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American Morning

Marines Mission in Hellman Province in Afghanistan

Aired January 01, 2002 - 08:34   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: There are reports that U.S. Marines are involved in an operation in southern Afghanistan.

Our Bill Hemmer, monitoring the situation from Kandahar, and he joins us with the latest.

Hello, Bill.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Marty, hello again, and good evening from Kandahar.

Indeed, you're right, Marines on an operation right now said to involve several hundred Marines.

And, Marty, we've talked for about the past week and a half about the enormous amount of activity that picks up here at the airport once the sun goes down. The cargo planes land, the supplies are dropped off, and many times we see more men and more women coming here to the airport.

But last night around midnight local time, about 1:00 a.m. in the 2:00 a.m. local time area, we saw a huge convoy start to assemble here, about half a dozen LAVs, their light armored vehicles, and about a dozen humvees too, loaded with Marines. We now know that mission is taking place in Hellman Province, still underway right now. The Marines are still out there, and they do anticipate to wrap things up possibly by daylight tomorrow morning, Wednesday local time here in Kandahar.

The colonel, Andrew Frick, in charge of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 26th NEU, briefed us on this operation as to why the Marines are involved here now and not special forces.

Here's the colonel from a few hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLONEL ANDREW FRICK, U.S. MARINE CORPS: There are usually a complex of structures, if you want to say wall-type compounds as you see in a lot of the homes or settlements here. There's a wall around them. There's numerous buildings or sub-buildings inside the wall. In this particular case, there were no caves, at least not caves in the side of a mountain because of the location. The one we went into this morning was in very good condition, at least from what our imagery showed and from what reports that I have back. Some of them have had damage,...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not by -- not by...

FRICK: ... not by -- not by us, but previously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Colonel Frick describing the area where the operation is taking place. Again, he describes it as a compound, a rather large compound. He says that the Marines are involved here and not special forces because of the wide area and the wide range that needs to be covered. Again, 14 different areas or buildings he described.

And they're looking, Marty, the Marines are looking for more intelligence. They say this area was occupied for a while, then emptied, then occupied again, and apparently it was emptied once again in recent days. And any information they can find and collect as to the whereabouts of certain al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, specifically Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden, that is ultimately the intent here. But they also say if they can get more information on other top leaders, certainly that is part of the aim of this mission as well.

And again, no hostile fire reported right now and no combat thus far. We'll watch it throughout the night. Again, anticipated back here probably within the next 12 hours' time, the Marines back here on the base, several hundred described on this mission -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: Good to know. All right. Bill Hemmer joining us from Kandahar this morning, thank you.

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