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CNN Saturday Morning News
The Battle for Shah-e-Kot
Aired March 09, 2002 - 09:36 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: This week, CNN correspondent Martin Savidge and cameraman Scotty McWinney (ph) documented what he -- what has turned out to be the toughest battle of the war in Afghanistan. It's a battle shaped by the lessons of Tora Bora, the forbidding mountain range that the U.S. bombing repeatedly -- or bombed repeatedly in December. Large numbers of al Qaeda forces escaped those bombings and found refuge in the Shah-e-Kot mountains. That's where they hunkered down.
This time, the U.S. decided American ground troops would have to do the job, but this time al Qaeda forces were waiting for them. This is the battle for Shah-e-Kot.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: Today is your climb to glory. Today's another chapter in Rakasan (ph) history.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The battle of Shah-e-Kot began the way many big battles begin, with a pep talk.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: Today's our rendezvous with destiny. Remember our motto, Let Valor Not Fail. Rakasan, turn around, will you? Look at those hills. God's with you. God bless you. Go in safety.
SAVIDGE: The prayer...
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: Amen.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMEN: Amen.
SAVIDGE: ... and too much time to think.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: I've got a wife, she's going to have a baby. We have four sons. It's a lot of responsibility left on her shoulders just like that. Her and I have lost a child already, so she's been through a lot of hard times, and I don't want to have to, you know, put her through that again.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: Start thinking about your buddy, who you've been training with for two years, three years, four years. Start thinking about him and his family, all the guys you work with, and the kids. It's -- start thinking a lot of things. Start -- your mind just starts going through a roller-coaster.
SAVIDGE: Before they head out for what most of them will be their first time in combat, they will carry a piece of paper tucked into a pocket.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: There's a letter that they'll have in their right pocket. It's a normally a love letter or a last statement letter. And we put it in their right cargo pocket just in case, you know, something unfortunate happens. And that's their last words to their loved one, and it's the loved one's right, really, to have something like that.
SAVIDGE: These men have studied the maps, but maps are not enough. So as they load into the large Chinook helicopters for the hour trip to the front, they will lock a picture in their minds of where the enemy is waiting.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: We're coming in from the south, heading north. When we get out -- and when you get out of the bird you'll be facing south. You're going to be facing towards the enemy. There will be enemy about a click south of you, OK? Everybody understand?
SAVIDGE: The aircraft are vulnerable in this terrain, no forest to keep them out of the enemy's sights, just a barren landscape and the caves and crevices from which al Qaeda forces can take aim.
At 3:00 in the morning on Monday, that aim proves deadly accurate. A Chinook is hit by rocket-propelled grenades as it touches down. The pilot quickly takes off again, veering sharply up and away. Thirty-two-year-old Navy SEAL Neil Roberts falls out of the back of the chopper to the ground. It's not clear if the force of the grenades or the escape maneuver caused the fall.
His comrades don't realize he's missing until a head count is taken minutes later.
Soon an unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft will circle the area, allowing U.S. commanders to watch live pictures of three al Qaeda fighters dragging Roberts away.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: When that happened and we were able to put some platforms in the air that could image that, that individual had been captured by three al Qaeda members, and we knew exactly where they were when the insertion went on.
SAVIDGE: A few miles away, Roberts' comrades land their Chinook. Another U.S. chopper then flies back to the scene of Roberts' capture. The men on board do not know whether they are on a mission to rescue him or to recover his body.
Around dawn, two other U.S. choppers filled with dozens of special forces are also sent near the spot where Roberts was captured. Both drop off their men. But one is hit and grounded. What followed was the most violent battle of the war in Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: The result of that was ended in a 18- hour gunfight in which we had seven of our men killed, eight of them that were wounded.
SAVIDGE: As that gunfire rates, other U.S. and allied troops in other parts of this treacherous valley face heavy al Qaeda fire.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: Just moved into (UNINTELLIGIBLE) position, walking position, and we're sitting up, and all of a sudden rounds came in, bouncing off the rocks in front of us, and then mortars. They pretty much tried to bracket us, you know, so we had to move, reestablish positions elsewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: And there was a decent amount of fire coming our way, but when we were let loose, man, it just rained down on them.
SAVIDGE: The U.S. calls this Operation Anaconda, after the snake that encircles its prey and squeezes it to death. But for a while, it was U.S. troops that seemed to be in the grip of an anaconda.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: We were pretty much encircled. They were shooting from different angle areas, you know, we couldn't stay down behind any kind of cover because they'd be behind us and shooting at us from there.
SAVIDGE: Many of those shots hit. It was a struggle to keep the wounded alive in the bitter cold.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: Let's go, men, hurry up, hurry up.
UNIDENTIFIED SERVICEMAN: At that time, it was just our company there, and bandaged them up. We were up on the -- temperature was probably 15 degrees, so our main thing there was the -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) actually, we did have there on site, we were pulling sleeping bags out, putting them in there so they wouldn't receive hypothermia and go into shock.
SAVIDGE: The battle for the Shah-e-Kot Valley has raged through the week. Some observers on the ground say perhaps the fierce resistance by al Qaeda forces indicates they're protecting something larger than themselves, perhaps, just perhaps, Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants are hiding up here.
But in the thick of this battle, it's not the thought of Osama bin Laden that keeps these Americans going. It is their devotion to each other.
Eighteen hours after those first Chinooks are hit, another U.S. helicopter reaches the site of the initial rescue mission and picks up every last American engaged in that battle. There were seven bodies on board, including the body of Neil Roberts. In the battle of Shah- e-Kot, no one, no one is left behind.
This is Martin Savidge, CNN, in Afghanistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Martin Savidge and cameraman Scotty McWinney took their trip, proved to be harrowing, to say the least. You can read more about their full account on cnn.com.
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