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CNN Live Event/Special

Activity Increases in Northern Iraq

Aired March 25, 2003 - 04:07   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to take you now to northern Iraq, because there has been an increase in the action out there.
Kevin Sites is there, as usual, as he has been for days.

And you've been hearing explosions all morning long, right -- Kevin?

KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Carol. And things have been increasing lately. In fact, in the last hour or so we probably have heard between half-a-dozen and maybe 10 explosions.

Again, they have been far off in the distance. We haven't been able to see any flashes.

Just to remind our viewers, we're about 40 kilometers from Kirkuk. We haven't seen the kind of action from here that our colleagues, Brent Sadler and Ben Wedeman, are seeing near Mosul and Kalak, but we are hearing a lot of the explosions.

And just to update you, there is an Iraqi division between us and Kirkuk. It's the Al Masana (ph) Division. It is a sizable force...

COSTELLO: Obviously, we're having some technical problems with Kevin Sites' live shot from northern Iraq. But he was talking about the Iraqi divisions in that area. And apparently, Ben Wedeman reported earlier that there were some 140,000 Iraqi troops there split into three different divisions. And of course, we don't know exactly where they are in the mountains of northern Iraq, but that's what Kevin Sites was talking about.

Coalition forces are now trying to soften those targets, and we believe that coalition forces will then move south to Baghdad.

We'll get more from Kevin Sites when we get his live shot back up.

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 March 25, 2003 - 04:07   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to take you now to northern Iraq, because there has been an increase in the action out there.
Kevin Sites is there, as usual, as he has been for days.

And you've been hearing explosions all morning long, right -- Kevin?

KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Carol. And things have been increasing lately. In fact, in the last hour or so we probably have heard between half-a-dozen and maybe 10 explosions.

Again, they have been far off in the distance. We haven't been able to see any flashes.

Just to remind our viewers, we're about 40 kilometers from Kirkuk. We haven't seen the kind of action from here that our colleagues, Brent Sadler and Ben Wedeman, are seeing near Mosul and Kalak, but we are hearing a lot of the explosions.

And just to update you, there is an Iraqi division between us and Kirkuk. It's the Al Masana (ph) Division. It is a sizable force...

COSTELLO: Obviously, we're having some technical problems with Kevin Sites' live shot from northern Iraq. But he was talking about the Iraqi divisions in that area. And apparently, Ben Wedeman reported earlier that there were some 140,000 Iraqi troops there split into three different divisions. And of course, we don't know exactly where they are in the mountains of northern Iraq, but that's what Kevin Sites was talking about.

Coalition forces are now trying to soften those targets, and we believe that coalition forces will then move south to Baghdad.

We'll get more from Kevin Sites when we get his live shot back up.

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