BRUSSELS: Belgium's foreign minister says his government remains committed to taking in several detainees from Guantanamo Bay when the U.S. military prison closes down. Speaking to La Premiere radio during his current trip to Washington, D.C., Karel De Gucht says it remains to be seen how many former inmates may be taken in. De Gucht says in Friday's broadcast that he spoke to the White House's national security adviser Gen. James Jones about the issue. He says the matter is complicated by the free travel regulations within the European Union, which would allow the former prisoners to change their country of residence without informing the authorities.Belgium first offered to accept ``a certain number'' of prisoners freed from Guantanamo when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Brussels in March.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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