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American Morning

Afghan Civilians Celebrating Wedding Killed by U.S. Bomb

Aired July 02, 2002 - 08:04   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: Also this morning, at least 20 Afghan civilians celebrating at a wedding party are dead after U.S. officials say one of its 2,000-pound bombs went off course.

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now live from Bagram with more.

Good morning -- Nic.

What have you learned?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, an investigation is already underway here. A team consisting of state -- U.S. State Department officials, Afghan ministry officials, as well as representatives of the coalition forces here has traveled to Uruzgan Province.

What we know from the city of Kandahar, some six or seven hours drive from the village where the bombing happened, there are 22 people in hospital there. They report that many of their relatives were killed. In fact, some of the figures coming from those injured people in Kandahar Hospital hint at perhaps as many as 100 people dead.

However, the investigation is only just beginning and those figures can't be confirmed by coalition forces.

The Afghan Defense Ministry says it believes it was celebratory gunfire at a wedding that precipitated the bombing. However, the military briefers from the coalition forces say that they were aware this particular area had in the past been hostile to coalition forces, and when they went in to the area, they were aware of some targets in that area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COL. ROGER KING, U.S. ARMY: It was one coordinated operation that had many parts. Among those were reconnaissance for future operations, firing on preplanned targets that had proven in past operations to have a hostile presence and, as I understand it, there was also some intent to exploit what intelligence had told us would be a sensitive site, which could be a place that would contain weapons, documents, or personnel that we were looking for.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROBERTSON: Now, the coalition briefers also say that they can rule out celebratory gunfire from the wedding as being the cause of the bombing -- Paula.

ZAHN: And explain to us how they can rule that out at this juncture.

ROBERTSON: They say because the firing came from a number of different locations, that typically, they say, celebratory gunfire would be from small weapons, AK-47s or similar. They say that aircraft were targeted by anti-aircraft guns from a number of locations, and that they were systematically targeted, that they were tracked as they flew through the skies. So the people flying those aircraft believed that they were very much being targeted -- Paula.

ZAHN: And, Nic, realistically, how long do you think it'll be before we really know why this bomb ended up where it did?

ROBERTSON: The investigation, the investigators, are probably only arriving or arrived in the last few hours in the south of Afghanistan. It could take quite some time. One of the -- several of the hurdles that the investigators will be up against will be the poor terrain, the poor communications. Also, many of the people, in Afghan tradition here, many of the people that will, that perhaps died will already have been buried. So perhaps getting at exact numbers of who died and how will also take time -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Nic Robertson, thank you very much for that report.

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