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American Morning

Operation Avalanche Under Way in Afghanistan

Aired December 09, 2003 - 07:15   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Afghanistan, the U.S. military has launched a major offensive against remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Some 2,000 coalition troops are involved in what's called Operation Avalanche.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

LT. COL. BRIAN HILFERTY, COALITION SPOKESPERSON: This one is the largest we've ever designed. This will be the entire eastern, southeastern and southern portion. We want to give the enemy no sanctuary. He's not going to know where we hit. He's not going to know what we're doing. But throughout the entire area, we have operations going on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: What's prompted this massive action? Joining us this morning from the Afghan capital of Kabul is "New York Times" reporter Carlotta Gall.

Carlotta, good morning. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

Why is this happening now as opposed to six months ago? As you've been reporting, this kind of resistance has been happening for many months.

CARLOTTA GALL, "NEW YORK TIMES": Yes. And they have been doing operations pretty well consistently over the last few months, but this is, as they've said, a huge operation across the whole south and east. And it's clearly connected to the loyajerga (ph) of the Grand Council that is convening this weekend. Saturday is the opening day, and this operation has been going to now for a week.

So, it seems the military are going out to the Taliban to make sure that they preempt any activity that would spoil the loyajerga (ph), the 500 delegates are coming to Kabul, the capital, for that. And they know they've had some threats from the Taliban, who want to disrupt the proceedings.

We talked to Zamai Halozad (ph), the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, this morning, and he said they do anticipate problems from the Taliban and other militant groups. And they expect difficulties, and that they want to disrupt the proceedings or the travel of people coming to the city for the loyagerga (ph).

O'BRIEN: That loyajerga (ph), those 500 delegates were actually supposed to come today, so now they've postponed this general assembly for several days. Has it been at the end of day just about security? Or is there any more to this postponement, temporarily as it is?

GALL: I think a lot of it comes down to security just because the sheer logistics have been difficult because of security. They've had to do elections to select the delegates, and that's taken right up to the last minute. And I think that was delayed because of security.

There's also the sheer logistics of Afghanistan. The roads are terrible. It's now winter. So, just the difficulty of getting people down from the mountain areas and then up to the capital has just had some glitches. So, that's why they're not coming in early enough. They were supposed to start on the 10th, and now they're going to start on Saturday.

O'BRIEN: On Saturday, air strikes by coalition forces killed 10 civilians -- 9 of them were children. You were there. You've been reporting in this area. Give me a sense of what happened. And what have you been able to learn about these strikes?

GALL: Well, it was terribly sad, because now the U.S. military are admitting that they think the man who was killed, as well as the nine children, was, in fact, not the terrorist that they were hunting down. So, it's doubly painful.

It's one of those things. They tend to spot a target. They knew he was in his village, and they went and fired rockets from A-10 jet planes, which are powerful weapons. And they hit the full court of the house, and they killed nine children who were playing there -- seven boys playing marble, two girls fetching water for their mother. And then this one young man, who was 25 years old, who doesn't seem to be the terrorist, in fact. He was just another villager.

So, it looks like a sort of heavy-handed way of trying to catch what seems to have been a real target. I mean, there was a Taliban member that they felt was responsible for a series of attacks on the highway that is being reconstructed down there from Kabul to Kandahar. So, a real tragedy which has cut people up a lot throughout the region.

O'BRIEN: Those strikes now on the increase as well, as Carlotta has been reporting. Carlotta Gall from "The New York Times" joining us this morning. Thank you for that.

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







Aired December 9, 2003 - 07:15   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Afghanistan, the U.S. military has launched a major offensive against remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Some 2,000 coalition troops are involved in what's called Operation Avalanche.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

LT. COL. BRIAN HILFERTY, COALITION SPOKESPERSON: This one is the largest we've ever designed. This will be the entire eastern, southeastern and southern portion. We want to give the enemy no sanctuary. He's not going to know where we hit. He's not going to know what we're doing. But throughout the entire area, we have operations going on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: What's prompted this massive action? Joining us this morning from the Afghan capital of Kabul is "New York Times" reporter Carlotta Gall.

Carlotta, good morning. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

Why is this happening now as opposed to six months ago? As you've been reporting, this kind of resistance has been happening for many months.

CARLOTTA GALL, "NEW YORK TIMES": Yes. And they have been doing operations pretty well consistently over the last few months, but this is, as they've said, a huge operation across the whole south and east. And it's clearly connected to the loyajerga (ph) of the Grand Council that is convening this weekend. Saturday is the opening day, and this operation has been going to now for a week.

So, it seems the military are going out to the Taliban to make sure that they preempt any activity that would spoil the loyajerga (ph), the 500 delegates are coming to Kabul, the capital, for that. And they know they've had some threats from the Taliban, who want to disrupt the proceedings.

We talked to Zamai Halozad (ph), the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, this morning, and he said they do anticipate problems from the Taliban and other militant groups. And they expect difficulties, and that they want to disrupt the proceedings or the travel of people coming to the city for the loyagerga (ph).

O'BRIEN: That loyajerga (ph), those 500 delegates were actually supposed to come today, so now they've postponed this general assembly for several days. Has it been at the end of day just about security? Or is there any more to this postponement, temporarily as it is?

GALL: I think a lot of it comes down to security just because the sheer logistics have been difficult because of security. They've had to do elections to select the delegates, and that's taken right up to the last minute. And I think that was delayed because of security.

There's also the sheer logistics of Afghanistan. The roads are terrible. It's now winter. So, just the difficulty of getting people down from the mountain areas and then up to the capital has just had some glitches. So, that's why they're not coming in early enough. They were supposed to start on the 10th, and now they're going to start on Saturday.

O'BRIEN: On Saturday, air strikes by coalition forces killed 10 civilians -- 9 of them were children. You were there. You've been reporting in this area. Give me a sense of what happened. And what have you been able to learn about these strikes?

GALL: Well, it was terribly sad, because now the U.S. military are admitting that they think the man who was killed, as well as the nine children, was, in fact, not the terrorist that they were hunting down. So, it's doubly painful.

It's one of those things. They tend to spot a target. They knew he was in his village, and they went and fired rockets from A-10 jet planes, which are powerful weapons. And they hit the full court of the house, and they killed nine children who were playing there -- seven boys playing marble, two girls fetching water for their mother. And then this one young man, who was 25 years old, who doesn't seem to be the terrorist, in fact. He was just another villager.

So, it looks like a sort of heavy-handed way of trying to catch what seems to have been a real target. I mean, there was a Taliban member that they felt was responsible for a series of attacks on the highway that is being reconstructed down there from Kabul to Kandahar. So, a real tragedy which has cut people up a lot throughout the region.

O'BRIEN: Those strikes now on the increase as well, as Carlotta has been reporting. Carlotta Gall from "The New York Times" joining us this morning. Thank you for that.

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