The U.S. Marines said today that they were preparing to abandon this outpost in the sand and move to the Kandahar airport, where they were building a detention camp for as many as 300 prisoners.
Concertina wire was being stretched out to divide a large metal shed beside the airport into separate pens. The Marines, who secured the airport Friday, have been told to expect the arrival of 100 to 300 fighters who might surrender or be captured near Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan. Some of the fighters were already en route this evening.
"These are hard-core people," said a Marine officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If they see the opportunity to overpower their guards, they will, even if it means their own lives."
About 2,000 Marines are at Camp Rhino, southwest of Kandahar, and at the international airport about 12 miles southeast of the city. More Marines arrive every day from the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea, pausing briefly at Camp Rhino and then flying on to Kandahar.
The Marines' mission at Kandahar holds more potential perils than they have faced at this remote desert airstrip they seized Nov. 25 as a base for reconnaissance patrols.
Security remains tenuous at the airport, which was the scene of intense fighting until the Taliban militia fled. Small numbers of Taliban fighters and members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network have melted into the civilian population, the officer said, making them difficult to identify.
Navy and Marine explosives crews have found large amounts of unexploded ordnance near the runway and munitions stockpiled in buildings at the airport. Throughout the day, explosions resounded throughout the airport as nine caches of munitions were destroyed, including air-to-air rockets, rocket powered grenades, handguns, machine guns and surface-to-surface rockets.
The crews also detonated ordnance found near an adjacent mosque, much of it from U.S. cluster bombs. The explosives did not damage the mosque, though its facade was marked with bullet holes, apparently from previous battles.
A 19-member U.S. chemical and biological weapons inspection team arrived in one of the first helicopters to land at the Kandahar airstrip after it was secured by the Marines. So far, the team has found only standard ordnance, some with "strange markings," the officer said.
One concern has been temporarily resolved. An SA-3 missile was found on a hilltop overlooking the runway. Flights from Camp Rhino to Kandahar were suspended Friday until Afghans allied with Gul Agha Shirzai, a tribal leader who fought the Taliban, surrounded it so that it posed no threat to incoming planes, the officer said. Flights resumed before dawn today.
With their attention focused on the airport, Marines are no longer stopping vehicles and searching them for fleeing fighters. That responsibility has been assumed by Gul Agha's forces, who now man a security checkpoint about a half-mile beyond the Marine perimeter, allowing only U.S. and coalition forces to pass.
The Marines are trying to make the airport safe for humanitarian groups and commercial planes. Only 3,000 to 4,000 feet of the runway is now usable, according to Marine spokesmen. The terminal's doors have been kicked in, and most of its windows were shattered by the bombing and battles that occurred before the U.S. troops arrived.
At Camp Rhino, Marines waiting to go to Kandahar played baseball in the compound courtyard today and did chin-ups on scaffolding. All troops and supplies are expected to be transferred to Kandahar within weeks, and this desert airstrip built near a former hunting lodge, where blowing sand clogs equipment and makes life miserable, will be abandoned.




Washington Post reporter Steve Vogel covers local and regional military issues. His Military Matters column runs every other week.