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CNN Sunday Morning

General Tommy Franks Visits U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

Aired August 25, 2002 - 11:05   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan paid a visit to his troops on the ground today. General Tommy Franks praised the men and women in uniform for their work, even as they continued to meet resistance in the war on terrorism. CNN's Matthew Chance brings us up to date from Bagram.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The visit of General Franks comes at a period of some activity, military activity, here in Afghanistan. U.S. forces are currently engaged in Operation Mountain Sweep, which is, of course, aimed at rooting out Taliban and al Qaeda remnants in the southeastern province of Pakhtier (ph). It's succeeded only so far, though, in rounding up a number of weapons caches.

General Franks didn't speak specifically about this, though. He spoke, instead, of the differences -- the difference that U.S. forces had made on the ground in Afghanistan, saying that U.S. forces denied the al Qaeda leadership a safe place to hide. He also refused to set a time limit for the presence of U.S. forces here in Afghanistan, saying that they would not leave until the situation which brought them here could not be repeated. And he said the emphasis of U.S. forces here continue to be on capturing the al Qaeda leadership, particularly Osama bin Laden.

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We have not seen convincing proof that bin Laden, Zawahiri are dead. And so I think what we do is, we continue to confirm or deny the intelligence reporting that we get.

Now, am I going to say where I think he is right now? No, I'm not. Because I wouldn't want to give -- to give anybody any sorts of alerts. I actually don't know whether he is alive or dead. But I do know that a great many nations on this planet are very interested in the man, if he is still alive, and I'll leave you by saying -- if he is still alive, it's only a matter of time.

CHANCE: All right, well, just to give you a kind of indication of how much resistance U.S. forces on the ground are still coming up against in places, in the early hours of this morning, Sunday morning local time, we're told by U.S. military officials here at the Bagram -- Bagram Army base, that at least three rocket-propelled grenades were launched at a U.S. Army observation post in the eastern province of Truna (ph), just north of the city of Asadabad (ph). We're told that in response, U.S. forces called in a mortar strike. They also called in close air support. A-10 warplanes fired several missiles, a number of heavy ammunition rounds at the site. U.S. officials continuing to try and find any casualties, to try and find out who it was that shot at them up there.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Bagram, Afghanistan.

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WHITFIELD: As you just heard, the U.S. is leading a new campaign in Afghanistan to round up enemy weapons. Officials say Operation Mountain Sweep is paying off. CNN producer Ryan Chilcote joins us from Kandahar with the very latest.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN PRODUCER: Well, good morning. Operation Mountain Sweep is now over. The last of the U.S. troops involved in Operation Mountain Sweep, some 1,000 U.S. troops that were on that operation are now back in the safety of U.S. bases in Afghanistan.

Operation Mountain Sweep was the largest op we've actually seen in Afghanistan that the U.S. military has launched since Operation Anaconda. You might recall that back in March. The objective of Operation Mountain Sweep was to find, capture, and/or kill Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in the Zormat (ph) region of eastern Afghanistan -- incidentally, that's also where Operation Anaconda was fought.

The results so far are sort of a mixed bag, if you will. The U.S. military was looking for at least two what they call high-value targets, those are individuals who possess a particularly high value to the U.S. military in terms of intelligence on this operation. They were able to -- they were not able to bag either of those men. In fact, there's talk here on the base that it is possible that those individuals and other al Qaeda or Taliban fighters in that region may have been tipped off to the fact that the U.S. forces were coming to that region before they even got there. Indicators of that are that non-governmental organizations were already moving out of the area when they came, plus -- and the idea is, if they were moving out, who else knew that the U.S. military might be coming?

Plus, the U.S. military heard, they say, radio -- or intercepted radio calls where they heard suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters talking about the fact that the Americans were coming, time to hide your weapons, let's go hide.

So they did not get either of those two -- as I said, high-value targets, as the military puts it. But they did detain 11 individuals. Now, CNN understands that at least two of those 11 that were detained are from outside of Afghanistan. Obviously, it's too early to say who those men are and whether they are part of al Qaeda, but there is at least a suggestion that they might be involved somehow in the al Qaeda terrorist network. That's all I have for you now. Back to you.

WHITFIELD: Ryan, you accompanied the soldiers during this operation. What was your role? CHILCOTE: I was actually with the aviators on Operation Mountain Sweep. This -- Operation Mountain Sweep was an air assault. An air assault is when the troops are brought to the battlefield via helicopter. So I traveled with the helicopter pilots over the last seven days on Operation Mountain Sweep, carrying the troops in and out, and taking them to various locations on this mission. There are actually five different locations, or, as U.S. military calls them, objectives on the mission. So there was a lot of, a lot of helicopter traffic.

In fact, Zormat (ph), the region where they were in eastern Afghanistan, that's a full 200 miles from here. So without the use of the helicopters, U.S. military would have had to have used convoys to take the troops there. In Afghanistan, using convoys on the ground is A, very dangerous, and B, gives away the element of surprise that they had using these helicopters. So I got to see a little bit of the inside of that. Back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much, Ryan Chilcote, appreciate it.

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