Military

DATE=03/20/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-300949

TITLE=AFGHANISTAN/U-S MILITARY (S)

BYLINE=KATE POUND DAWSON

DATELINE=HONG KONG

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: U-S troops have gone into action in Afghanistan, apparently hunting remnants of the Taleban or the al-Qaida terror network. Kate Pound Dawson reports from our Asia News Center in Hong Kong.

TEXT: Combat helicopters began ferrying U-S airborne troops into an area near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan early Thursday morning.

Captain Alayne Cramer is a spokeswoman for the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

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They fly in, they touch down, and the soldiers dismount. So it doesn't involve any kind of parachuting.

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Captain Cramer said she could not say who the troops expect to be fighting. The U-S-led coalition force has been tracking remnants of the Taleban government and the al-Qaida terror network in Afghanistan for months.

Recently, some senior members of al-Qaida have been captured, and U-S intelligence authorities have been interrogating them, trying to learn the location of the group's leader, Osama bin Laden. (Signed)

NEB/HK/KPD/TW