Marines begin drive to seize weapons from Taliban
AFP Camp Rhino (Afghanistan), December
Tuesday, Sep 11
US Marines have begun a drive to seize weapons from fleeing Taliban soldiers and Al-Qaeda fighters at checkpoints in southern Afghanistan, officers said on Tuesday.
Marines have started efforts to "collect weapons and destroy them after we have serialised them," Marine spokesman Captain David Romley told reporters, adding he believed the process began on Tuesday.
"If we see weapons, we collect them and identify them" and take photographs of them, he said.
Romley could not say how many, if any, weapons had been seized so far. Nor did he know exactly why records of them were being kept.
The spokesman said the weapons seizures were part of ongoing efforts to block communications and supply lines as well as escape routes for Taliban soldiers or Al-Qaeda guerrillas in the area of the southern city of Kandahar.
"If they're Taliban and they lay down their weapons immediately they will be allowed go their merry way," said Captain Stewart Upton, another spokesman for the US Marines at this desert base in southern Afghanistan.
"If they're Al-Qaeda they will be apprehended unless they show any kind of hostile intent in which case they will be killed," he added.
Marine officers are also carrying photographs of Al-Qaeda and wanted Taliban leaders to help in capturing or killing them.
The Marines have also begun clearing ground at Camp Rhino for a "detention facility" to hold Al-Qaeda or Taliban members. The only prisoner for now is John Walker, an American who was captured fighting with the Taliban.
US Marines in helicopters and light armoured vehicles set up a staging area Monday closer to Kandahar to make it easier to block escape routes for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda followers and Taliban who do not want to surrender.
Asked if the impounded weapons could be handed over to anti-Taliban groups allied with the United States, Romley replied: "Our policy is to destroy those weapons."
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