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CNN Live Saturday

U.S. Soldier Killed in Continuing fighting in Afghanistan

Aired March 02, 2002 - 22:34   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.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: We're turning to our top story, the intense fighting in Eastern Afghanistan. A U.S. serviceman and there Afghans killed during the battle. No count on casualties yet. Also, U.S. forces use a powerful new bomb.

General Wesley Clark, the former NATO Supreme Commander and now a CNN military analyst, joins us now to discuss the fighting. He joins us tonight from Little Rock, Arkansas.

General, thanks for joining us.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FMR. NATO SUPREME CMDR.: Good to be with you, Jeanne.

MESERVE: First let me ask you about the dropping of this thermo barrack bomb. Who do you think the U.S. thought was in this cave, that had dropped this new and very expensive and very powerful weapon upon it?

CLARK: Well, we would've dropped this on a cave that was occupied by fighters of some type. And it's the best way to go after people in a cave, provided you can get the bomb into the cave.

MESERVE: I want to talk to you a little bit more about the bomb in a minute. But first, I know you're intrigued by the use of Apache helicopters in this battle. Why was this unusual.

CLARK: Well, I think this is the first real use we've seen of the Apache helicopters in actual, intense combat like this. You may recall there were used the first time in Desert Storm. They went across the night of the first strikes. They took out a radar post.

But beyond that, they didn't get into the fighting until too late, really, after the cease-fire at the end of the ground phase of the war.

We tried to use them in Kosovo. Some timid rules coming out of the Pentagon prevented us from doing so. Now they're used. At least six were used, by the reports that we've received. They were used in almost a close air support role. The weather was bad. The terrain was difficult, apparently. And the troops on the ground needed continuous overwatch from superior car power. And that's what the Apaches provided. They stayed. They hovered, they slugged it out with a 30-millimeter gun and their rockets. They were shot at. They received fire. And apparently they sustained hits and kept flying and kept fighting.

It's a very tough bird. I've heard that the crews are very pleased with it, very pleased with the performance of the air (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in this fight. I think it's a real good news story for the United States army and its aviation community.

MESERVE: You know, that sounds like you'd predict they're going to be used again and again?

CLARK: I think they will with a showing like this and in this fight. Apparently, this fight is a very serious ground action. It's more than 1,000 enemy troops up in there. They are well dispersed. The terrain is very difficult. They have been conducting offensive operations against the Afghan and Special Forces and perhaps the 101st troops who were in there on the ground.

The Apaches apparently were used to break up frontal assaults by these enemy troops. So the fighting is very serious. It's very fierce, and it's very important.

MESERVE: The thermo barrack bomb that was used, what do you know about this weapon and its capability?

CLARK: Well, it's a new weapon. It basically extends the range of the conventional explosive charge and kills through the use of over pressure, air over pressure.

MESERVE: This is a new weapon, is it not?

CLARK: It is, mm-hmm.

MESERVE: Let me ask you about this apparently very large al Qaeda and Taliban force. 1,000 people. Why only now are we seeing this sort of significant action against a group this large?

CLARK: Well, reading between the lines of the Pentagon briefings over the last couple of days and what's been in the press, and that's really all that we have to go on, and it's not much, there was an assembly of forces that was detected in Eastern Afghanistan, in Paktia (ph) and Paktica (ph) provinces. And they came together.

The Special Forces people on the ground, our operations teams there, have been watching them. We've been trailing them. We've been calling in airstrikes periodically against this force as it began to move. Obviously, we had to assemble an Afghan force to reinforce our own elements. We probably brought in some additional fighters from the 101st Airborne at Kandahar Air Base, although that's not confirmed at this point.

And so, it took some time to lay the force out against the enemy. And then, once we got the force assembled, we began to move through this area around dawn today. The fighting still continuing, I'm told.

MESERVE: As you indicated, Afghan and U.S. forces involved in this. Who's in charge? CLARK: We would be. Our Special Forces teams on the ground would be in charge of the fight. They'd be calling in the close air support or coordinating with the Apache helicopters as required.

MESERVE: Do you believe that there are other groups of al Qaeda and Taliban hidden elsewhere in the country, perhaps groups as large as this one?

CLARK: I think it has be to accepted that there probably are. Now I've heard figures of as many as 4,000 to 5,000 people in this group. And so, we don't know the truth yet on how large this grouping is. But clearly, we've got a very small number of Americans at Bagram Air Base in Kandahar. We've got a 4,500 man peacekeeping force in Kabul. And we've got warlords in the various major cities. But Afghanistan is huge. And we're not covering the area, except with reconnaissance flights and occasional presence in some locations by Special Forces teams, as they're trying to work their way through the most obvious enemy areas. So there's a lot of Afghanistan left to work against. There's no doubt about it.

MESERVE: General Wesley Clark, thank you so much for your insight.

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