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American Morning

Look at Some of Strategies U.S. Using to Force Bin laden Out of Caves

Aired December 10, 2001 - 07:21   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: U.S. forces are focusing on eastern Afghanistan today in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Our Miles O'Brien is standing by in Atlanta with a look at some of the strategies the U.S. is using to force bin Laden out of the caves.

Now, Miles, you probably just heard that report from Ben Wedeman suggesting that a villager actually followed a stray cow into the White Mountains areas and claims to have seen Osama bin Laden.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there have been a series of reports like that, Paula, and that sort of thing, if it can be nailed down in a proper amount of time, is just what the U.S. intelligence forces are looking for. Of course, verifying that kind of stuff and putting things into action which would be able to get Osama bin Laden are a difficult thing, to say the least.

Let's take a look at the map and give you a sense of what we're talking about just briefly here. The Tora Bora region, a lot of talk about it. There's perhaps as many as 30 to 40 caves all in this area right along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. What makes it potentially troublesome when you start talking about intelligence is that you can, there are many underground passageways which could actually get al Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden, from Afghanistan into Pakistan without ever seeing the light of day.

Now, we don't know for sure what the U.S. is planning, nor do we want to give away strategy. But let's just give you a sense of some of the tools in the toolbox, if you will, as the U.S. contemplates going after these caves.

This is a cave entrance here, just to give you a sense of what we're talking about. And one of the ways in which you can go after a cave entrance is with an AGM-142. It is launched from a B-52. It's also known as the HAVNAP. The HAVNAP is a weapon that is produced by Israel and can actually handle sort of horizontal attacks on cave entrances. It drops off the B-52 and then flies in a lateral manner to a cave entrance, as you see right here.

Now, this particular weapon with its 775 pound warhead, can wipe out one entrance. But clearly what you can see the problem is, there are probably numerous other entrances to these caves to consider. So just taking one entrance out, if you don't have all the means of access and ingress taken care of, you still have a problem with that cave.

Another option is one we've been telling you a lot about, the GBU-28 bunker buster, which was cobbled together during the Gulf War in the early '90s. This is a fairly powerful weapon with a 630 pound warhead. And as it goes down, it goes down in a more vertical fashion. The idea is that it sinks down beneath the surface and by sinking down beneath the surface would cause some trouble there.

That is the goal. Of course, if it doesn't sink far enough down it might just rattle a few walls inside a cave and leave the cave, as you see these intricate cave structures, intact.

Now, here is one other option when you start considering going after caves. They have to have air shafts. Those air shafts, especially in the wintertime, are going to give off heat. Those can be identified by infrared reconnaissance capability and you can either send a weapon down which actually follows heat, an infrared guided weapon, or, using your reconnaissance, point a weapon right down that air shaft using laser guided weapons and the like.

So there's a couple of scenarios that could be used to employ all of that. The question is where is Osama bin Laden? And as those anecdotal reports are told about tall people on horses, for example, known as the Sheikh, the U.S. tries to triangulate, tries to hone in on just where Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants might be -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, thanks so much, Miles.

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