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American Morning

Operation Anaconda Continues in Paktia Province of Afghanistan

Aired March 05, 2002 - 09:01   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: "Up Front" this morning, more on the largest and deadliest assault in Afghanistan. Large numbers of American soldiers are on the ground participating in the U.S.-led Operation Anaconda.

Responding to yesterday's seven combat deaths, an undeterred President Bush said, the nation will defend "freedom at any price."

For the latest on the ongoing battle, we turn to CNN's Brian Palmer from Bagram, Afghanistan. He joins us now, by telephone, with an update. Good morning, Brian. What do you see?

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. We just set foot on the Bagram air base. The sun has just set over -- over the air base here. So we are -- we've just gotten a very quick briefing from Major Brian Hilferty of the U.S. Army, and the headline is, he says operations are continuing. And that here's a quote he says, "we're using fire support to convince them to surrender or to die."

The them of course being the al Qaeda and Taliban forces that are dug in, in the Paktia Province region around Shahi Kot and a couple of other towns or districts in that area. He described the operation to date, just basically repeating, reiterating what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was saying.

They are using a combined force of Afghans and U.S. and coalition forces to essentially encircle the al Qaeda and Taliban forces and to really destroy them. That is the -- that's what they're telling us here, Paula.

ZAHN: Brian, I don't know how many soldiers you've had a chance to talk to, but does there seem to be much surprise at the level of resistance these al Qaeda fighters are showing?

PALMER: It's interesting that you ask that, Paula, because we just spoke to the Major, and we asked him, to just very briefly, to characterize what the soldiers face when they hit the ground. And he said, "this was not a mistake." He said that these forces were very well dug in and they did have -- the U.S. did have intelligence that alerted them to the fact that al Qaeda and Taliban, as well as local Taliban sympathizers, were operating in that area. So, these people, the al Qaeda and Taliban forces were prepared for the Americans, and apparently the American coalition and Afghan forces knew what they were going to face. I mean, that's what they're telling us here, Paula.

ZAHN: All right. Brian Palmer, thanks so much for that update.

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