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CNN Live Today

Coalition Troops Rooting Out Remaining al Qaeda Forces

Aired March 15, 2002 - 13:14   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In Operation Anaconda, conventional combat has died down, at least for now anyway, while U.S. soldiers and their allies now go cave to cave trying to root out any potential remaining al Qaeda elements. Barbara Starr now from the Pentagon, watching things from there, and joins us now on this afternoon. Barbara, good afternoon.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Bill. Well, Operation Anaconda, for all intensive purposes, may be mopping up, but there are still hundreds of U.S. and coalition fighters in -- troops in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan rooting out the last of the al Qaeda fighters. And, in fact, they are going cave to cave. They are looking for weapons, ammunition, other intelligence, destroying what they do find up there. A lot of that work is now being done by U.S. and Canadian light-infantry forces.

Today at the Pentagon at a press conference earlier today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made it clear the work is not over and the al Qaeda remains a force to be reckoned with.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There are still pockets of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters at a number of locations in Afghanistan. And certainly, there are others just across the various borders of that country that would like to come back. They're determined to attack U.S. military forces and U.S. interests in Afghanistan and elsewhere to attempt to show their strength.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: And the secretary made it clear the U.S. is still not certain exactly how many al Qaeda fighters it killed in this campaign and how many may have indeed escaped across the border into Pakistan.

The secretary also said the Pentagon is getting ready to unveil its procedures for how it will conduct these military commissions, these proceedings that will try al Qaeda and Taliban detainees that have been held by the U.S. for some months now. There's only expected to be a handful of these proceedings. And we don't know much yet about exactly how those will take place. But he said the Pentagon is now getting close to unveiling how this will all be done.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RUMSFELD: We have made no decisions with respect to who might or might not be assigned to a commission. We have, however, pretty much completed the work as to how the commissions generally will be conducted in the event someone is ultimately appointed to be tried by a commission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: These commissions are likely to be very secure proceedings due to the ongoing terrorist threat. The judges, the juries, the people in the proceedings, are likely to be under very significant security once these commissions get going. Rumsfeld reminded everyone that members who participated in the civilian trial in the first World Trade Center bombing some years ago, some of those people years later are still under security -- Bill.

HEMMER: Barbara, we've been reporting on this grenade that was thrown in the direction of the U.S. embassy in Yemen. I was curious, any reaction from the Pentagon surrounding this?

STARR: No, not at the moment. The reports are that there's really no damage. And, of course, that embassy is quite secure. What the Pentagon is working on, of course, is this plan to send U.S. military trainers to Yemen. That's in the final stages of being agreed to. Orders could be cut from military trainers to go to Yemen at any point. Pentagon officials say there's a real need to help the Yemeni military get better trained, better equipped, so it can deal with the terrorist problem inside their country -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right. Barbara, thank you. Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon. Thank you.

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