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CNN Live At Daybreak
America Strikes Back: Northern Alliance Continues Bombardment of Taliban; Daylight Airstrikes Begin
Aired October 09, 2001 - 07:21 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A report this morning says the Taliban are under attack on the ground as well as from the air. The Afghan Islamic Press Agency says the opposition Northern Alliance launched a major assault last night on at least one Taliban position.
CNN's Matthew Chance is with the Northern Alliance in northern Afghanistan -- Matthew, what's the latest from there?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Paula.
Well, Northern Alliance officials say they're keeping up their pressure on the Taliban, continuing their artillery bombardments and their rocket shelling of Taliban positions across the front line north of the capital, Kabul.
The leadership, though, of the Northern Alliance does say that it's issued an order to its troops to bombard, yes, but to stay in their trenches, not to advance at this stage into Taliban controlled territory, not to advance, for instance, into Kabul, the Afghan capital, of course the ultimate prize, the ultimate objective for many of these Afghan Northern Alliance fighters.
Let's just take a look at the images on the night scope that we managed to videotape last night from a mountainside with a good vantage point looking down over towards the outskirts of Kabul. Those big flashes, that's what we believe to be the latest or the last, or the ones last night, anyway, the U.S. strikes on Kabul. Also flashes from artillery pieces that we mentioned there and rockets from the Northern Alliance positions targeting Taliban front line positions.
It's difficult to see, but also apparently in there there's a war plane, a U.S. war plane streaking across the sky, dropping its bombs there. You can see afterwards the Taliban anti-aircraft gunners shooting their bullets up into the skies, lighting them up over Kabul.
Again, Northern Alliance officials say they're in close contact with officials of the United States. They say they're trying to coordinate their military efforts so they don't get under each other's feet, as it were, on the military front -- Paula.
ZAHN: Matthew Chance, thanks so much for that update. We'll see you a little bit later on this morning. The explosions that rocked the Afghan city of Kandahar after dawn this morning were the first daylight attacks since the air campaign began on Sunday.
Joining us now is retired Air Force Major Don Shepperd, who was a fighter pilot in Vietnam.
Welcome, sir. What can you tell us about what has taken place in the last 12 hours or so?
MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE: Well, what it tells me, Paula, is that the initial strikes have been successful and we feel that it's OK to operate during the day. To do that, you want to have taken out the early warning radars and the fixed missile sites that you know about. Now you can operate during the day at high altitude and stay away from the anti-aircraft fire and the shoulder fired missiles at low altitude. It gives us a lot more flexibility.
It also gives us the ability later on to start moving against the mobile field forces and as targets develop not go against just preplanned strikes, but go against troops in the field, their vehicles, tanks that move and that type of thing. It's an important event here.
ZAHN: Is there any particular psychological impact of daylight strikes?
SHEPPERD: I don't think it's psychological. One thing about daylight is it gives the enemy that's shooting at you the ability to see you whereas during the night, of course, he cannot see you except with radar. So some of the missile sites, for instance, the SA3 SAM missiles, the SA2 SAM missiles, can also be guided visually.
Now, they have to turn on radars to do that. So at the same time we have homing anti-radiation missiles targeted against any radar that comes up. So there is an advantage during the day because you can see the targets and operate throughout the 24 hour period, not just the hours of darkness. But there's also some danger that goes with it, Paula.
ZAHN: So what happens next?
SHEPPERD: Well, what happens next is we continue to restrike the targets that we didn't hit in the first phase. We also, again, begin to go against the fielded forces, the vehicles, the tanks and that type of thing that the Taliban has. Now, remember at the same time, other unseen things are going on. The money has been cut off. Every time the Taliban fires a missile, every time they shoot a bullet, that has to be replaced and if they don't have money, eventually they will be weakened and it will make the Northern Alliance stronger and them weaker.
This is just a matter of time, Paula. It's a matter of when, not if.
ZAHN: General, do we have any idea how much resistance the Taliban has given the U.S. and its allies?
SHEPPERD: I don't we have a good picture of that yet. Now, if I can look at this map behind me, you know that basically the Northern Alliance controls the far northeastern part of the country, a very small part of the country up here. It's in the neighborhood estimated at 10 to 15 percent, sometimes they say 35 percent. They do not have the strength yet, the Taliban has not been weakened enough to go down into Kabul or into Jalalabad or into Kandahar. Eventually, as the Taliban forces collapse, we hope to see that.
It's also been reported that the Taliban have moved 8,000 of their forces to Mazar-e-Sharif up in the plains in the north up there. If that is true of their approximately 50,000 soldiers, that's a huge part of their forces up there. So we'll be watching all of these things as they develop and we have the ability to target them, as well. Important developments taking place.
ZAHN: And we'll be watching right alongside you.
General, thanks so much.
SHEPPERD: A pleasure.
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