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Canadian and U.S. Forces Complete Inspection of Area Near Tora Bora

Aired May 07, 2002 - 10:34   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Canadian and U.S. forces have completed a close-up inspection of a mountainous area near Tora Bora. The site has been intensely bombed by allied warplanes in December. Their objective twofold, as we hear now from CNN's Ryan Chilcote, who was one of the few journalists permitted to observe Operation Torii.

Ryan, hello.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Well, better still actually, we have the opportunity to speak today with the commander of that operation, Lieutenant Colonel Pat Stogrin. He's with us here today at the Bagram Airbase.

Lieutenant Colonel, what were the objective of Operation Torii, and how do you feel you did with them?

LT. COL. PAT STOGRIN: We went into the Tora Bora area to explore some of the caves that were allegedly -- the area that bin Laden had made his last stand, and we went looking for openings. We understood that the cave entrances had been closed, and we were hoping to collect some DNA samples of some of the personnel who were left behind.

CHILCOTE: How do you feel you did? -- you obviously, you don't think you found the remains of bin Laden. What did you find?

STOGRIN: Well, we did collect some DNA from some personnel who locals had reported were close to bin Laden. So we remain hopeful that some of those personnel were system of the key players in the Al Qaeda network. But I think above and beyond that, most importantly, we demonstrated that the coalition is prepared to go anywhere, anytime to pursue the Al Qaeda, and even the fabled Tora Bora.

CHILCOTE: And just there's so many reports about Osama bin Laden, where he's alive, he's dead. If you could explain, what was the intelligence behind the mission. Why did you believe you might be able to find the remains of Osama bin Laden and other top Al Qaeda guys there in the Tora Bora area?

STOGRIN: I think the bottom line is that he did dig in, and he did fight there in December, as you will recall, and there's been very little sign of him since. We know that the coalition was very decisive in that region, and there were many injured and killed, many Al Qaeda, and it was just an opportunity going to see if there perhaps were some remains that could lead to bin Laden.

OK, thank you very much. That was Lieutenant Colonel Pat Stogrin. He was the commander of Operation Torii out there.

Back to you, Daryn.

KAGAN: And so, Ryan, where do they take these leads from here in the elusive search for Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants.

CHILCOTE: Well, what they will do now is take those DNA samples that they collected at a graveyard in a village in Tora Bora, they'll take those back and they will analyze those, match them up to DNA samples that they have from other suspected Al Qaeda terrorists to see who they've got.

So at this point, we're pretty much just going to have to see what they learned when that lab analysis comes out.

KAGAN: Ryan Chilcote. Ryan, thank you so much for the latest.

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