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CNN Sunday Morning

U.S. Forces Continue to Search Caves in Afghanistan

Aired March 17, 2002 - 11:08   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: And now to the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan where Operation Anaconda is still underway. U.S. led forces are meticulously searching caves in those mountains and looking for enemy fighters there. CNN's Martin Savidge is live from Bagram Air Base. He has the latest on the operation. Martin, what's happening now?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Catherine, and it is the memories and remembering the victims of September 11th that often is used as motivation for these soldiers as they head out.

They continue to rotate coalition forces out in the area, the lower Shah-e-Kot Valley, which is where Operation Anaconda has been going on now for 16 days and continues to go on.

We have some new footage that came from the frontlines earlier today. We want to show that to you. There are about 750 coalition forces, primarily Canadian and U.S. forces from the 10th Mountain Division, that are operating on a very large mountain range that is referred to as "the whale."

This was heavily fortified and a heavily used position by Taliban and al Qaeda forces during the peak days and heavy fighting of Operation Anaconda. In fact, this operation on that piece of mountain terrain is referred to as Operation Harpoon. It's the whale. They're on Operation Harpoon. I think you see how the two go together.

They are basically going through what they call sensitive site exploitation. In plain English, that means that they are exploring the caves, exploring the former Taliban, al Qaeda compounds, positions that are there. And the soldiers that are there, this may seem like tedious work, but is actually still fraught with a lot of danger, because what they are trying to do is go out there and purposely have contact with any of the remaining pockets of fighters that may still be on that mountain range.

They try to have contact, in other words try to have a firefight, initiate firing. That way the enemy forces give away their position. Immediately you can call in close air support, or the soldiers use what are called AT-4s, which are a shoulder fired rocket that explodes inside the cave, killing the cave, killing the people that are there.

They have found a number of bodies up there. They have also found a great deal of ammunition and small arms weapons, mortars, and they're finding information, documents, diaries, journals, notebooks. Of course, all of it is written in a language other than English.

It is believed that most of the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters that were in the lower Shah-e-Kot Valley were non-Afghan fighters, and there could be a wealth of information that is contained there about how the organization is structured, who was being ordered around by whom, and maybe even information that could lead U.S. forces to the whereabouts of say the top leaders of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or the Taliban Mullah Mohammed Omar.

These are all questions that remain unanswered. So the work that is going on may not seem like the ferocity of say two weeks ago, still very vital work. A lot of the soldiers now that are on this phase had no combat experience before Operation Anaconda.

That's not to say that they would go into the next operation with a strong sense of willingness. No one goes into a fight desiring to do that. They know what they're up against now, and they also have faith in one another after what they've been through. Catherine.

CALLAWAY: A dangerous mission. Stay safe there. CNN's Martin Savidge there at Bagram Air Base, thanks Marty.

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