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CNN Live Sunday

Afghan Villagers Claim They Are Victims of U.S. Air Strikes; U.S. Denies Responsibility

Aired December 02, 2001 - 18:10   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Residents in one village near Jalalabad, claim that they've become the victims of bombings by U.S. warplanes. That's a claim that U.S. military officials deny. CNN's Brent Sadler reports from Jalalabad. We want to warn you, some of the pictures that you're about to see are graphic and may be disturbing to some of you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Scenes of devastation and heavy loss of life in a remote region of eastern Afghanistan. The tragic aftermath, claim regional authorities, of two successive days of American air strikes in Nangarhar Province.

These are the first harrowing pictures to emerge from a district called Agam (ph), two hours drive from Jalalabad, a village they call Madokolay (ph). It's within eyesight of a mountain range which conceals Tora Bora, a suspected hideout for al Qaeda or Taliban diehards, a high priority U.S. military target.

Survivors dig for the remains of victims in Madokolay (ph), two days after the destruction, delivered, they claim, by the U.S. warplanes, a claim U.S. military authorities deny.

This man holds up what he says is a bomb or missile fragment. "This is their humanitarian aid to us," he says angrily, "they want to rebuild Afghanistan, but this is their gift to us."

Sorrow is turning to anger here. By day, they can see American bombers flying overhead. By night, they say, aerial weapons are hitting them, not terrorists.

"Find the Arab or Osama here," he says. " If they're here, burn me to death, but they're not."

In Jalalabad's hospital, casualties fill the dirt-stained wards and corridors. Bodies are laid out in the morgue. The city's mujahideen corps commander who tells me he's in contact with unnamed U.S. authorities acknowledges the depth of the problem. "Scenes like this," he believes, "undermine efforts to win Afghan support for the war on terror."

MOHAMMED ZAMAN, MUJAHIDEEN CORPS COMMANDER: Of course this is our problem, the dead bodies our problem, the complaints our problem, villagers our problem.

SADLER: And he claims the district office for his own mujahideen security personnel for the area was destroyed in the attacks, inflicting more deaths, casualties of what's being attributed by authorities here as targeting errors, errors which they insist must stop.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Jalalabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KELLEY: The U.S. military is denying that its weapons have been aimed at residential areas in Afghanistan. For the latest on that and the war in Afghanistan, CNN's Jeff Levine joins us for a live report from the Pentagon -- Jeff.

JEFF LEVINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Donna, the Pentagon is not officially denying that it hit an anti-Taliban headquarters on Sunday, but we do have a statement which attempts to clarify the issue. Lieutenant Colonel Martin Compton of Central Command says the following: "The United States takes great time and effort in the targeting process and tries to minimize collateral damage." Compton also says that if the Taliban put family and friends into military complexes, they put them at great risk.

Now, according to anti-Taliban sources, eight people were killed in the attack on Agam (ph), just south of Jalalabad. On Saturday, a Central Command spokesman did deny that U.S. planes hit two villages in the area, in another incident killing some 50 people.

What Pentagon officials are trying to do is destroy a network of caves near Tora Bora. It's believed to house members of the al Qaeda terrorist network, and possibly even Osama bin Laden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We are bombing in Afghanistan. We are doing it in a way that is as precise and careful as ever has happened in history. There are lots of people shooting in Afghanistan. There's opposition forces, there's the bombs we're dropping, there are people on the ground, there are the al Qaeda and Taliban shooting and blowing up and killing people. So there's a lot of ordnance flying around, and there is no question that from time to time innocent people, noncombatants, undoubtedly are killed, and that's always unfortunate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVINE: Meanwhile, a contingent of about 1,000 U.S. Marines is poised for possible action in the struggle to take Kandahar. An all- out assault to conquer this last major Taliban stronghold could come any time. The Marines are stationed at a desert airstrip within striking distance of Kandahar. They have been joined there by officers from Britain, Germany and Australia. We don't know, again, exactly how many U.S. Marines are there. But Donna, they have been coming every night since Sunday. KELLEY: Jeff Levine at the Pentagon, thank you.

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