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CNN Saturday Morning News

British Forces Continue to Destroy al Qaeda, Taliban Caves

Aired May 11, 2002 - 08:02   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, let's go to Afghanistan, where British forces continue an operation to destroy caves containing suspected Taliban or al Qaeda weapons.

We go now to CNN's Bill Delaney for the latest from Kabul -- hello, Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Miles.

You know, this week, Miles, it was that a commander of the British Royal Marines said the war against al Qaeda and Taliban here, he said, in Afghanistan is all but over. The forces of al Qaeda and Taliban scattered, he said, hard to find, and mostly, they believe, over the border in Pakistan.

But the source for what al Qaeda and Taliban left behind here in Afghanistan goes on and now a stunning find, a very, very significant find by the British Royal Marines, who have been out on Operation Snipe in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan for some two weeks. In four cave complexes, an enormous cache of weapons and ammunition, mostly Chinese and Soviet made rockets, grenades, ammunition and shells, as many as 10,000, enough, Royal Marines say, to fill as many as 20 truckloads.

British marines blew it all up in an explosion seen and heard for miles. Now, secondary explosions from that first big explosion was heard -- secondary explosions were heard all night and into the morning. The British Royal Marines used about 220 pounds of plastic explosives laced with anti-tank mines, we're told, to cause the explosion. Now, these caves, Miles, were built, carved out of the mountains by, with picks by Mujahedeen fighters against the Soviet Union back in the '80s. They were then taken over by the Taliban, these four caves, and most recently have been in the control, it's believed, of local commanders.

Now the caves not unknown to coalition forces here. At least one of the caves was bombed in January by coalition forces. But the British Royal Marines, Miles, have now finished the job -- back to you.

O'BRIEN: Bill, a little bit of irony there that these caves might have been built by Mujahedeen warriors with picks. Of course, the Mujahedeen received a lot of funding from the Central Intelligence Agency. DELANEY: Yes. No American weapons that we know of, Miles, as I said, mostly Chinese and Soviet. But certainly it was during the heavily supported by the U.S. and other Western countries war of the Mujahedeen against the Soviet Union that weapons first started to flow into this country 20, 25 years ago. Tens of thousands of those weapons now remain. They've now found tens of thousands of those weapons in these caves and they've destroyed them so that no one can ever used them again -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Bill Delaney in Kabul, thanks very much.

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