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CNN Live At Daybreak

America Strikes Back: First Video of Damage in Kandahar

Aired October 09, 2001 - 07:08   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 CORRESPONDENT: Paula, good morning to you.

We're waiting at this time, we'll let our viewers know, we will have a live interview from Islamabad, a few moments away, for the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. So stand by for that a moment.

Here in the meantime, though, we have a bit of videotape we want to share with our viewers, the sights and the sounds from daybreak in Kandahar earlier today.

Clearly what you hear are explosions on the ground. We don't know specifics about this but what we do know is the sights and sounds you're hearing in a CNN exclusive by way of Kandahar in the southern part of Afghanistan. Our reporters on the scene say about three hours after the sun came up there in Afghanistan, the jets were heard overhead again and the explosions were heard on the ground.

The Taliban reporting its headquarters were, indeed, hit. And we also know, according to sources, four different cities in addition to Kandahar, three others, Kabul, Jalalabad in the east and Herat in the west, have also been targets. There has been reports of anti-aircraft fire from the ground and only U.S. aircraft have been used to this point in day two of those attacks.

For more at the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre with a rundown now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first pictures of the damage near Kabul came from an Arabic satellite television station, Al Jazeera, as the Pentagon launched a second day of attacks roughly half the size of day one. Fifteen Tomahawk cruise missiles from three U.S. Navy ships, including a submarine, 10 fighter bombers from U.S. aircraft carriers, three B-1s from the British base in Diego Garcia and two more B-2s on a marathon flight from Missouri.

But the chairman of the joint chiefs said to just add up the numbers would be the wrong measure of success.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Regardless of the pounds of munitions or the scope of the targets, yesterday's strikes began setting the conditions, setting the conditions for future operations. We did destroy some of the terrorists' infrastructure and we did begin feeding and assisting the victims of the Taliban regime.

MCINTYRE: There were fewer targets to hit the second time around, but the categories stayed the same: air defenses, radars, airplanes and airstrips, command and control centers, and concentrations of Taliban or al Qaeda-backed troops in the north. And the Pentagon is making no secret that part of its strategy is to topple the Taliban.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Certainly we are working with the elements on the ground that are interested in overthrowing and expelling that group of people.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon continues to warn that victory will be neither quick nor easy, and hints of the need for ground troops in the future.

RUMSFELD: The cruise missiles and bombers are not going to solve this problem. We know that.

MYERS: The pressure will be relentless, but not always quantifiable or necessarily visible.

At the end of the second day, Pentagon officials say all U.S. pilots have returned safely either to their aircraft carriers or land bases in the region. Pentagon officials say American pilots are flying well above the effective range of Afghanistan's anti-aircraft artillery or Stinger missiles.

Stinger missiles, by the way, the United States provided the Afghans when they were fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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