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CNN Live At Daybreak

U.S. Steps Up Campaign Against the Taliban

Aired November 01, 2001 - 06:01   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: All right, let's check in now with our Ed Lavandera. He's at the Pentagon this morning. Once again, he's got the latest for us on the stepped-up U.S. campaign against Taliban frontline positions, which is new, and also some new high-tech warplanes that are actually on their way right now.

Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a lot of action overseas in Afghanistan. Right now over the course of the last 24 hours, more than 50 Navy jets have been bombing parts of northern Afghanistan as well as about six B-1 and B-52 bombers unleashing heavy attacks in the northern part -- northern region of Afghanistan.

One of the strategies is to attack the northern town of Mazar-e- Sharif. The Pentagon wants the Northern Alliance to take control of this city, which would allow for ammunition and supplies to reach the rebel troops a little bit quicker. Also the other strategy at work here is that this bombing campaign is intending to try to cut off communication and supply lines between the Taliban forces and also Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

REAR ADM. JOHN STUFFLEBEEM, SPOKESPERSON, PENTAGON: I can say that their commanding control has been cut, severely degraded. They're having extreme difficulty communicating one to another. Mullah Omar is still their leader -- their commander. They are still attempting to be able to communicate with Mullah Omar. They are also trying to be resupplied and reinforced and they're having difficulties in all of that. We believe that that puts a terrific amount of stress on their military capability.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

LAVANDERA: Pentagon sources also tell CNN that two high-tech aircraft will be introduced in the region in Afghanistan. One of them is the Global Hawk. It's a high-flying aircraft. It's an experimental plane at this point. It's never seen combat, but will begin now.

The other is the JSTARS, which proved successful during the Gulf War. It's a radar plane that's capable of tracking enemy troop movements on the ground. And at this point, that's one of the issues that the Pentagon says it wants to focus on as being able to follow the Taliban troop movements along -- in northern Afghanistan and throughout the country as now as the air campaign has entered into its fourth week. The idea now is to track these forces and figure out where they're moving to, to figure out where to attack next.

Also this morning, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld writing an opinion piece in "The Washington Post" speaking more about the broader sense and the future of the U.S. military. He writes that instead of focusing on who our next adversary might be or where a war might occur, we must focus on how an adversary might fight or develop new capabilities to deter and defeat that adversary rather than planning primarily for large conventional wars in precisely defined theaters, we must plan for a world of new and different adversaries who will rely on surprise, deception and asymmetric weapons.

Secretary Rumsfeld speaking about a broader transformation of the U.S. military, obviously something that the war on terrorism has called upon and in his opinion at the -- for the Defense Department and as the future moves on for this country, talking about whether or not exactly where the next enemies might be coming from and a rather lengthy opinion piece in "The Washington Post" this morning.

Leon.

HARRIS: All right, thank you very much, Ed Lavandera at the Pentagon this morning. We'll check back with you later on.

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