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CNN Sunday Morning

U.S. Air Strikes Kill Civilians in Northern Afghanistan

Aired October 28, 2001 - 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: We want to shift vantage points now, move farther north in Afghanistan. For that, we turn to CNN's Chris Burns. He joins us on the telephone with the latest on the U.S. air strikes up there -- Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Martin, well, we did hear just overhead today as we were very, very close to the frontline where there's this very small village where a U.S. bomb dropped on one of their mud houses. The bomb destroyed the house and also killed a mother, Cocogol (ph), a mother, 25 years old with two children. Her 4-year-old son was wounded and her daughter came out unscathed. And both were sent to the hospital.

We attended the funeral where the father -- we asked to try to speak to him. With all the international media around him, he says, "I'll never shake hands with these people" as he looked at us. He says, "They killed my wife." A very upset man.

And also the -- one the imams was very critical of America. He says, "We condemn the Americans for this air strike here." However, we talked to other people who said that they understood. They said, "Well, it was a mistake. It was erroneous. They should do better targeting." And so it was sort of mixed feelings today in this very, very small bucolic, country village where people are still in shock after this air strike -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: Just how far off the mark was this bomb apparently? I mean how far away from the frontlines did it strike?

BURNS: What we're told is it's about two kilometers or about a mile or so -- a mile-and-a-half away from the -- from the front. So it does appear that the -- if it -- if it was missing specific coordinates, wrong coordinates were put in or if it was misguided, it was misguided quite a ways off. And the -- in fact, the family of Cocogol and her husband, Merza (ph), they had left. They were -- they had fled from their village, which was on the frontline and they fled to this village hoping to seek safety when apparently they didn't get it -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: No, they did not. Chris Burns joining us on the telephone from northern Afghanistan.

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