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American Morning

The Fall of Kabul: Northern Alliance Marches into Kabul

Aired November 13, 2001 - 11:27   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The Northern Alliance marches into Kabul and chases Taliban forces from the Afghan capital. The capture of Kabul considered the most stunning victory yet for the Northern Alliance. Opposition forces rode into town and met little, if any, resistance, greeted there mainly by thousand of residents who celebrated their arrival. The White House had urged the alliance to not seize the town until a broad-based government could be assembled. However, those pleas have been not heeded necessarily to the full extent at this point.

To the White House now and CNN's John King for reaction on what's happening oversees.

John, good morning again.

JOHN KING, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again to you, Bill.

This development overseas, fast-changing developments on the ground in Afghanistan, come just as President Bush meets at the White House with an already important summit meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two men in the Oval Office have a luncheon today in the White House residence, which you can see behind me. Then a news conference this afternoon.

Issue number one was to be discussions about dramatic cuts in both country's strategic nuclear arsenals. We are told Mr. Bush will tell the Russian leader today, he is prepared to cut by more than two- thirds the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal. Now more than 7,000 warheads, roughly 7,000 warheads. Mr. Bush could go somewhere in the area, we are told, of 2,000 warheads, and he is expecting a reciprocal announcement from the Russian leader, but also obviously on the table for discussion, the latest situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

The White House on the one hand saying the president is very pleased with the progress the Northern Alliance is making. Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, saying this morning, this is a war, and one of the goals of the war is the defeat of Al Qaeda organization and the Taliban regime that harbors them. At the same time, the administration has repeatedly voiced concerns that it did not want the Northern Alliance to go into Kabul, believing that could significantly complicate the efforts to bring the rival tribes together, to build a broad-based coalition for a post-Taliban government. There have been reports of some atrocities, some human rights abuses, by the Northern Alliance forces. U.S. officials say they can not independently confirm that, but they do say the administration at several levels, military-to-military communications, as well as diplomatic communications, making clear that they want the Northern Alliance to keep the number of its troops in Kabul to a minimum, and that they want the Northern Alliance to respect human rights. Again, this is a military success in the view of the White House, but a diplomatic challenge as well -- Bill.

HEMMER: John King, thanks. John King from the White House.

And certainly the military strategy for the Northern Alliance pretty obvious right now: control as much ground as possible and do it quickly.

Let's bring in retired Major General Don Shepperd, our CNN military analyst again.

General, good morning to you.

Quickly want to go to map right now, and take us back to Friday of last week. And if we look at the overall perspective of Afghanistan, and just look at the massive amount of military action that's taken place, reports in Herat, reports in Mazar-e Sharif, going back to Friday of last week. They're talk about Konduz and Taloqan yesterday, Baglan and into Kabul today. Given all this fast military action, how do you react to this, knowing that things virtually at moving at a pace that had not been predicted?

MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, many of us on the air side thought that the air campaign would basically have a significant effect, and you would see a sudden collapse. None of us thought it would be as soon as it was, and none of us thought it would be as widespread as it was. That surprised all of us. Basically Mazar-e Sharif, what we talked about a week ago. Now everything is gone accept Kandahar from Taliban control..

HEMMER: I heard somebody talking earlier this morning, that said, with the Taliban leaving so many areas, it would be a really good opportunity to collect intelligence. What kind of intelligence are you looking for?

SHEPPERD: Basically, you go to the people, and you say, where were they and who were they? And as they retreat into the area around Kandahar, you want to concentrate you centers, and again the space centers, the airborne centers, and the ground intelligence, the humat (ph), if you will, and you want to say, where are the Al Qaeda? Where is bin Laden? And you want to get that into the coordinate business, so we can strike it with airpower and also go after it with ground troops and special forces, if we desire.

HEMMER: We have talked about this front being mostly centered on the capital city of Kabul. It appears now the front will move to the south, specifically in the to the area of Kandahar, and possibly the area here, that we have heard so much about as well. If you strategizing right now for the Northern Alliance, what do you do?

SHEPPERD: For the Northern Alliance, basically, I get myself together. I encourage the Pashtun tribes in the south to move on Kandahar, to make it easy for me to oust the Taliban. But again, I try to consolidate my gains all over the country, to make sure I can hold those areas and don't get trapped into a one-on-one guerrilla warfare in that area between Kabul and Kandahar with the mountains and the mountain passes in there.

HEMMER: I know we are talking military, but there is a political equation in there as well. Pakistan is not happy right now with the Northern Alliance moving in.

SHEPPERD: Not only is Pakistan not happy, we're not happy. We wanted to hold out. We wanted them to hold out of the city. But they got to the city, and instead of having to fight their way in, the city was abandoned. So they basically walked into the city of Kabul. Now we have to hurry up and back and get a political solution in place, and we have to get a U.N. peacekeeping force in there, hopefully comprised of Muslim nations, not United States and not Arab forces.

HEMMER: All right, general.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)

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