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Breaking News

Gun Battle Takes Place in Eastern Afghanistan

Aired March 02, 2002 - 16:16   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We bring you the latest on the gun battle, taking place in eastern Afghanistan. We're learning more now about the arsenal being used there. Earlier today, we reported that at least one U.S. soldier has been killed and two Afghan troops have been killed as well in the bombing there.

We're learning now that thermobaric explosives which are high intensity bombs used for tunnels are being used by the U.S. forces now. We want to take you to the Pentagon, where our Jonathan Aiken has the latest update there. Hi there, Jonathan.

JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. What Pentagon officials are telling us is that two thermobaric bombs were used today, Saturday, in this latest action taking place near Gardez in eastern Afghanistan, not far from the Pakistani border.

It's sort of hard to describe exactly what a thermobaric bomb is. These aren't designed for caves and tunnels, and there are a relative handful of them in Afghanistan. They are recent arrivals to the U.S. arsenal there. Two of them were used today, we're told on a cave near Gardez.

Now what made this cave so important, and certainly important enough to use two of a relatively limited resource, that has not been made clear to us by the U.S. Central Command. But obviously, there was something or someone in these caves of some importance to the U.S. military, important enough to use two of these bombs.

Now basically what they do is they create a tremendous amount of air pressure. They're designed to create an intense amount of air pressure that essentially issues a forward blast that, and I'm using a really general layman's term here, essentially pushes anything in that cave out.

The air pressure comes from within and pushes to the exits, and in these caves that are located, as you see in the video here, they're rather substantial in terms of their weight and their force. In some of these caves that are being used in regions in eastern Afghanistan, there are multiple entrances and exits, and so the idea is to render these caves inoperable from a variety of locations.

The fact that two of them were used on one site suggests that that site was important enough to U.S. military planners to warrant the use of what seems to be a relatively small number of weapons that they have on hand. Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Jonathan, are these air launched or ground launched?

AIKEN: These are air launched and they can be attached to laser- guided bombs, to the so-called smart bombs that the Pentagon has been using in their operations in Afghanistan. And that means that these can be attached to weapons that can be fired by aircraft based, aircraft carrier based aircraft. So we're talking about F-14s. We're talking about F-18s, even ground based F-15s.

So we're not talking about B-52 bombers here. We're talking about fighter aircraft that can come in off a carrier or another base, and can attach this bomb, use this bomb that's attached to a laser-guided weapon and basically kill two birds with one stone.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much for that update on that breaking story from Jonathan Aiken at the Pentagon. Of course, we'll be updating you throughout the afternoon and evening.

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