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American Morning
What Are Odds of Capturing Mullah Mohammad Omar?; Zacarias Moussaoui Goes Before Federal Judge This Morning in Alexandria, Virginia
Aired January 02, 2002 - 07:03 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now let's go to Afghanistan and get some more details on that Marine mission that Bill Hemmer gave us some heads up on moments ago.
And let's go now to Bill, who is standing by in Kandahar -- Bill.
BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Leon, thanks again.
The marines right now say they're putting the pieces of the puzzle together right now. This is a mission to go and extract intelligence information at a large compound in Helmand Province, which is west and north of our location here. The marines indicate they did come back with some intelligence. Computer disks right now will be sifted through for more information.
In total, that mission took about 30 hours time there and back for the U.S. marines. And earlier today, about 4:30 a.m. local time, we saw several hundred marines roll back into here at the Kandahar Airport.
The marines I talked to say the mission went well. However, they stress it was somewhat uneventful. A cold 30 hours, they describe. No hostile combat. In fact, they say in the compound area where they were going to, a large compound described with 14 different buildings and areas, they encountered a number of women and children inside and certainly attracted a lot of attention from the civilians living around that area.
We're also told they're working with ATF, anti-Taliban fighters on the ground who've helped search the area, helped search that compound. And a few hours later we saw those same marines recovering from their 30 hour mission.
That compound is described as an al Qaeda compound, not necessarily directed at Mullah Mohammad Omar. The marines stress that if, indeed, he was sitting there, they would certainly have taken action and apprehended him and brought him back here to Kandahar.
Major Chris Hughes described the mission earlier today for us here in Kandahar Airport.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRIS HUGHES: Marines and sailors of combined Joint Task Force 58 conducted a sweeping operation northwest of Kandahar in a suspected al Qaeda outpost early yesterday morning. The coalition effort, coordinated with local anti-Taliban forces, was carried out without incident and yielded several small arms and some documentation. The intelligence or operational value of these documents is yet to be determined pending their evaluation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: And again, there could always be more missions for the U.S. marines here. But by far this was the largest operation involving U.S. marines since they came here to Kandahar several weeks ago. But again, they mention they've carried out about a dozen over that time period.
Now, onto the matter of detainees. We're now at 200 the number here in Kandahar. Eleven more brought in last night. They say what's rather distinctive about this group, about six of those brought in last night were brought in by stretcher, possibly more combat wounds. And they also indicate that all 11 last night came from the area around Mazir-i-Sharif. They were being held there at a prison.
And every day we seem to learn more and more about the detainees. Again, it's a high security area. We are given no access on the inside. However, sources close to the detainees and the questioning inform us that many of these detainees possibly attended U.S. schools and were educated by U.S. universities.
In fact, one detainee was born in the state of Louisiana. They stress he left at a very young age, possibly for Saudi Arabia, described now to be in his 20s. They say this is not another John Walker case. However, they did point out that he was born back in the U.S.
Again, the majority here held in the early 20s and plans seem to come together almost on a daily basis pushing the issue of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. We were told last week that facility would not be ready for several weeks. But apparently here on the ground they are pushing toward that end.
One more note here from Kandahar. Finally a CH-53, that Super Stallion helicopter, suffered a hard landing late Saturday afternoon. The crew came back safely this past weekend. And about 45 minutes ago, the helicopter followed suit. Engineers went out for the past several days fixing and repairing that. It is flyable. It is operational, as we can see now from the videotape, and it is back here safely. The marines call this a safe and successful mission here in Afghanistan.
I'll have more for you next hour, Leon. Now back to you in Atlanta.
HARRIS: All right, good deal.
Thank you very much, Bill. Bill Hemmer reporting live from Kandahar.
Well, one of our big questions this morning is what are the odds of capturing Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban supreme leader who refused to turn over Osama bin Laden?
Joining us now from Washington to discuss the military mission is our military analyst, Major General Don Shepperd. Good to see you again. Happy new year to you.
MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Happy new year to you, Leon.
HARRIS: All right, first of all, let's start off with the mission that Bill just reported on. Anything you can add to us about what was going on there in that Helmand Province search?
SHEPPERD: No, it's clear that these are preparatory actions for the real search for Mullah Omar, who's reported to be in the northern Helmand area. Basically they were gaining intelligence and as they said, if he had been there, they sure would have taken him and they would have taken him dead or alive.
Lots of negotiation going in northern Helmand to try to get the pro-Taliban people guarding Mullah Omar to either turn him over or at least lay down their arms so that the opposition forces can go get him, Leon.
HARRIS: All right, so then having gone in there now and not found him, does that mean that we know or have a better idea of exactly where he might be now?
SHEPPERD: Well, I'm not sure what they really gained in the way of intelligence, documents, etc. from that area. Reports are that they picked up additional intelligence, but we're not going to be told exactly what that was.
There's lots of people in the Kandahar area that know where Mullah Omar is, not necessarily at the instant, but pretty close to where he is. And as this intelligence picture gets narrower and narrower, we'll be able to zero in on where he is, although that doesn't mean he can't escape at the last minute.
HARRIS: Speaking of intelligence, headlines this morning show that there was a capture, a key capture of a key Taliban intelligence official. What do we know about that?
SHEPPERD: Yes, he wasn't captured, he was killed. And what's emerging from this is remember the last two or three days there had been reported air strikes in the area of Khost and another town called Gardez south of Kabul and south of Jalalabad?
HARRIS: Right.
SHEPPERD: Well, these attacks have been against convoys that were moving and also against buildings. Reportedly they said many civilians were killed. The Pentagon insisted no, these were al Qaeda and Taliban forces. And it appears that we got a man named Qari Ahmadullah, who was a particularly vicious chief of intelligence for the Taliban, and another mullah from the area. They were meeting in a house there and we got them.
So the message of this is we're listening, we're watching, we're finding and when we find you we're going to get you and if you are housing these people, bad luck.
HARRIS: Yes, thank you for correcting me. I did misspeak about that. He was killed. And from what I have heard and read in these reports, he was a particularly, or at least oversaw a particularly sinister operation there. Those stories about what he would do with people, to people with cables and electricity and whatnot.
Well, let me ask you about this Global Hawk report. We talked about this briefly off camera. You said -- this is a report that has not seen, gotten much air on any of the networks. You said that one was lost and this could be a key factor here?
SHEPPERD: Well, it's a key factor from this standpoint. The Global Hawk is an evolving platform that's still in the R&D stage and as always when you have a conflict, you rush these things into production and you rush them into the area and you're not quite ready for them and bad things can happen. It's a risk that you take.
The Global Hawk is key for the future. It is an unmanned aerial platform, a UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle, with electro optical cameras, I.R. sensors and synthetic aperture radars designed to go 3,000 miles and orbit for up to 24 hours.
It's a very expensive platform so far because we only have somewhere between two and four of them, and now one of them has crashed. But it's the price you pay in these early phases of research and development.
HARRIS: Well, with that loss is this a particularly damaging technical loss here?
SHEPPERD: It isn't because we still have the u2 and other platforms. But again, persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance over a battlefield is something that we want all the time and it was able to do that. It's not a manned platform so you're able to keep it up there for long periods of time.
So it is a bad loss, but not a key loss because we have other things that can fill the gap. It's just a loss for the future.
HARRIS: Got you. Finally, the 101st Airborne folks are coming in there from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, correct? They'll be replacing the marines that are there with Bill out there just outside of Kandahar, correct? Now what's going to happen with them?
SHEPPERD: Standard joint military doctrine. The marines, the MEUs, the marine expeditionary units come in for roughly a 30 day period, although they've been there longer. They seize an objective then they turn it over to heavier forces and the heavier forces expand the facility itself and provide more forces and more flexibility for the commander-in-chief. So the 101st is coming in to do just what joint military doctrine has planned all along, Leon.
HARRIS: How long will they be there? Do you know? Any idea?
SHEPPERD: Well, I tell you, that's the key question, how long is the United States going to be there? My guess is they'll be there for up to a major portion of the two years of the interim government providing on call forces for the international security assistance force, the police force that comes in that spreads across the country. They'll be able to go help them if they get in trouble.
HARRIS: All right, here's hoping that we won't be talking about them during another holiday, huh?
SHEPPERD: Indeed.
HARRIS: Major General Don Shepperd, thank you much for the time. Appreciate it. And again, happy new year to you.
SHEPPERD: Same to you.
HARRIS: All right, now let's dig deeper into the case against the only person indicted so far in the September 11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui. He goes before a federal judge this morning in Alexandria, Virginia and not far from the damaged Pentagon.
CNN's Susan Candiotti sketches out the case for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Moussaoui is charged with six conspiracy counts, including using a plane as a weapon of mass destruction.
AICHA EL WAFI, MOUSSAOUI'S MOTHER: I am his mother. He tells me he didn't do it. So I believe that.
CANDIOTTI: If found guilty, he could face the death penalty, not permitted in France.
EL WAFI: I will fight nonetheless with all of my strength against the death penalty for him.
CANDIOTTI: He was not with the 19 terrorists who took down four planes September 11, but authorities allege he intended to kill.
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Moussaoui is charged with undergoing the same training, receiving the same funding and pledging the same commitment to kill Americans.
CANDIOTTI: The case appears largely circumstantial. He went to U.S. flight schools and allegedly had crop dusting materials in his apartment when he was arrested, similar behavior to suspected ringleader Mohammed Atta and others. The indictment also alleges Moussaoui received money from accused international terror fugitive, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh. He's accused of funneling money to pay for the September 11 attacks.
EUGENE FIDELL, INSTITUTE OF MILITARY JUSTICE: The flow of money, the availability of money is a factor that prosecutors will try to make much of and to show connections between Mr. Moussaoui and other people who were involved in the network.
CANDIOTTI: It's not clear whether Moussaoui's lawyers will ask for a change of venue, the courthouse not far from the site of the Pentagon attack.
STANLEY COHEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You've got pre-trial publicity. You've got jury animus. You've got bias. You've got a lot of problems even before you get into what's the case about.
CANDIOTTI: It's about Moussaoui's alleged role in a terror plot. The first September 11 trial could come fairly quickly in the so- called rocket docket, but no sooner than March.
Susan Candiotti, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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