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CNN Live At Daybreak
America Strikes Back: More U.S. Airstrikes Hit Taliban Frontline Troops
Aired October 23, 2001 - 07:20 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: More U.S. airstrikes hit Taliban front line troops in Northern Afghanistan trying to soften those enemy positions for the opposition forces on the ground. Fighter jets pounded Taliban troops entrenched north of Kabul, and similar attacks were reported in the city of Mazir-e-Sharif, a Taliban stronghold in the north. Intensive air strikes were reported this morning around Kandahar, as well. One target was a fuel truck that exploded, destroying several buildings and a section of road.
Reports last week of the U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan turned a spotlight on combat search and rescue procedures, operations that could be critical in the days ahead.
CNN's Miles O'Brien is standing by in Atlanta with more on that -- good morning, Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
In that tape we just showed, we saw that F-15 and it appeared as if something bright was dropping off it. Actually, those were flares and that's part of the effort to spoof it against a shoulder fired heat seeking missile like a Stinger.
Joining me to talk a little bit more about all of this is General Don Shepperd, a retired general, military analyst. And we're going to give you a sense of what's going on with a search and rescue mission and how that might operate if, in fact, those flares or something happened that resulted in a shoot down of a U.S. aircraft. And as the U.S. gets closer and closer to the ground, the chances of this go up, don't they?
MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: They do. The more airplanes you operate, the longer you operate, something bad can happen. It can be a shoot down. It can be an equipment failure such as an engine coming apart, fire on the aircraft or airplanes colliding. That all happens in wartime, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right, it should be noted that patrolling the no fly zones over Iraq, for 10 years now there has not been a situation that has required a search and rescue mission in Iraqi territory. So while the chances may be remote, it's worth talking about.
Let's look at an animation we put together and give you a sense of what's going on. We've depicted a pilot down here using a radio transmitter to call in, first of all, fighters. Tell us how this scenario works.
SHEPPERD: All right. Well, it's the same. I worked on many of these in North Vietnam. About every third day when we were flying up there we would lose an airplane, have to pick up somebody from the ground. The idea is the pilot gets on the ground and you've got to find out that he's down and where he is. He makes radio transmissions. You also use visual and other means to find out where this man is and then you start calling in the resources. Airplanes airborne in the area will cap him and get his location and relay it.
O'BRIEN: All right, now, cap, I want to get to that term in just a second. But we've depicted a constant stream of radio transmissions. It might be more of a spurt, so as not to tip your hand to hostile units in the area. Give us a sense of what a capo means?
SHEPPERD: Well, cap is just combat air patrol and it means that they fly over the area and anybody that approaches this man on the ground, they will call in strikes. You may call in an AC-130. They'll be talking also to the AWACs aircraft and they will divert the entire strike for us. We had rescues in Vietnam where we had as many as 60 or 70 airplanes operating over the period of a couple of days, killing all the defenses in the are so that we could get to the men on the ground.
O'BRIEN: All that for one pilot?
SHEPPERD: All of it.
O'BRIEN: And these AC-130s we've talked about, these are the gunships which have tremendous firepower circling in an area around. They're able to really knock out a lot of things in close contact.
SHEPPERD: Right.
O'BRIEN: Let's go down to the next thing that might be called in as this group of aircraft come in, perhaps Black Hawk helicopters to come and do the actual rescue.
SHEPPERD: Right. We're showing Black Hawk. You also have CH-3, jolly green. It could be done with any of these. Special forces can come get them. Rescue forces can come get them. These people are normally on alert, on the ground in case this type of thing happens.
The message of all this is very, very important. If we have one American pilot on the ground, we'll pull out all the resources of the United States military to go get the person. And if you're a bad guy approaching one of our American pilots on the ground, you're in really bad territory. We're going to come after you.
O'BRIEN: All right, and you did several of these mission in the Vietnam War. Did they primarily go successfully?
SHEPPERD: Our pick up rate was very good. Basically what happens when a pilot gets on the ground, sometimes he may be injured, so we have to go get him with people out of helicopters and other resources. They can become very complicated, but our pick up rate was very good as long as the men got on the ground safely.
O'BRIEN: All right, General Don Shepperd, our military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force, we appreciate you giving us those insights.
If you'd like to find out a little bit more about search and rescue operations and about special operations, which, of course, involved in this situation in Afghanistan, we invite you to check out cnn.com. In particular, we have a site which gives you sort of the -- what a special operations member, a Ranger, would wear involved in one of these missions. It's fascinating. It gives you a sense of all the equipment they carry with them as they go into harm's way.
General Don Shepperd, thanks very much.
We're going to send it back to Paula in New York.
ZAHN: And thank you very much, Miles. See you a little bit later on this morning.
President Bush warned that this new war could bring American casualties, and it has. Private First Class Kristofor Stonesifer was one of the two U.S. Army Rangers killed over the weekend and he is being remembered back home in Missoula, Montana.
CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports from a community in mourning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Missoula, Montana, a town of about 60,000 people, a place 28-year-old Private First Class Kristofor Stonesifer called home.
J.C. SCHNEIDER, FRIEND: He was one of these bright lights.
GUTIERREZ: A bright light and a bright student now mourned in the halls of the ROTC building at the University of Montana. It is where Stonesifer began his military training. Now he is remembered as one of the first U.S. casualties of the war on terrorism.
LT. COL. JAMES KLEG (ph): There was a brownout. The Black Hawk helicopter pilot probably lost control and crashed. And those two young men just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
GUTIERREZ: Stonesifer, along with 20-year-old Army Specialist John Edmunds of Cheyenne, Wyoming, died in Pakistan while serving a special forces mission into Afghanistan.
KLEG: He was focused. He was driven to give 100 percent all the time and as a result it's not surprising that he became an Army Ranger.
GUTIERREZ: An Army Ranger is all he wanted to be. Stonesifer was on the top 10 percent of his class in military science. He majored in philosophy and held a 3.6 GPA. Lieutenant Colonel James Kleg says he had a bright career ahead in the military.
KLEG: We just weren't intense enough for him. He wanted more from his military experience.
SCHNEIDER: He decided that he didn't want to ever push papers and an officer is not going to be able to spend their life in a Ranger battalion.
GUTIERREZ: So, just a year shy of graduating as second lieutenant, Stonesifer dropped out and enlisted in the Army.
SCHNEIDER: People may get an impression as an Army, of an Army Ranger, you know, this is just 100 percent aggressive, must be a loud person, but he absolutely was not. He thought, you know, he was a philosophy major. He thought about what it was to be a soldier. He thought about what he might have to do, what it meant to go to war.
SIMON WALBURCH, FRIEND: He didn't die in vain because he was there fighting for the freedoms that make this country great.
GUTIERREZ: Stonesifer's body will be sent home to his parents in Pennsylvania. But he told his friends he wanted his ashes to be spread in the hills of Missoula.
(on camera): Can you tell me what you will miss the most about your friend?
LUKE STEVENS, FRIEND: Everything. Everything.
GUTIERREZ: Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Missoula, Montana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Still to come, our Chris Burns from the front lines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. war jets strike at Taliban forces dug in along the front line north of Kabul. A series of explosions while the Taliban unleash anti-aircraft fire at the jets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: And welcome back at 28 minutes after the hour.
Here are some of the latest developments as America fights terrorism and anthrax.
Two Washington, D.C. postal workers are dead from what is thought to be anthrax, although that is not confirmed at this hour. Two other postal workers are hospitalized with the disease. And every postal employee in D.C. is being put on a 10 day Cipro treatment program. Meanwhile, both houses of Congress will be in session today, but House and Senate office buildings will remain closed for more anthrax testing. And overseas, U.S. war planes pound areas around the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar this morning. Others focused attacks on Taliban front line troops.
Let's go live now to Northern Afghanistan.
CNN's Chris Burns says bullets came close to his location a short time ago. He joins us now with this exclusive report -- Chris.
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Paula.
We're not very far from that front line. In fact, Bagram Airport is just over my shoulder. That's where we were watching more bright red and orange flashes and black smoke rising up from points where U.S.-led planes, U.S.-led air strikes pounded away at those positions, U.S. warplanes streaking over our heads in the last hour or so. And that is more of what we've seen in the last couple of days. A new phase in this U.S.-led air campaign now targeting Taliban positions along front lines. And commanders here on the Northern Alliance side say they hope to see a lot more than that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BURNS (voice-over): U.S. war jets strike at Taliban forces dug in along the front line north of Kabul, a series of explosions while the Taliban unleash anti-aircraft fire at the jets. But the planes streak over the Shomali Plain in singles and in pairs unscathed.
Northern Alliance commanders say the bombs are aimed at troop concentrations and artillery. Alliance troops climb on roofs to watch what's still an unfamiliar sight here. Some stand guard from the wrecked control tower of Bagram Air Base. The front line lies just across the runway. They've fought a stalemated conflict here for years, so the first U.S. air strike here Sunday was a badly needed boost.
"If someone throws a rock at the Taliban, let alone a bomb, we would be happy,'' says Mashuk (ph).
Eighteen-year-old Mahmoud (ph) has served here on the front line for two years. "We think Arabs, Punjabis and terrorists have invaded Afghanistan, our homeland,'' he says. "We're happy that they've been bombed.''
(on camera): If the initial U.S. strike was seen as a morale boost for Northern Alliance troops, it's also seen as long overdue. The hope among Northern Alliance commanders is there will be many more to come to open the way to Kabul.
(voice-over): Alliance commander Baba Jan (ph) looks encouraged after expressing frustration in the past that U.S.-led raids were avoiding the Kabul front. But he says it will take a lot more to soften up Taliban defenses.
"If these attacks and bombardments are stronger, that will facilitate our advance toward Kabul,'' he says.
How much more the air strikes chip away at Taliban defenses will show how much Washington wants the Northern Alliance to advance toward the capital and step up pressure on the Taliban in order to replace the regime before winter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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