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CNN Saturday Morning News

Report of Captured Americans Questioned on Several Fronts

Aired September 29, 2001 - 09:05   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.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: There was a report overnight that American commandos had been captured inside Afghanistan, that report, though, now being questioned on several fronts.

CNN's Mark Potter joins us now live from the Pentagon with the very latest -- Mark.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, the report came out overnight from the Al-Jazeera network in Qatar, and it said that three members of the U.S. Special Forces, along with two Afghans with American citizenship, were captured inside Afghanistan either by Taliban forces or members of the al Qaeda terror network. The five was said to be on a reconnaissance mission. They allegedly were captured carrying weapons and maps of the al Qaeda areas, their camps, again, this according to the report from Qatar.

The report also said that those who captured them had promised soon that they would release pictures of their captures.

However, the Taliban government has now denied this report, categorically denying it, and here at the Pentagon, we are also being given a wave-off. They are saying that there is no credence to this report. They are saying that there is no reason to believe it. They're not giving a categoric denial here, but the explanation for that is that they don't want to do that every time that there's a report from the region, from the Taliban or someone else. They don't want to be in the position each time of having to confirm or deny because they simply don't want to talk about operational details.

But given that, they are still saying that there is no reason for them to believe this, and they are using the words again, "no credence."

This comes on the heels of a reporting yesterday here in the United States that U.S. Special Forces, along with British special forces, indeed have been making surveillance missions into Afghanistan, going in and out, gathering intelligence on locations in advance of possible military action, large-scale military action, sometime in the future.

But the one word that we are getting from U.S. officials about that is that despite published reports yesterday indicating that they might be in direct search of Osama bin Laden, we are being waved off that, saying that that is not why these teams are in there right now. They are there doing surveillance. And military analysts tell us that this is commonly done at this stage of any operation. They would be surprised if Special Forces were not doing this at this time.

Intelligence gathering is critical to the success of this sort of operation -- John.

KING: Mark, as this buildup continues overseas, what's the level of activity as you wander the halls of the Pentagon this morning?

POTTER: Right now, it's very quiet. Overnight the press office closed. That was a first. It's pretty quiet today. They were going to be closed for half a day today, but there's a problem with the phone system they were telling us about, so calls were coming in, having to deal with it. They're a little upset about that. They're going to have to be here all day as opposed to just the half-day they had planned.

No briefings are scheduled, no press releases have come out. So right now, things are very quiet, at least in the parts of the building that we can see.

KING: All right, a major military deployment overseas, and problems with the phones here at home. Mark Potter joining us this morning from the Pentagon, thank you.

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