Posted on 04/05/2002 2:41:21 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Senior defense officials Friday confirmed reports that al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan are distributing leaflets offering rewards of up to $100,000 for Americans captured alive.
"I think it confirms what we've been saying and that is that Afghanistan remains a very, very dangerous place," Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S.-led coalition, told Pentagon reporters in a video link-up from U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla.
U.S. forces found the leaflets last week in eastern Afghanistan, in a region where much fighting has taken place. The leaflets or pamphlets offer $50,000 for an American delivered dead and $100,000 for one who is alive, U.S. officials in the region reported.
The leaflets, which are distributed clandestinely, also contain language threatening the lives of Afghans who support the coalition.
"It's a dangerous place for our people to operate. It's a dangerous place for coalition forces to operate, and as we all recognize, there are groups of enemy troops still in that country. And that's why I think we've all been a little bit reluctant to predict how long our operations to kill or capture those enemy troops are going to go on," Franks said.
U.S. forces are collecting intelligence across the whole of Afghanistan 24 hours a day, he said.
"Right now, as of this minute, I don't see something that indicated a sized enemy force that would warrant something such as ... Anaconda," Franks said.
Operation Anaconda, which officially ended in early March, was the biggest ground offensive of the war and deemed a success by U.S. and coalition commanders.
U.S. forces currently are scouring the Khost and Gardez regions where caches of weapons and documents have been found. These operations would continue until the United States was satisfied that the terrorist network inside Afghanistan was destroyed, Franks said.
"What we do is we react to our intelligence and simply go to confirm or deny, and then kill or capture the enemy forces that we find there," he said.
Franks said he had not received any special briefing on what was found on Abu Zubaydah, who was taken into U.S. custody after a shootout in Pakistan. Zubaydah is suspected of being the right-hand man of Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Everyone overseas be careful just the same.
I think they said "an American"...sorry.
I think they said "an American"...sorry.
LOL!
Rhetorical question. The body may be delivered, but the ransom won't.
Taliban to Villagers: 3rd Mud hut on the left, next to the goat barn: high noon
Villagers to US Army: See above...Send in DaisyCutter.
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