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In Northern Iraq, Coalition Airstrikes Target Iraqi Troops Along Ridge

Aired March 28, 2003 - 14:15   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.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In northern Iraq, coalition air strikes targeted Iraqi troops along a ridge near the city of Kalak (ph). It was the second straight day of air attacks in the region. Kalak (ph) is near the line dividing Iraqi and Kurdish controlled territory. Also in the north, coalition air strikes drove Iraqi forces out of the area around the city of Chamchamal (ph). Iraqi Kurds celebrated the retreat but that celebration was short-lived when Iraqi artillery rained down on the area.
CNN's Kevin Sites is right there in the middle of things, and he filed this report earlier today.

KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you are looking at is what we believe to be the crater of a 500-pound bomb. I want to go ahead and walk down in here just to give you an idea of how deep this is. You can't tell from the ridge line, but this is about 15 feet deep. It completely swallows me up. I'm tripping over some ordnance here. This is a piece of the bomb itself. It weighs about 20 pounds even though it looks like it's just a small sliver of the bomb.

It's about 25 feet in circumference but it must have enormous blast potential to have made a crater of this size. You can only imagine that this was simply terrifying to the people that were underneath it. Now, today, the areas occupied by Kurdish fighters known as Pashgmoga (ph), I talked to them a little bit and they said that although they are gratified the Iraqis are gone, there was some sympathy. They felt like a lot of these guys were just conscripts that were forced into the army of Saddam Hussein and that the fate that they had to endure up here probably wasn't of their own choosing.

Now I want to go ahead and walk up the rest of the ridge line here and show you that the road to K is just over this hilltop. This is truly the significance of the attack here because that is the road to Kalak (ph) is just over this hilltop, and this is truly the significance of the attack here, because that is the road that leads into the strategically important city of Jakirk (ph) with its oil fields and strategic importance for a possible advance southward towards Baghdad.

And that road, at least as far as we can see right now, is open. I don't know how far it goes at this point, how far it's controlled into Kurdish hands but I'm told about 10 kilometers or so. So we'll have to see what happens next in terms of how far they can go on this and whether there's going to be a coalition advance from this area.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Along Ridge>


Aired March 28, 2003 - 14:15   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In northern Iraq, coalition air strikes targeted Iraqi troops along a ridge near the city of Kalak (ph). It was the second straight day of air attacks in the region. Kalak (ph) is near the line dividing Iraqi and Kurdish controlled territory. Also in the north, coalition air strikes drove Iraqi forces out of the area around the city of Chamchamal (ph). Iraqi Kurds celebrated the retreat but that celebration was short-lived when Iraqi artillery rained down on the area.
CNN's Kevin Sites is right there in the middle of things, and he filed this report earlier today.

KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you are looking at is what we believe to be the crater of a 500-pound bomb. I want to go ahead and walk down in here just to give you an idea of how deep this is. You can't tell from the ridge line, but this is about 15 feet deep. It completely swallows me up. I'm tripping over some ordnance here. This is a piece of the bomb itself. It weighs about 20 pounds even though it looks like it's just a small sliver of the bomb.

It's about 25 feet in circumference but it must have enormous blast potential to have made a crater of this size. You can only imagine that this was simply terrifying to the people that were underneath it. Now, today, the areas occupied by Kurdish fighters known as Pashgmoga (ph), I talked to them a little bit and they said that although they are gratified the Iraqis are gone, there was some sympathy. They felt like a lot of these guys were just conscripts that were forced into the army of Saddam Hussein and that the fate that they had to endure up here probably wasn't of their own choosing.

Now I want to go ahead and walk up the rest of the ridge line here and show you that the road to K is just over this hilltop. This is truly the significance of the attack here because that is the road to Kalak (ph) is just over this hilltop, and this is truly the significance of the attack here, because that is the road that leads into the strategically important city of Jakirk (ph) with its oil fields and strategic importance for a possible advance southward towards Baghdad.

And that road, at least as far as we can see right now, is open. I don't know how far it goes at this point, how far it's controlled into Kurdish hands but I'm told about 10 kilometers or so. So we'll have to see what happens next in terms of how far they can go on this and whether there's going to be a coalition advance from this area.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Along Ridge>