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Rumsfeld to inspect Afghan detainee base

Rumsfeld

(CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is set to fly to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Sunday to inspect the U.S. naval base where captured Taliban fighters are being detained and talk to military officials, the Pentagon announced.

Next week, the leader of Afghanistan's interim government, Hamid Karzai, is to visit Washington for the first time since taking office and is expected to meet with House and Senate leaders.

A U.S. congressional delegation visited Camp X-Ray in Cuba on Friday. After inspecting conditions there, lawmakers said that, despite the concerns of some human rights organizations, the detainees captured in the war in Afghanistan were being treated well. (Full story)

In Afghanistan, Army Special Forces soldiers raided two military compounds at an undisclosed site Wednesday, killing about 15 enemy fighters and taking 27 prisoners, the Pentagon announced on Friday.

The compounds held Taliban militiamen, hundreds of mortars and rockets and an estimated half-million rounds of small arms ammunition, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.

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Meanwhile, the Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. Navy successfully tested a ship-based ballistic missile interceptor system, a Department of Defense spokesman said Friday. (Full story)

Latest developments

• Military officials detained five Afghans suspected of trying to cross the perimeter of a U.S. Army base in Kandahar Saturday night, authorities said. Soldiers later determined that one of the detainees was a man who was under the influence of drugs and the other four were children collecting firewood. The man is still being held.

• Afghanistan's interim foreign minister expressed optimism Saturday that his nation can rebuild after more than two decades of conflict, provided that the international community remains committed to supplying support. "What we need is continued engagement from the United States, first of all, in the war against terror, which will help stability in Afghanistan and the whole region ... and also in the reconstruction efforts of our people," Abdullah Abdullah told CNN. (Full story)

• U.S. authorities have identified the fifth and previously unknown suspected "suicide terrorist" shown on a videotape released by the Justice Department last week. (Full story)

• In a sign that pockets of resistance still threaten the U.S. Army's base in Kandahar, military officials detained five people suspected of trying to cross the base's perimeter Saturday night, authorities said.

• British authorities confirmed Saturday that Britons Asif Iqbal, 20, and Shafiq Rasul, 24, were being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. British officials have visited the two men and a third Briton, 22-year-old Feroz Abbasi, each of whom said they had "no complaint" about their treatment by U.S. troops.

• U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is in Iran and planning to discuss the future of Afghanistan with the country's senior officials. (Full story)

• Marjan the one-eyed lion, the most famous of the war-battered beasts at the Kabul Zoo, died just as international help had begun pouring in to ease the animals' plight, an official leading the aid efforts said Saturday. (Full story)

• Authorities said Friday they have forensic evidence that proves alleged would-be airplane shoe bomber Richard Reid did not act alone in making the bombs found in his sneakers. U.S. government sources and intelligence sources overseas told CNN's Susan Candiotti that palm prints and hair samples not belonging to Reid were discovered in the bombs hidden in his shoes. (Full story)

• Lawyers for David Hicks, a 26-year-old Australian held at Guantanamo as a suspected member of al Qaeda, are writing to President Bush seeking his release.

• More sets of remains from Ground Zero have been identified, bringing the number of confirmed dead Thursday to 685. The estimate of the total number of dead from the September 11 World Trade Center attacks, however, was reduced to 2,876. The New York Office of Emergency Management said the number of people for whom death certificates have been issued without identification of remains is 1,928, while the number listed as missing with no death certificates issued is 263.