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CNN Sunday Morning

U.S. Troops Finish 'Operation Mountain Lion'

Aired April 07, 2002 - 07:22   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The latest assignment for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, "Operation Mountain Lion." That's a code name for the mission to seek and destroy caves that once belonged to al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. CNN's Ryan Chilcote is in Kandahar this morning. He was allowed to travel with the soldiers on "Operation Mountain Lion." And he joins us with an exclusive report this morning.

Hi, Ryan.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra. That's right, I am at the Kandahar Airbase in southeastern Afghanistan. And today, with us, we have Lieutenant Colonel Ron Corkran. He was the battalion commander out there for "Operation Mountain Lion," as he will -- witnessed it all himself there.

Thank you for being with us, Lieutenant Colonel. The first question, I guess, would be what did we accomplish with "Operation Mountain Lion?"

LT. COLONEL RON CORKRAN, 101ST AIRBORNE, U.S. ARMY: Well, we think we had a successful mission. We did three basic things. We did exploitation of a cave system in the Zawar Kili area. We did operations with Afghan forces in the area. They helped us do that mission. And then, we also were able to coordinate and work some humanitarian assistance for the village of the Afghan forces that were working with us.

CHILCOTE: Now, for most of the people back home, this is the first time they've seen pictures of U.S. servicemen in these caves in Afghanistan. Pretty harrowing stuff. What's going through these soldiers' minds as they -- as they go into these caves and they search through them?

CORKRAN: Well, we had a lot of security. We brought a fairly large force, a battalion task force minus, which is about -- a little over 400 personnel in the area. And we had attack helicopter support. So we had a lot of security around. We had the Afghan forces working with us. So we were fairly confident we weren't going to make any kind of direct contact with al Qaeda or Taliban. So it was really focuses on doing the searches of the caves, but even with that, we're always trying to be as careful as we can be.

So the caves, the biggest concern as a commander and as a guy going into the caves myself, I mean is booby traps, mines, that type of stuff that you might run into. That was our biggest concern.

CHILCOTE: And what can they do to protect themselves from things like booby traps going into these caves?

CORKRAN: Well, we -- since we don't normally work in caves and that kind of environment, we took some of the tactics, techniques and procedures we use in the city fighting, in what we call "mount operations" and applied them to the caves. So there are ways of clearing rooms and hallways and buildings, we applied to the caves. And the guys were able to do that. They provide their selves over watch security and then, checking for booby traps using grappling hooks and that type of thing to look for tripped wires and all and then, moving through the caves very methodically with security all around.

CHILCOTE: You know, caves, it's pretty exotic subject matter. What do these caves look like? I mean describe them to the people back home.

CORKRAN: There's really two different sort of kinds of caves. We sort of debated about how you even talk about them.

CHILCOTE: Sure.

CORKRAN: One are sort of the natural caves by erosion and whatever else that have occurred and some are actually underground facilities that were developed, we assume, 15 or 20 years ago, hardened, rebar, supported roofs, arches that support a lot of stress as we tried to destroy some of the caves. Some of them were very difficult to do that with. Wiring that had been running inside where they were running power and all. So they were very sophisticated complexes and I guess complex is right word, multi-room, interconnected, multiple entrances or escapes out of them. So it was a complex place.

CHILCOTE: It kind of takes back to the -- to the Vietnam War, doesn't it, U.S. servicemen being in these caves?

CORKRAN: Yeah, the caves were a little bigger than what, you know, some of the caves you see, like (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and all were the guys are literally on their hands and knees. This were stand up, move through for the majority of the -- for the most part, stand up, move through sort of kind of caves where we felt folks were able to be fairly comfortable, conduct business for a long time inside there. So it was -- as I say, the extensive of it was impressive to all of us.

CHILCOTE: Like you said, there was -- there weren't any al Qaeda or Taliban forces there. Where is the enemy and when we can expect the next big fight?

CORKRAN: You know I don't know that answer. I just know that in the area, we worked with Afghan forces. They tell us that, you know, that the al Qaeda's still, you know, in the area. But I don't know a specific place.

CHILCOTE: Many of them said -- when we were out there, I saw them tell the American forces out there that they believe those Taliban and al Qaeda forces are over the border in Pakistan. That must be a bit frustrating for a commander of an operation.

CORKRAN: It's certainly possible. I mean I guess us seeing the -- actually working in the area of being right in that area, you saw how porous the border can be, how rugged the terrain is. It's a real challenge. And certainly, someone could make a sanctuary out of that if they choose to.

CHILCOTE: Thank you very much, Lieutenant Colonel. That was Lieutenant Colonel Ron Corkran. He's the battalion commander out there for "Operation Mountain Lion" with us.

Back to you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Ryan, absolutely amazing access. It's fascinating just to get so up close and personal with the soldiers and really see what they go through and what they're having to deal with there.

I'm curious -- I know we talked a little about this yesterday, specifically, what did they find in the caves and has anything led the government or the soldiers themselves to discover anything about Osama bin Laden or any other key leaders in al Qaeda?

CHILCOTE: Well, they found all kinds of things in the caves actually. I witnessed them go through those caves and saw quite a bit of it. They found a lot of trash. They found a lot of material that looked to be of a religious nature, Korans' study books. And then, they found some other materials, handwritten documents that had curious things written on them like "anti-aircraft" misspelled in English and then, they would go on in Arabic. And the soldiers told me that they believe that those books that we were looking at might be translations of military handbooks.

They found a "U.S.A. Today," an edition of "U.S.A. Today" from May 17 of last year. They did find some munitions. Not as many as they were expecting to find. So they found all kinds of things.

They even found bats in those caves, which is something that of course, those U.S. servicemen did not like.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Understandably. Ryan Chilcote, thank you so much.

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