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American Morning

Intense Fighting Continues in Largest and Deadliest Assault Since Start of Military Campaign

Aired March 05, 2002 - 07:09   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're going to move back to the issue of the war in Afghanistan and Operation Anaconda. Intense fighting continues in the largest and now deadliest assault since the start of the military campaign. At least eight American soldiers have died so far, seven just yesterday, as a U.S.-led coalition of forces continued their attack on the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters holed up in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

For more now we go to CNN's own Barbara Starr, who joins us from the Pentagon -- good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, yes, Operation Anaconda is continuing this morning with heavy air strikes across eastern Afghanistan, fighting on the ground. But sources tell us so far there are no additional reports of fatalities or injuries.

Sources describe the fighting right now as still very heavy, with the Taliban and al Qaeda using a variety of weapons from their high ground positions -- machine guns, mortars, small arms, all sorts of small weapons. Perhaps as many as half of the 400 Taliban or al Qaeda fighters estimated to be up there have now been killed by the U.S. and coalition force of 2,000.

U.S. troops are continuing to move through this very rough terrain. Altitudes reach as high as 12,000 feet. And they're going after very small pockets of Taliban and al Qaeda, perhaps two or three fighters in one picket, perhaps as many as 20 in another pocket. But no large masses of enemy troops that they can really attack. So it's very rough going.

There's still a lot of confusion about what exactly happened yesterday with these two helicopters being hit by some type of small arms fire. But what we do know now is that many of the troops, the wounded and the dead, were on the ground for several hours, perhaps as many as 10 or 12 hours, before a rescue team could finally get in to them and rescue everyone and pull them out.

So today it still stands at eight fatalities since the campaign began on Friday and perhaps as many as 40 wounded -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, Barbara, in light of the number of casualties suffered yesterday, is there any second guessing about the wisdom of having put American ground troops there in the first place?

STARR: Well, officially, no. But, of course, there is lots of second guessing in the hallways of the Pentagon. Now, what officials do say is they had to send troops, ground troops into all of this. Because these pockets are so small, it's not the kind of thing you can really successfully prosecute from an air campaign alone. And in this case they finally had to put what they call boots on the ground.

They knew it would be rough going. They expected opposition. But it was the only way to deal with these pockets of resistance. But it's not clear they expected as much resistance as they got -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Barbara Starr, appreciate that update.

Joining us now to share some of his insights on Operation Anaconda and where the U.S. military campaign may be headed from here, CNN military analyst General Donald Sheppard, who joins us from Denver, Colorado this morning.

Good to see you again, General.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: So you just heard a little bit of what Barbara had to say about some of the thinking going into putting U.S. forces on the ground in the first place. Basically she said the conclusion was arrived that the air campaign couldn't do it alone. That's the point at which the U.S. felt it had to "put boots on the ground."

But do you believe the U.S. expected the kind of resistance they're getting now from these al Qaeda and Taliban troops?

SHEPPERD: Well, Paula, I'm not sure exactly what we expected, but you can be sure that any time you engage troops on the ground, they are going to fight and they're going to fight fiercely. We knew this was very, very rough terrain up there. We knew that these are al Qaeda fighters, for the most part, not Taliban. And we knew they're very hard core.

And so the fact that they put up significant resistance is not really surprising to those of us who are watching. But until you go in on the ground, you simply never know whether they're going to surrender or whether they're really going to fight. In this case they're fighting.

ZAHN: Tell us a little bit about the significance of the kind of resistance we're seeing. Barbara Starr just reported small guns, machine guns, mortars fired.

SHEPPERD: Yes, they've got mortars. They've got machine guns. They've got rocket propelled grenades that we've seen for years, even since the Vietnam War, that can be used against trucks and armor, that type of thing. They're well hidden. They'll pop up out of caves and out of crannies and take a shot and then fade away again, if you will. They've also been reported to have some man pads, the manned portable air defense system to use against helicopters, although there are no reports that any of these have been fired at the present time. But these are well armed people with lots of ammunition in a lot of these caves, Paula.

ZAHN: And I wanted to quickly review what General Tommy Franks has had to say about this latest offensive. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Both I and the secretary of defense have said on numerous occasions we are entering a phase where we will physically go to places on the ground inside Afghanistan to clear out pockets of resistance as we're able to find them. And, yes, it is more dangerous and that is the phase of the operation that we're in right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: And how long, General, can we expect this phase of the operation to last?

SHEPPERD: Well, it's hard to say. When General Franks was asked that question yesterday he came near to giving the answer he's given all along, as long as it takes. Now, remember the Tora Bora area, which is much larger than the Shai Kote (ph) mountain area, basically took about three weeks in a December time frame. It started in early December. It finished up about Christmas time.

So it's hard to say how long it's going to take. This is 60 to 70 square miles so it's a smaller area. We've got blocking positions around here unlike what we had at Tora Bora. So we've got more forces available. But it's going to take probably in the neighborhood of many days to perhaps a few weeks to clear this area out. If anybody had to guess, you know, you're going to take at least two or three weeks would be a good guess, Paula. But we're all just guessing. You never know.

ZAHN: General, you just mentioned Tora Bora, and I guess it brings to mind in a lot of folks' head a question about how much U.S. tactics have changed against that.

When the offensive was mounted on Tora Bora, it was primarily carried out by Afghan troops. Now you have as many as 800 American troops on the ground in Gardez. Why the difference?

SHEPPERD: Well, remember, Paula, when we went into the Tora Bora area, it was the early phases of our movement from Camp Rhino into Kandahar. General Franks didn't have a lot of United States troops available to him. At the same time he was conducting operations in Tora Bora, he was moving into Kandahar, defending Kandahar, taking prisoners into Kandahar. So a lot of people were taken up in just maintaining the logistical support of that area. Not a lot of combat troops available. Now that that's well established and the troops from other nations are available to him, he has many more combat troops available to him and that's one of the reasons.

The other is basically he wanted to get U.S. forces and U.S. weapons in there in addition to the Afghans. So it just makes sense. It's a case of timing and the forces available to you along with your strategy and plan, Paula.

ZAHN: And, General, before we let you go, just a quick final thought on the eight American lives that were lost yesterday and what it is Americans should be prepared for.

SHEPPERD: Yes, well, it's a terrible tragedy any time you lose Americans or anyone else in a war, as a matter of fact. Paula, we can expect more of this. When you put troops on the ground and engage in combat operations, you can expect to lose more U.S. soldiers. This is what we do in the military. We're going to lose more U.S. helicopters and aircraft as, the longer we're there, the more we're going to lose. And it's a fact and it's going to happen in many places over the world if we're really serious about this war on terrorism. Tough stuff, Paula, but that's what it's about.

ZAHN: General Donald Shepperd, thank you again for joining us. A man on the move joining us from Denver, Colorado this morning. Appreciate your time.

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