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CNN Live Today
Artillery Shelling Reported Near Kalak
Aired April 03, 2003 - 10:23 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're going to go back to another developing front in the war.
CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Kalak in northern Iraq, where U.S. aircraft have been pounding forward Iraqi positions.
Ben, what's the latest from there?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula it seems like the Iraqis are firing back. I'm on the edge of Kalak, which has actually been shelled in the last half hour. In fact, we heard two shells fly right over our heads at our work space at the edge in Kalak. We heard one shell zip overhead. We hit the deck and didn't hear any explosion, then a minute later, another one came in, a huge blast, just about 100 meters from where we were working. Now this comes after a day where the Kurdish forces with the U.S. assistance had advanced about three miles in the direction of Mosul, and we spent a good part of the afternoon watching it. They were pounding Iraqi positions from the air at a town called Hazod (ph), but we noticed that slowly the number of Kurdish fighters on the ground started to thin out. We heard from U.S. special forces that in fact they were expecting the Iraqi counterattack, and as a result of that, they were bringing in more and more airpower to bomb the Iraqi positions.
We heard after we'd pulled out of that area for safety reasons, we heard A-10 or some type of gatling gun being fired from possibly a C-130 or an A-10 down on the Iraqi position trying to keep that force back, but that was not enough to stop these long-range artillery from firing into Kalak.
So a very fluid situation on the ground, and clearly, the Iraqis are now responding to all the American bombings over the last week and a half -- Paula.
ZAHN: Can you give us a sense of how many Kurds being involved in this kind of activity?
WEDEMAN: Well, what I found this morning when we were advancing, we were walking with Kurdish forces in the direction of Mosul, past the ridge in Kalak, was there were somewhere between 200 or 250 Kurds, with about 10 Americans with them, and they were fairly confident as they moved ahead, that they would be able to move as much as six or seven miles toward Mosul, but that seemed to stop at the town of Hazal (ph), where the Iraqis were holding a bridge, and interestingly enough, as the situation got more and more dodgy on the ground, with Iraqis firing mortars back at the Kurdish fighters, the Kurdish fighters thinned out on the ground rather dramatically -- Paula. ZAHN: I guess that shouldn't come as any a great surprise.
Ben Wedeman, thank you very much for the update. We'll be getting back to you a little bit later on this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 3, 2003 - 10:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're going to go back to another developing front in the war.
CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Kalak in northern Iraq, where U.S. aircraft have been pounding forward Iraqi positions.
Ben, what's the latest from there?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula it seems like the Iraqis are firing back. I'm on the edge of Kalak, which has actually been shelled in the last half hour. In fact, we heard two shells fly right over our heads at our work space at the edge in Kalak. We heard one shell zip overhead. We hit the deck and didn't hear any explosion, then a minute later, another one came in, a huge blast, just about 100 meters from where we were working. Now this comes after a day where the Kurdish forces with the U.S. assistance had advanced about three miles in the direction of Mosul, and we spent a good part of the afternoon watching it. They were pounding Iraqi positions from the air at a town called Hazod (ph), but we noticed that slowly the number of Kurdish fighters on the ground started to thin out. We heard from U.S. special forces that in fact they were expecting the Iraqi counterattack, and as a result of that, they were bringing in more and more airpower to bomb the Iraqi positions.
We heard after we'd pulled out of that area for safety reasons, we heard A-10 or some type of gatling gun being fired from possibly a C-130 or an A-10 down on the Iraqi position trying to keep that force back, but that was not enough to stop these long-range artillery from firing into Kalak.
So a very fluid situation on the ground, and clearly, the Iraqis are now responding to all the American bombings over the last week and a half -- Paula.
ZAHN: Can you give us a sense of how many Kurds being involved in this kind of activity?
WEDEMAN: Well, what I found this morning when we were advancing, we were walking with Kurdish forces in the direction of Mosul, past the ridge in Kalak, was there were somewhere between 200 or 250 Kurds, with about 10 Americans with them, and they were fairly confident as they moved ahead, that they would be able to move as much as six or seven miles toward Mosul, but that seemed to stop at the town of Hazal (ph), where the Iraqis were holding a bridge, and interestingly enough, as the situation got more and more dodgy on the ground, with Iraqis firing mortars back at the Kurdish fighters, the Kurdish fighters thinned out on the ground rather dramatically -- Paula. ZAHN: I guess that shouldn't come as any a great surprise.
Ben Wedeman, thank you very much for the update. We'll be getting back to you a little bit later on this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
