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CNN Live Saturday

Elite U.S. Troops Carried Out Nighttime Raid in Southern Afghanistan

Aired October 20, 2001 - 16:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, let's turn to the military campaign. Elite U.S. troops carry out a fast nighttime raid in southern Afghanistan, word from the Pentagon today that the mission was accomplished.

Correspondent Sheilah Kast is at the Pentagon this afternoon for CNN. She's going to give us the very latest. Hello Sheilah, what's the latest from the Pentagon?

SHEILAH KAST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, well as you said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers said that the U.S. forces encountered what he called light opposition during their first publicly acknowledged ground action in Afghanistan.

He revealed videotape excerpts taken by a Defense Department photographer of Army Rangers preparing for the mission, and other excerpt showed 100 or more rangers parachuting. We'll see that in just a minute, 100 or more rangers who parachuted from C-130's onto an airfield in southern Afghanistan, which the Pentagon said is part of the Taliban command and control network.

The rangers destroyed ammunition there at the airfield and also at the home of Taliban leader Mohammed Omar. Myers said the mission accomplished its objectives which included, he said, collecting intelligence information.

Two soldiers were injured in the parachuting, not seriously Myers said, and he said the Taliban had taken casualties although he did not know how many.

The general would not say that this was the beginning of a ground war, but he did say the success of the mission does send a message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: One of the messages should be that we are capable of, at a time of our choosing, conducting the kind of operations we want to conduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAST: Myers called the two soldiers who died when their search and rescue helicopter crashed in Pakistan, he called them heroes, and he said that there is, it is absolutely false that the Taliban claims that it shot down the helicopter. Essentially, Myers described it as an accident. Catherine.

CALLAWAY: And Sheilah, did they say at the Pentagon how or if the troops were removed from that area in southern Afghanistan?

KAST: No, General Myers did not want to talk about that. There are a couple of possibilities. One would be if helicopters were used. Another is that since he said that they basically went building by building, taking control of the airfield in southern Afghanistan, presumably the C-130's from which they parachuted in might have been able to land and they might have been able to just board those planes and leave that way.

CALLAWAY: All right, Sheilah Kast at the Pentagon. Thank you Sheilah.

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