Marines will ‘smoke out’ Bin laden
Royal Marine commandos could be ordered to attack caves in Afghanistan to ‘‘smoke out’’ Osama bin Laden, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon suggested tonight.
Praising the elite troops’ specialist fighting skills, he said the ‘‘brave’’ men had the capabilities to exert intolerable pressure on the terror mastermind and his allies.
Mr Hoon warned bin Laden would not be ‘‘off the hook’’ during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan - but he admitted coalition forces still had no idea where he was.
Two hundred marines from 40 Commando, based at Taunton, Somerset, have been put on immediate standby to join the war against bin Laden and his Taliban protectors.
Mr Hoon, who is visiting the soldiers on exercise in Oman, said in the capital Muscat that the marines’ skills would be ‘‘enormously important’’ in any attacks on the caves.
He said he believed bin Laden was moving to a different hide-out every night, but said of the marines: ‘‘They have got a range of specialist capabilities and some of the strikes from the air have been against caves.
‘‘We assume that a number of the hiding places of Osama bin Laden employs are in the ground and that capability would be enormously important.’’
He went on: ‘‘The means to take people out of caves involves a lot of brave people attacking what can be a very well defended position.
‘‘We need to exert pressure to limit the opportunities that he and his supporters have to move around the country.’’
Mr Hoon said it would be at least a week before the marines were likely to go into action.
But he revealed that they were raring to go.
He said he had visited their training centre at Lympstone, Devon, and had a ‘‘very considerable number of complaints that they had not seen enough action and when was I going to sort it out?’’
