Detainees touch down in Cuba under heavy security

A U.S. military transport that carried 20 detainees from Afghanistan sits on the tarmac Friday after landing at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba.

(CNN) -- Twenty Afghan war detainees arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by C-141 transport plane Friday and were led off in shackles by U.S. military personnel.

Wearing fluorescent orange jumpsuits and turquoise blue face masks, the detainees were frisked and sent to be photographed, fingerprinted and interrogated.

The Taliban and al Qaeda captives will be held at first in 6-foot-by-8-foot outdoor cells with concrete floors and wooden ceilings bordered by a chain-link fence. Most will likely be moved later to a detention center being built on the base. (Full story)

U.S. forces are holding another 445 detainees inside Afghanistan, most of them at the U.S. military base at Kandahar International Airport, according to U.S. officials.

"As we interrogate more detainees, we are being told of terrorists who they believe were killed in earlier bombing raids," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reports Friday. "Our operations are working -- we've captured or killed a number of senior Taliban and al Qaeda leaders."

Rumsfeld said the United States has obtained "literally hundreds" of weapons and ordnance and "enormous numbers" of documents, videotapes, computer hard drives and other intelligence information.

VIDEO Hundreds of captured al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are en route to a specially designed facility at a U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. CNN's Bob Franken reports (January 11) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   QUICKVOTE Should U.S. troops expand the war on terrorism into the Philippines? Yes No View Results   RESOURCES U.S. combat aircraft: KC-130 Gallery: Photographs of the Marines killed in Wednesday's plane crash in Pakistan.    CNN.COM SPECIAL REPORT  CNN NewsPass Video  Agencies reportedly got hijack tips in 1998  MORE STORIES Intelligence intercept led to Buffalo suspects Report cites warnings before 9/11  EXTRA INFORMATION Timeline: Who Knew What and When? Interactive: Terror Investigation Terror Warnings System Most wanted terrorists What looks suspicious? In-Depth: America Remembers In-Depth: Terror on Tape In-Depth: How prepared is your city?  RESOURCES On the Scene: Barbara Starr: Al Qaeda hunt expands? On the Scene: Peter Bergen: Getting al Qaeda to talk

Latest developments

• Authorities charged an Egyptian man Friday with lying to the FBI about his knowledge of aviation radios, one of which we allegedly had while staying at a hotel facing the World Trade Center on September 11. (Full story)

• Singapore authorities broke an al Qaeda plot targeting U.S. Navy ships, sailors and the nightspots they frequent, U.S. officials told CNN on Friday. The 17,000 Americans living in the Southeast Asian nation were also targets, the officials said. The break was the first attributed to intelligence information discovered by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan. (Full story)

• Twenty al Qaeda and Taliban detainees arrived Friday at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, the first of what may become hundreds of Afghan war captives to be held on the Caribbean island. The detainees initially will be held in outdoor cells with concrete floors, a wooden ceiling and sides made of chain-link fence until construction of a detention center is completed. (Full story)

• Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Afghanistan during a trip to South Asia next week. Powell will also stop in India and Pakistan in an effort to curb tensions between the two nuclear powers before moving onto Tokyo for a conference on international contributions to Afghanistan.

• A federal grand jury Friday indicted a U.S. Capitol police officer for what officials called an anthrax hoax. James Joseph Pickett, 35, was arraigned on one count of making false statements and one count of obstructing U.S. Capitol Police, said the U.S. attorney's office for Washington. (Full story)

• U.S. defense officials expressed satisfaction Friday about the progress of the military campaign in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said interrogations of detainees and new intelligence has yielded information on possibly slain senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and insight into terrorist activities.

• A federal judge Friday sentenced a man whose name appeared on a map in the car of a suspected American Airlines Flight 77 hijacker on charges unrelated to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Mohamed Abdi, an American of Somali descent, was given four months in jail and three years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to defrauding his landlord with a forged check. Prosecutors said Abdi, who worked for a security company at Dulles airport, tried to get rid of five uniforms used for security patrols and failed FBI-administered lie detector tests, but authorities never tied him to the hijackings.

• U.S. military jets escorted a Washington-bound Delta jet back to Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport on Friday after a "transmission error" occurred shortly after takeoff, said an airline spokeswoman. (Full story)

• Lisa Beamer, the widow of a United Airlines Flight 93 passenger believed to have died trying to overpower hijackers on September 11, went home from the hospital Friday two days after giving birth to a girl. (Full story)

• U.S. warplanes dropped 44 precision weapons Thursday on buildings, caves and tunnels in the Zawar Kili complex in eastern Afghanistan. Military officials said Taliban or al Qaeda fighters or both have been operating in the complex, which they said has 30 to 40 acres of underground passageways and covers roughly four miles above ground.

• Investigators expressed "serious doubts" Friday about the credibility of a prison inmate who revealed a plot to assassinate Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother. (Full story)

• Despite tightened restrictions, aircraft have flown into restricted or prohibited airspace 270 times in the past four months, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Ten pilots have flown over President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, and another 45 flew too near the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. Ninety-five of the incursions have been by small planes, such as the Cessna plane that crashed into a Tampa, Florida, skyscraper last weekend.

• Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday there are signs the U.S. economy is emerging from the recession, despite the "unprecedented blow from terrorists to the foundation of our markets" on September 11. Greenspan emphasized the economy continues "to face significant risks in the near term."

• A British magistrate again denied bail Friday for an Algerian pilot linked to a man who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon on September 11. Magistrate Timothy Workman said bail would be considered next month unless the United States, which has indicated it eventually file a "conspiracy to murder" charge against Lotfi Raissi, officially pursues charges. (Full story)