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Breaking News

Four Soldiers Killed While Disarming Munitions

Aired April 15, 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to have more on the breaking news about at least three American soldiers who were killed in an explosion outside of Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Barbara Starr joins us now live from the Pentagon with more on that -- good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, the latest word from here at the Pentagon is now that four American soldiers were killed earlier today in an explosive ordinance disposal accident near Kandahar. What the men were doing was they were trying to destroy a number of 107 millimeter rockets, weapons that they had seized from some enemy sites earlier in Afghanistan.

The soldiers were working at a remote site to try and destroy these rockets when apparently they detonated accidentally, sooner than they planned. We are told the early word is that four soldiers were killed. An undetermined number were injured and Pentagon officials say they believe that some soldiers are still unaccounted for.

Medical personnel are on the scene. They're trying to sort out exactly what happened. They're evacuating the injured. And we do expect more information in the hours ahead -- Paula.

ZAHN: Barbara, I know there's a lot of speculation this morning, but square what you've just said with this other report that these soldiers might have been trying to disarm a rocket. Is anybody at the Pentagon giving that report credence?

STARR: Well, yes. Apparently what was happening was their -- the military has set up a number of remote sites away from bases where they pile up ordinance, weapons that they want to dispose of, that they want to destroy. And they do this in a very controlled manner. But they do have, unfortunately, accidents. Sometimes the weapons detonated accidentally prior to the planned explosion.

That's what was going on here. They had a number of 107 millimeter rockets. They were trying to destroy them in a controlled explosion when this accident happened.

You know, this follows a weekend in Afghanistan of several incidents, fire fights between U.S. soldiers and enemy forces. For the second night in a row last night rocket fire came in at the U.S. air base in Khowst, in eastern Afghanistan. This is a remote operating base in eastern Afghanistan. For the last two nights in a row they've had rocket fire come across the fence from enemy forces on the outside. There have been no injuries there. There was another incident over the weekend when special forces were attacked by enemy gunfire at a checkpoint, a location that the military is not willing to tell us about. No injuries there but there have been a number of incidents over the weekend now -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Barbara Starr, thank you so much for that update and we'll be coming back to the Pentagon as even more information becomes available. Thanks.

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