Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Eastern Alliance Forces and U.S. Bombing Campaign Make Significant Gains in Battle Against Al Qaeda Forces

Aired December 11, 2001 - 07:00   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: There is dramatic breaking news coming out of the eastern region of Afghanistan right now. Eastern Alliance forces, with the help of a relentless U.S. bombing campaign, have made significant gains in the last few hours and have given al Qaeda forces a deadline to surrender.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Tora Bora -- Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Paula, it appears the Eastern Alliance forces, aided by apparently U.S. special forces as well as air cover have managed to push way up into the hills, overrunning a variety of al Qaeda positions. We heard from our colleague Brent Sadler that he saw many of these positions. He saw bodies of al Qaeda fighters scattered around a moonscape like landscape where the U.S. had relentless bombed, also where bombardment had come in from the Eastern Alliance positions.

Now, apparently, they're bottled up in a very small area. They have been given an ultimatum -- 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning to those al Qaeda forces. That's 15 1/2 hours from now. They have been told to surrender or die.

This comes after a day and a half of relentless bombardment from the air, from U.S. B-52 bombers, from T-55 tanks of the Eastern Alliance as well as anti-aircraft guns. They managed to fight their way up into the mountains. But nonetheless it appears the al Qaeda fighters are still up there, still alive.

Just a little while ago we stood by as a Jazeera reporter, a reporter for the Jazeera Arabic network spoke with the al Qaeda fighters in Arabic. They said that they had cleared out the -- they were in the process of clearing their passageways, we assume of their tunnels and caves of dead Eastern Alliance fighters.

Nonetheless, we cannot confirm, of course, those reports. But it appears certainly that the al Qaeda has taken a severe blow here in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, Ben, what is the expectation? Will they live up to this 15 1/2 hour deadline or do you expect the fighting to go on?

WEDEMAN: It's not clear. I've heard from people who were up there that the Eastern Alliance fighters were in conversation with the Arab fighters and other nationalities, that apparently the al Qaeda fighters were saying we're all Muslims, let's not fight anymore. But nonetheless, it really is up to the leadership and the question is who is that leadership?

Now, we've heard lots and lots of speculation that Osama bin Laden might be in those hills. We've heard Eastern Alliance commanders talking about sightings of those leaders, of Osama bin Laden, of references to him over the telephone. Clearly -- or, rather, over the radio. Clearly if he's up there he's obviously not going to want to surrender.

But if he's not up there, and, of course, there's lots of speculation that he could be in a variety of other locations, but if he's up there, obviously he's not going to want to surrender to anybody -- Paula.

ZAHN: Ben Wedeman, thank you so much for that report.

Just a reminder, Ben just reported to us that that deadline falls 8:00 a.m. time in Afghanistan. That happens to be 10:30 tonight Eastern time. We will be following that very closely. Once again, that is the deadline that the Eastern Alliance has given members of al Qaeda to surrender or die.

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