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CNN Live Today

Operation Anaconda Near Completion

Aired March 18, 2002 - 14:01   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: The Pentagon says Operation Anaconda is complete. Back to the Pentagon and Barbara Starr now tracking this for us. Barbara, good afternoon.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Bill. Well, Operation Anaconda may be over, according to the Pentagon and military leaders, but it's clear there's still a lot of enemy action in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, in fact, U.S. forces conducted two separate missions. Forty-five miles south of Gardez, U.S. forces assaulted a convoy of three vehicles that had apparently been traveling south from the Operation Anaconda operating area. They believe this convoy was, in fact, full of al Qaeda. Helicopters -- U.S. helicopters came in. They fired warning shots to try and get the convoy to stop. It did not. A firefight broke out. U.S. troops landed on the ground and conducted a final ground assault. In that episode, 16 people were killed, one injured, one captured.

We have also learned yesterday that U.S. forces conducted a raid against a compound near Kandahar. Details are very sketchy, but we are told a large amount of weapons were found and some 31 people were detained in that mission.

So the question still remains about exactly what was accomplished in 17 days of Operation Anaconda. How many people may have escaped, how many people may have actually been killed in the operation? The Pentagon now says, frankly, it doesn't know the answer to either of those questions.

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BRIG. GEN. JOHN ROSA, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Operation Anaconda is complete. But Operation Enduring Freedom and operations in Afghanistan still continue. We still have teams operating in the area, looking for any remaining Taliban and al Qaeda, searching caves and in other positions they may have occupied.

We've searched over 30 caves in and around the region so far. So while this particular operation is over, we are still actively pursuing al Qaeda and Taliban personnel throughout Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP) STARR: Military officials are emphasizing that the al Qaeda remains disrupted and on the run. But that's far short of their original statements that the al Qaeda had two choices when Operation Anaconda began, to surrender or die. So it remains to be seen just exactly what type of threat the al Qaeda continues to pose inside Afghanistan -- Bill.

HEMMER: Barbara, we heard the question many times. What does the Pentagon say when reporters say show us the evidence about this so-called 500 dead fighters when on the ground, apparently, it appears only several dozen bodies located? What do they say to that charge?

STARR: Well, they don't really want to address that question straight on. They will tell you that military commanders on the frontlines are extremely confident, based on their intelligence, that they did kill large numbers of al Qaeda. They agree not a lot of bodies can be seen. They say they have several reasons for that, that the al Qaeda may have tried to quickly bury their dead, that when they were killed in large aerial bombing, that there's not a lot of human remains left after that type of activity, and many of them still may be at the bottom of caves. But a lot of those caves have now been searched and the large numbers have not turned up.

It's -- it's something to which there may never be a very clear answer. And it's the major reason, Pentagon officials say, that do try and stay away from body counts. It's an art, not a science and it's a very inexact art.

HEMMER: Barbara, thank you. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

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