapons, plastic explosives and bomb-making equipment, as well as documents that were being analyzed, King said.

Inside the barn several hours after the assault, a pillow and blanket lay on the dirt floor, a kerosene lamp still flickering nearby. Someone sleeping there, apparently the cache's guard, fled moments before troops swept in, likely awoken by the approaching Chinook helicopters.

"Someone made a hasty escape," said British 2nd Lt. David Spink, one of the first soldiers to enter the barn, standing over the abandoned bedding. "This is not your average farmer with a weapon. We're quite used to farmers with AK-47s. But these explosives are far from the norm."

The sweep in this village 50 miles northwest of Kandahar was typical of what the war in Afghanistan has become -- a sometimes frustrating hunt for traces of the al-Qaida terror network and the country's former ruling Taliban militia, hidden among the local population.

U.S.-led forces, following intelligence leads, have raided a number of suspected hide-outs in the Kandahar area and near the border with Pakistan. In some cases, villagers around Kandahar have insisted they were raided by mistake and that they had no connection to al-Qaida or Taliban.

But troops on the ground in Atalay insisted their sweep here was a success. Lydiate said it was launched after "unambiguous intelligence" that al-Qaida was using the site. Based on the weapons caches, "we have identified this as a possible site which al-Qaida was planning operations from," he said.

King said Friday that officials were still trying to figure out who was using the site and how.

Journalists brought by the military to the village Thursday were shown a building where troops found a large weapons cache: a long, narrow mud-brick barn used by farmers to dry their grape crop into raisins. The barn stood among fields of grape vines and two plots of opium poppies, already harvested.

At one end of the barn, among piles of branches used to hang grapes, was a blue plastic barrel brimming with around 15 automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. A bag contained rocket-propelled grenade rounds, grenades, detonation cord and 25 tubes of plastic explosives -- each capable of wrecking a vehicle, Spink said.

"Any of these explosives could quite easily be turned into a booby trap," he said.

Also found among the weapons was an old pair of Russian-made night-vision goggles. Though far from the advanced models that give U.S. troops a major edge in their nighttime raids, the goggles suggested that al-Qaida and the Taliban were trying to get similar capabilities.

"It's a significant step for people in this part of the world to be able to operate day or night," Spink said.

Journalists were not allowed to see the other compounds that were seized because troops were still searching them. Roger said Friday that automatic weapons of the sort commonly owned by Afghan farmers were found in them. The journalists could not speak to the village's residents.

After the assault, troops met with village elders who said "bad people" had been in Atalay in recent days using villagers' land, Lydiate asserted. Humanitarian aid and food was dropped near the village.

U.S. forces broadcast recordings in the local language Pashtu over a loudspeaker explaining to Atalay's residents the coalition's mission and relating what happened in the Sept. 11 attacks, which the United States and its allies blame on al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden's terror network.

"On prior operations, we began to realize that civilians didn't know in fact why were coming," said a U.S. psychological operations sergeant who identified himself only as Clint.

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

[coloradan]

Looks like Afghanistan has its own version of the Second Amendment.

During the time we were supplying te Afghans to fight the Soviets, they had exactly one (1) gun control law: It was illegal to sell firearms to someone known to be plotting violence against the government. That was it.