Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Marines Hope to Gather More Data on Taliban and Bin Laden

Aired January 01, 2002 - 09:35   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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: On the war front, U.S. Marines are on the ground in southern Afghanistan, seeking information that could lead to more military strikes. CNN's Bill Hemmer is following the story from Kandahar -- Bill.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Marty -- good evening again.

The Marines tell us several hundred Marines are involved in this operation again. They left in the dark of night late on New Year's Eve into New Year's Day about 2:00 local time here in Afghanistan.

The target here, Marty -- the target is to gather more intelligence on al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, specifically in a region of Hellman Province, where there is a rather significant compound, they say, described as a very large area, possibly consisting of 14 different buildings inside of a walled structure. They say it was occupied and emptied, occupied and emptied once again. And right now, that operation does continue at this time.

The Marines also add that they have had about a dozen similar incidents over the past three months since the airstrikes started here in Afghanistan back on the 7th of October. In fact, one of the colonels here, Andrew Frick -- who is in charge, basically, of a number of the operations we see planned out of here at the Kandahar Airport -- talked about what's happening right now, and also talked about previous elements here, the Marines moving outside of the airport and into regions of Afghanistan, searching again for Taliban and al Qaeda information.

Here's the colonel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COL. ANDREW FRICK, U.S. MARINES CORP.: There is a list, if you want to say, of former Taliban or suspected Taliban sites in the local area. We have been asked at various times in the last two weeks to go out and take a look at these different sites, either to verify that there was Taliban there and exploit the site, or to either verify that there was nothing there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Again, the colonel from earlier today. Also, we're under the understanding the Marines are working parallel with Afghan forces on the ground.

Governor Sharzai is the man in charge in Kandahar. Apparently, his troops and his men are fronting the operation. In the words of the Marines, they said, they are the ones that are -- quote/unquote -- "knocking on the doors of this particular compound."

So we'll continue to follow this. The Marines indicated that they hope to wrap things up and hope to get those several hundred Marines back here on the base by sunup come Wednesday morning. So we will track that.

Another thing, Marty, we're talking about New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. It's been remarkable for how unremarkable it has been, for lack of a better phrase. But we did see one sign today that certainly is going to bring a lot of smiles to U.S. Marines stationed here.

The mail delivery today came in rather significantly. Last night overnight, they got about 100,000 tons of cargo delivered here to the airport. This ranges -- you know, the broad spectrum of the military operation, the mail you're seeing right now, is just a small part of that, but certainly for the men and women overseas, 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 miles from home, that is not a small part for them for this New Year's Day. Certainly, that was a welcomed addition to their deployment overseas here in Afghanistan.

More on that mission as we get it. Again, expected, Marty, sometime possibly tomorrow morning local time, that mission will be wrapped up here in Afghanistan -- Marty, back to you now in Atlanta.

SAVIDGE: Thank you, Bill -- keep us posted.

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