Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Special Forces Join Assault on Hospital; CINC For Homeland Defense?
Aired January 28, 2002 - 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. Special Forces joined Afghan fighters in an assault on a heavily armed -- on heavily-armed al Qaeda members, rather. The attack was on a wing of a hospital in the southern Afghan City of Kandahar.
CNN's Ben Wedeman was there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An Afghan fighter takes aim at al Qaeda on the ledge outside a hospital ward where at least six members of al Qaeda have been hold up since the Taliban fled Kandahar last month. When anti-Taliban forces seized control of the city, al Qaeda members in a wing of the Midways (ph) Hospital threatened to blow themselves up if anyone attempted to take them into custody.
All roads leading to the hospital were blocked. Barricades manned by Afghan troops and U.S. Special Forces. A firetruck heads towards the hospital as smoke rises from the ward. U.S. Special Forces normally keeps a very low profile. This is one of those few occasions when they can be seen in action.
For several weeks, al Qaeda members allowed few hospital staff to enter their ward. However, three weeks ago they declared that no one would be allowed in, and refused any food, water or medical attention. Sources at the hospital told CNN, however, that sympathetic hospital staff were probably sneaking food and water inside the ward.
One al Qaeda member killed himself with a grenade while trying to escape the hospital. With Monday's dawn operation, one very prominent al Qaeda pocket of resistance may soon be eliminated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
And Carol, it appears that assault is now over. It lasted about 12 hours. Just a little while ago we spoke with a representative, a spokesman of the governor of Kandahar, who said that all six al Qaeda members, most of them Arabs, were killed in the assault. He told us that they were given more than ample opportunity to surrender, but they refused.
He said they fought to the very bitter end. He insisted that this was an Afghan operation with support from Special Forces, but we have on camera proof that, in fact, the Special Forces were actively engaged in the gun battle that has just ended here.
Now the spokesman also said that the international committee for the Red Cross would be attending to the bodies that are inside the hospital. We saw one of their trucks leaving.
We're hearing from eyewitnesses who actually went in the ward itself where the al Qaeda members were staying, says that the rooms bared the scars of an intense battle and that the walls are splattered with blood. The bodies are still at the hospital -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Were there any more people inside that hospital as in patients or had it been evacuated?
WEDEMAN: No apparently this operation had been planned for quite some time. There were reports that the staff had been moved out well in advance of the operation. One report saying that they had relocated about 300 meters away from the hospital -- Carol.
COSTELLO: The al Qaeda members who were, you know, holding the hospital itself hostage, I guess. What did they want? They must have known they were heavily outnumbered.
WEDEMAN: Essentially what they were doing was they were simply resisting any attempt to bring them into custody, and it's worth noting that they, in fact, did not keep -- they were not occupying the entire hospital, just one ward of it. In fact, a prison ward, the windows had bars on the outside. They simply were resisting any attempts to arrest them. They threatened to blow themselves up if anybody tried.
They had on several occasions fired from within the hospital, so simply, they had no demands really. They just did not want to be taken into custody by specifically U.S. Special Forces or any U.S. forces in the area.
COSTELLO: Got you, and they're all dead this morning. All right, Ben Wedeman reporting live for us this morning.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and four senators are back in Washington after a trip to Camp X-Ray at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Rumsfeld says he has no plans to change his opinion on the status of the Afghan war detainees. He will tell the National Security Council that no matter what other countries say, the captured fighters are vicious killers and should not be classified as prisoners of war.
Back at the Pentagon Rumsfeld is turning some attention to homeland defense and the missions of guarding the skies and the airports.
CNN's Kathleen Koch reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're in the skies controlling the coasts, monitoring airports and water crossings. But these forces are currently commanded by different parts of the U.S. military, so the Pentagon is recommending for the first time that a four-star officer be appointed to coordinate military homeland defense deployments.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I'm going to be presenting the president with my proposals with respect to the unified command plan in the immediate future, and it will have a number of changes. It will also be a very good proposal.
KOCH: The new commander in chief, or CINC, would be responsible for North American security. The vice president says military coordination would be vital especially in case of a chemical, biological, or nuclear terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The military's got a lot of resources that would automatically be drawn upon were that kind of eventuality to occur and having a command, a CINC, if you will, a commander in chief on a regional basis responsible for the U.S. having make sense.
KOCH: It's still unclear in creating the new command where its responsibilities would begin and end and how it would be structured.
MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's the big question is do you, because you have a new CINC, then, have to create a whole new of bureaucracy underneath this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRUCE WILLIS, ACTOR: I am declaring a state of marshal law in this city.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOCH: In the past, there were concerns that as in the movie, "The Siege", given military new powers could harm individual rights. Civil rights advocates now built here such extremes. As long as any military involvement has limits and is carefully monitored.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't oppose the creation of this commander, but we do think it's very important that those individual liberties be safeguarded and the military traditionally does not have that role. It doesn't have the same role that the domestic police department does.
KOCH: And it won't in this case since the new commander would reportedly manage traditionally military missions and not routinely step into duties now handled by police and other emergency agencies.
Kathleen Koch, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
