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American Morning

America Strikes Back: For Fourth Day in a Row, Jets Bombard Taliban Frontline

Aired October 24, 2001 - 10:19   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 ANCHOR: All right, now to the military front today. For the fourth day in a row, U.S. fighter jets bombarded the Taliban frontline, just north of Kabul.

CNN's Walter Rodgers live in Islamabad, Pakistan now watching this development and a few others thus far today.

Walter, hello to you.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Bill.

United Nations officials here in Islamabad are now painting a frightening picture of U.S. airstrikes against Herat, a city of close to a million people in northwestern Afghanistan. Quoting confidential, but reliable sources, they say that 70 percent of that city of 1 million now evacuated the city and is now seeking shelter in outlying villages beyond the city of Herat itself. One of the targets of U.S. strikes there is the military garrison, Taliban military garrison in Herat. That has been repeatedly bombed, and a mosque has been badly damaged, according to the U.N.

U.N. officials are saying that a village called Shabacala (ph), just outside Herat, was also being targeted, and the U.N. says the United States is using cluster bombs. It is creating such a panic among the civilians in Shabacala that the U.N. is calling on the United States to teach people how to disarm these cluster bomblets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANIE BUNKER, U.N. SPOKESPERSON: The strike included air- delivered sub munitions, which are carried in cluster bombs. Vehicles and push carts took an unconfirmed number of casualties from both these sites to the main hospital in Herat.

On Tuesday morning, a group of people came from the village to the mine action center in Herat. They told the mine action center that many bomblets were littering their village, and that they were afraid and could not leave their homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RODGERS: The Afghan village of Chokercorax (ph), north of Kandahar, has all but disappeared from the map, according to a CNN news team which was allowed to visit there. What they found was largely rubble and an unexploded bomb, making it quite clear that it was a U.S. target about 48 hours ago. Not clear is why it was a target. The villages who abandoned the area say U.S. helicopter gunships and C-130 gunships pounded the area. We do not know if there was a Taliban military installation there, or if in fact the Taliban had sought refuge in that village.

But even as the war continues in Afghanistan, there is an effort here to shape a future peace agreement, or at least an agreement on a broadly based government in Afghanistan. In Peshawar, not far from Islamabad, there is a tribal council meeting of Afghan chieftains going on today and tomorrow, and they are discussing how to bring an end to the war and how to form a government, a broadly based government, without the Taliban in it, at least at this point, at this hour -- Bill.

HEMMER: Walter Rodgers, diplomacy continues there, trying to shape the future of that country again as you mention, as the military campaign continues.

Walter, thanks.

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