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CNN SATURDAY MORNING NEWS
600 Additional Troops Sent to Afghanistan
Aired March 16, 2002 - 07:32 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: Six hundred additional U.S. troops from the 101st Airborne Division will be shipping out to Afghanistan. U.S. and Canadian troops make up most of the Western coalition with Afghan forces in Operation Anaconda. It's a cave-by-cave operation to root out the last remaining al Qaeda and Taliban holdouts.
CNN's Martin Savidge has the latest now live from Bagram Air Base -- hello, Martin.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Kyra. For the second time since Operation Anaconda got under way, there was a ceremony awarding Purple Heart medals to those soldiers that were injured in the confrontation with al Qaeda and Taliban forces.
There were nine recipients just a few minutes ago. They were all from the 10th Mountain Division, the First Battalion 87th Infantry. And all of them were wounded initially in the first day of combat of Operation Anaconda, many of them coming from Charlie Company, and that is one particular company of platoon that was first on the ground and received intensive fire for about 16 hours; 26 out of some 80 soldiers were wounded in that confrontation.
A total of 70 soldiers have been wounded -- more than that actually -- in Operation Anaconda, so there are more Purple Hearts to come. The Purple Heart dates all the way back to the Revolutionary War times conceived by General George Washington. You must be wounded in active combat, a wound that requires medical treatment by a doctor.
Moving on now to Operation Anaconda; as we say, it is day 15, and it is still very much going on. Right now, the latest video that we have for you is of Canadian forces on a piece of topography in the lower Shah-e-Kot Valley that is referred to as the "whale." This is a very high mountain ridge that runs from about 8,000 all the way up to 9,000 feet. That's a high elevation for soldiers to operate in, and it is perforated with dozens and dozens of caves.
What they have been doing is actively going after those caves, often using AT-4s -- these are shoulder-launched missiles -- exploding those caves and killing those who are inside. They are also doing what is called sensitive site exploitation, looking for documents, looking for information, looking for leads of al Qaeda leaders -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Our Martin Savidge live from Bagram -- thank you so much.
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