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CNN Sunday Morning

Operation Mountain Sweep Wraps Up in Afghanistan

Aired August 25, 2002 - 10:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A new U.S.-led campaign to round up enemy weapons in southeastern Afghanistan is paying off. It's called Operation Mountain Sweep. CNN producer Ryan Chilcote joins us from Kandahar with the latest on that -- Ryan.
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN PRODUCER: Good morning, Carol. Actually, Operation Mountain Sweep is wrapping up right now. The last of those 1,000, approximately 1,000 troops that were fielded on Operation Mountain Sweep are heading home right now to Kandahar and Bagram air bases.

It was a seven-day mission. The objective of that mission was to capture or kill al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the Zormat (ph) region. You might remember the Zormat (ph) region from Operation Anaconda, that was the last very large U.S. operation in that area.

Results from this mission so far -- the results of the mission are a bit sketchy, but we understand that the military planners are a bit disappointed with what they got. In fact, there's some talk that perhaps some of the targets, what they call high value targets, or the individuals that possess particular intelligence value to the U.S. that they were hoping to grab in this operation may have been tipped off to the fact that the troops were coming and were able to get out.

Having said that, however, U.S. troops did detain -- detain 11 individuals. We understand that at least two of those individuals may be from outside of Afghanistan. That is obviously very significant. We'll be watching those developments.

In addition to the detainees, they found a great deal of weapons. They're going to be looking at the -- including a pick-up truck they found today, hidden, apparently underneath some hay in a raid that they were staging. Inside that pick-up truck, they found a bunch of weapons and some Taliban documents. Pretty interesting find. Back to you, Carol.

LIN: Ryan, very quickly, clarify that point when you say that they found two outsiders which could be pretty significant. Are you talking about potential members of al Qaeda from other countries?

CHILCOTE: Well, that would be the suggestion. If they are foreigners or if they're from outside of Afghanistan, perhaps they're members of al Qaeda. It's too early to say at this point.

Obviously, the troops that bring these individuals in turn them over to military counterintelligence, and then they obviously really don't know what happens to them after that.

We understand that one individual was a white male, believed to be from a Western country, perhaps even English-speaking. A second individual, I was told, may be from a Western country, perhaps even have a second Western passport. So we're going to have to find out exactly what the identity of those individuals is. Back to you, Carol.

LIN: All right. Very interesting. Thank you very much, Ryan Chilcote, CNN producer based outside of Kandahar.

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