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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Terror Summit; Shaky Alliance; Afghanistan: The Unfinished War;
Aired September 27, 2006 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins us now with the latest.
Suzanne, do we know anything about what went on?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, we're still waiting for a readout from the White House. It ended about 15 minutes ago or so. It lasted much longer than anybody expected, about two and a half hours at the White House.
But you could tell a lot by the body language before they had that dinner, the rather stiff, rather, rather distant. President Bush shaking both of theses leaders' hands, but neither one of them turning to each other to shake their hands.
But one White House official saying that he really believes that it was a good sign that this meeting lasted longer than expected, much longer than expected. Another White House official, however, cautioning me not to make too much of this, that this really is just the first of many times that they hope they'll get these leaders together, that they have to undo years and years of mistrust -- Anderson.
COOPER: Is it surprising that there wasn't some sort of statement immediately after this dinner, that there wasn't some sort of at least public handshake, given the public bickering that these two presidents have been undertaking over the last couple of days. I mean, on CNN bickering back and forth. Musharraf calling Karzai an ostrich.
MALVEAUX: No, I really don't think it was a surprise. It wasn't expected that there was going to be some sort of public handshake at the end of all this. They don't want to push this too mar far here. I mean, it's a very sensitive meeting. It's a very sensitive situation. You can see that they are trying to kind of force these two -- and it is forcing these two -- to talk side by side and work through some of these pubic disagreements here.
I thought it was important what the president said, very telling when he was quite blunt in the beginning, saying, look, we've got to bring you together, we're going to talk strategically here. He mentioned the need to capture Osama bin Laden, to go after him. I think they're playing it very careful here.
The fact that they got these two leaders together in the first place, very significant. But I really don't think that they thought it was necessary to parade these two before the cameras outside.
COOPER: Suzanne Malveaux, thanks.
Set aside for a moment the fact that the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan don't get along personally, assume instead that they're the best of friends. Now ask yourself this, would that necessarily make them any better as American allies?
CNN's John Roberts investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush calls them friends, Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai; Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf. Certainly they are crucial allies in the president's war on terror. But how much can they be counted on?
Bob Grenier is the former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center.
BOB GRENIER, KROLL INC.: Each of those leaders and both of the countries have very complicated political situations. And what is perhaps of the greatest relevance to us is that neither leader controls all of his territory. And that's where the problems of greatest concern to the United States really arise.
ROBERTS: And the greatest concern right now is the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan. Musharraf denies giving the Taliban safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas.
But since he signed a peace agreement with leaders in those territories, the U.S. military reports cross border attacks have tripled. And says CNN Terrorism Analyst Peter Bergen, Taliban control in Afghanistan is part of Pakistan's strategic defense plan.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: They have, you know, something called strategic depth, which they've got that kind of the military policies. If any attacks us, we want to be able to have Afghanistan as a back area from which we can regroup and re-supply and re-arm. And the Taliban is part of that strategic depth policy.
ROBERTS: And what about the Karzai? Profits from Afghanistan's unchecked opium industry help fund Taliban fighters who are killing American and NATO troops.
HAMID KARZAI, PRESIDENT OF AFGHANISTAN: We are embarrassed because of it and we will have to get rid of it.
ROBERTS: Is Karzai doing enough to eradicate poppy fields? Grenier says no and by choice, afraid to anger warlords who control the narcotics trade.
GRENIER: He dare not alienate large elements of his population who are not currently alienated, given the fact that he already has a very large insurgency that he's fighting. ROBERTS: And then there's Pakistan's commitment to hunt al Qaeda. Does Musharraf really want to find Osama bin Laden? Not when he's far more popular in Pakistan than Musharraf is, says Bergen.
BERGEN: No Pakistani politician, including President Musharraf, would go after bin Laden because it would be political suicide to do so.
ROBERTS: So why stick with these two leaders? Well, Karzai was hand-picked by the U.S., won a popular election, and remains fiercely loyal to President Bush.
In Pakistan there are no good alternatives and experts believe, at his core, Musharraf is on the same team.
BERGEN: Here's a guy who survived at least two serious assassination attempts by al Qaeda, has personally taken risks. I mean, in the real world, he's about as good an ally as you're going to get.
ROBERTS (on camera): The urgent and difficult task for President Bush will be to get some sort of commitment from Pakistan to deal with the Taliban issue. Until now most of the attention has been focused on batting the foreign fighters that make up al Qaeda in the wild border region. But the Taliban is quickly becoming the greatest threat to American interests in the region.
John Roberts, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Peter Bergen joins us now, our terrorism analyst and author of "The Osama bin Laden I know," an oral history.
Peter, how closely do you think al Qaeda is working with the Taliban?
BERGEN: Well, according to U.S. military officials and according to the Taliban -- and when these two groups agree on something, it's probably true -- there is close -- a pretty close relationship. U.S. military talks about advice that al Qaeda gives the Taliban, logistical help, maybe money. The Taliban, in interviews that they've begin publicly on Al Jazeera, says that bin Laden himself is giving them orders. So it appears that the relationship is pretty close. It always was close, you know, going back several years even before the 9/11 attacks and it remains so today.
COOPER: How close do you think Afghanistan is to becoming sort of like Iraq? I mean, we're seeing increasingly IEDs, suicide attacks?
BERGEN: I think any fair-minded observer would say this looks a lot like the summer of 2003 in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
COOPER: How so? BERGEN: Suicide attacks just going through the roof, IED attacks going through the roof, a real insurgency. I mean, there are differences, Anderson, as you know, Afghan is a much more pro- American. Most Iraqis -- we just had the poll that you'd been reporting on earlier, where, you know, a majority of Iraqis want the United States out. I think if you did the same poll in Afghanistan, you'd have very different numbers.
Unfortunately, there hasn't been a good poll in Afghanistan since late 2005. But at that time, a large number of Afghans thought the country was going in the right direction. The number may have fallen today, but it's still Afghans are a lot more optimistic, I think, about the future than Iraqis are today.
COOPER: Certainly. Peter, appreciate it. Thanks.
There's a very powerful reason why it's so important to have Pakistan as an ally in the war on terror. Here's the raw data. Pakistan is one of at least eight countries with nuclear weapons. Five nations -- China, France, Russia, Great Britain and the U.S., have all acknowledged having nuclear warheads under the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty -- it's getting late. India and Pakistan have not signed the treaty and each has a growing arsenal. Israel is widely believed to have nukes, but refuses to say one way or the other.
Facing the Taliban, al Qaeda drug lords and more. U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Tonight, an update on the unfinished war. A special from the front lines, when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360, "Afghanistan: The Unfinished War." Here's Anderson Cooper.
COOPER: Thanks for joining us in this special edition of 360. Five years after the 911 attacks. The war here in eastern Afghanistan is raging. Al Qaeda fighters, Taliban militants and common criminals linked to a growing drug trade are threatening the stability of the Karzai government and threatening U.S. forces on a daily basis.
Tonight in this next hour, we are going to take you to the frontlines of the fight to Ground Zero in the war on terror.
We begin tonight with the hunt for the most elusive terrorist in the world, Osama bin Laden.
CNN's Nic Robertson investigates why it is taking so long to find him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): I start a journey that will take me across Pakistan and into Afghanistan. The conclusion is startling. The leads are limited. No one has seen him in years. Most recent intelligence reports have him located towards northern Pakistan, the Chitral Region, possibly slipping northwards across the remote lawless border into Afghanistan and possibly north again into the equally remote and lawless Tajikistan.
(On camera): Or he could be hiding here in a quiet suburban street in one of these nice big houses. Or he could be hiding on this crowded street or in one of these buildings just 10 feet away and we wouldn't know. Or maybe he isn't in the country at all.
(Voice-over): The reason we don't know, Pakistan's former intelligence chief tells me, is simple, people like bin Laden better than they like the West and they won't rat him out, even for the $25 million reward.
HAMID GUL, FORMER PAKISTAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF: Because there is no cause. On the basis of cause, you get glean information and intelligence, which is real good work by just donning out money. You cannot get the kind of information that you're looking for.
ROBERTSON: That's one strike against catching the world's most wanted man. Another, I'm learning from a religious leader who knows Osama bin Laden, is just how easy it is to evade capture, even in Pakistan's capital. He was accused of plotting to blow up government buildings and the U.S. embassy.
ABDUL RASHID GHAZI, PAKISTAN MULLAH: There was a time in 2004 when the whole army was after me. They were searching me. And I was living in Islamabad. They were searching everywhere in Pakistan. And I was living in one small house in Islamabad.
ROBERTSON: And if that Pakistani security failure isn't shocking enough, he tells me more.
GHAZI: I have one man who was going and taking my messages. I would leave my cassette and that's it.
ROBERTSON: Sounds familiar. Bin Laden continues to release audio messages. Journalist Amir Mir, whose outspoken criticism of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has cost him several jobs, tells me what many here think, but few dare to say.
AMIR MIR, PAKISTANI JOURNALIST: As long as Osama is at large, Dr. Zawahiri is at large, Musharraf thinks that he will continue to rule this country with the full blessings of the U.S.
ROBERTSON: It forces me to ask Pakistan's army spokesman how serious they are about the hunt for bin Laden.
LT. GEN. SHAUKAT SULTAN, MILITARY SPOKESMAN: It still is a major task even with us, but this is not the only task. This may be one task in the whole campaign. The whole campaign has a lot many other things to do.
ROBERTSON: I'm realizing bin Laden has more than gone underground. He's slipped off the radar. (On camera): We're walking already into Afghanistan here, it's what, just a few hundred meters away?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
ROBERTSON: I head towards Afghanistan. From the Pakistan side of the border, I ask the general in charge about the hunt.
Do you think if Osama bin Laden were here today, the people in around here would tell you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would hope so, certainly.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): He seems less than convinced and for sure, it's not a daily priority for his troops.
(On camera): Just a few miles away over here on the Afghan side of the border, bin Laden has also slid down the daily to do list. Today's patrols are far more focused on today's clear and present dangers -- foreign fighters, the Taliban and criminals.
(Voice-over): Patrols still go out, but the environment is increasingly hostile. Taliban, al Qaeda's ally against the war on terror, hold more sway. Their threat of violence, enough to intimidate most Afghans into silence.
COL. JOHN NICHOLSON, U.S. ARMY: We're here to defeat the insurgency in Afghanistan and to enable the government of Afghanistan to extend its reach out to all of its people. And that is our primary focus. Now, if in the course of that we run across Osama bin Laden, we'd be very happy to roll him up and bring him to justice.
ROBERTSON: I'm reminded of my conversation with Pakistan's military spokesman.
SULTAN: For a long time we haven't gotten information about him or his activities.
ROBERTSON: Absolutely nothing?
SULTAN: No information.
ROBERTSON: The trail's gone cold?
SULTAN: Well I won't like you to put these words into my mouth.
ROBERTSON: No one wants words put in their mouth, but it does seem to be the truth.
Nic Robertson, CNN, along the Afghan/Pakistan border.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We may not know where Osama bin Laden is living now, but we do know where he last lived here in Afghanistan, in the town of Jalalabad. And tonight we take you there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Leaving Kabul isn't as easy as it once was. To drive to Osama bin Laden's last known residence, you now need a half dozen SUVs filled with armed guards. These days no place is safe in Afghanistan.
(On camera): When the United States began bombing Afghanistan back in October of 2001, bin Laden was in the southern city of Kandahar. He then returned to Kabul and then began traveling down this road toward his compound, closer to the Pakistan border, in the town of Jalalabad.
(Voice-over): It's about a six-hour journey through a countryside that's changed little in generations. A new road is being built, but life for ordinary Afghans remains a struggle.
When you finally get to Jalalabad, bin Laden's house isn't hard to find.
(On camera): This is the compound that was used by Osama bin Laden and several hundred other terrorists here in Jalalabad. It's been destroyed. It looks like it has been bombed. The roofs are gone, obviously. Locals say though, however, that it wasn't bombed, it's just been looted.
This complex is about two acres. The entire thing is wall, as most of the complexes are in Jalalabad. There are about 70 rooms in it. There's cooking facilities. There's even a little area where there was a mosque.
(Voice-over): There's not much left, a drain pipe perhaps for a sink or toilet. Broken bricks. A few shards of pottery.
(On camera): There were actually two facilities that bin Laden and his associates used as a headquarters here in Jalalabad. This is the second one. It's just a couple hundred feet away from the first complex.
In the corner of it over here we found this square hole. It's got a metal ladder going down. The walls are round, they're lined with brick and stone. Not sure what this was used for so we're going to go down and check it out.
(Voice-over): The ladder goes down nearly all the way to the bottom. That's where we notice weapons still clearly visible.
(On camera): Climbed down into what I thought was a bomb shelter, now appears was perhaps some sort of a weapons storage facility because there is an RPG round down at the bottom and a mortar round. It is amazing that nearly five years after this place was evacuated there are still weapons laying around.
The significant of this place is this is the last place that Osama bin Laden was known to live here in Afghanistan. The Tora Bora Mountains, on a clear day, they're visible from here. It's about a 2, 2-1/2 hour drive to get there. And it's from here that Osama bin Laden fled with his followers into those mountains and then disappeared.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: This is the place that he knew best as the United States forces began really attacking Kabul, bin Laden fled here. Last known to be here November 30, 2001.
COOPER (voice-over): Peter Bergen is a CNN terrorism analyst. He says it is impossible for us to try to reach Tora Bora.
BERGEN: It's now so dangerous in Afghanistan you can't go to places like Tora Bora. It's sort of a free fire zone. Even if we had -- I mean, we have security here, but even if we had a lot of security, it would still be a very dumb idea because what they do is, it's one road and they can see you going up that road. And by the time you come back, there's IEDs on the road.
COOPER: Bin Laden and the Taliban, which allowed him to operate here, may be long gone, but they remain popular in this part of Afghanistan.
It was much better under the Taliban, says this 17-year-old Abdullah (ph). It was more secure. Right now it is insecure. And the problems, like lack of power, we didn't have them.
The Taliban was much better than this government, 12-year-old Sadulah (ph) says. Back then there was a clinic, there was power. Now there's not.
Nearly five years since bin Laden and the Taliban was driven from Jalalabad, into the mountains of Tora Bora, it seems their memory and their power remain very much alive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (on camera): Well, let's talk about the past, let's talk about the present. The hunt for Osama bin Laden right now with Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson, also Terrorism Analyst Peter Bergen, who's met bin Laden, and wrote the book, "The Osama bin Laden I know."
I got to say, from your guys reporting and what we talked about, it doesn't sound, other than perhaps some covert intelligence work, that there are a lot of people actually physically hunting for Osama bin Laden.
ROBERTSON: If they come across him, they'll get him. They'll nab him. But the bottom line is, there are other people who are actually perhaps more actively engaged on the ground, trying to target the troops here. Gobadine Hek Matear (ph), somewhere in the border region, a former warlord. He's on the scene. Jaladine Hikani (ph), another warlord. He's on the scene. These are all people that are running groups against the troops here, so the day-to-day need is to find them, connect with them as well as the Taliban insurgency as well. COOPER: Do you agree with that, Peter?
BERGEN: Yes. And of course, U.S. troops can't cross the border into Pakistan. And that's where -- the consensus is he's in Pakistan. U.S. senior military officials telling me, Chitral, an area way up on the north...
COOPER: Which is farther north than the notion that a lot of people had previously thought?
BERGEN: Yes, it's way up, almost to the border of China. Intelligence sources here are telling both of us that he might be in a place called Bajor (ph), which is just south of Chitral. I think there's a consensus that he's on the northern part of that Afghan- Pakistan border.
COOPER: What do you make of those critics, some of whom you've talked to in Pakistan, who say, look Musharraf doesn't want the guy caught essentially because it keeps his government important to the United States?
ROBERTSON: Well certainly, his political opponents say that at the moment, that he plays the card, I'm the only guy that can help you, the United States, to track him down. Get rid of me, you'll get a different government. They won't help you. I'm here stopping these fundamentalists in my country rising to power. You need me. This is the equation his critics say he's playing. They want the politics backed, democratic politics. They don't want a military dictator, which they feel he's become.
COOPER: Pakistan, of course, says look, they're doing all they can. They've had some high-level al Qaeda arrests.
What's your perception of how effective they've been against al Qaeda and in the hunt for Osama bin Laden?
BERGEN: Well, again, this is a high level value of targets of al Qaeda. They've been very effective against bin Laden. Obviously, it's been a zero. But let's add the U.S. government to that. I mean, I've talked to U.S. intelligence officials and counterterrorism officials in recent weeks and they say we don't have much collection, an intelligence term for we don't have human intelligence, we don't have signal intelligence on bin Laden. They may have it on Ayman al- Zawahiri, the number two, a little bit better, but bin Laden -- it's actually been years now. It's really hit a brick wall, the hunt, I think.
COOPER: It's amazing when just flying to get to this remote base. And you fly over these people's homes, and they're like mini forts, a wall to compounds. And anybody could be living in there. And unless you have intelligence on the ground, unless you have the cooperation of local people, you're not going to find out.
ROBERTSON: And in these communities here, the tradition is that you don't give information to outsiders. You don't talk to outsiders. You keep yourself to yourself. And the reason they have such high walls is there are fights that go on here. This is a violent tribal area. You defend your territory. You give nothing to outsiders and you don't share information. That's the environment.
COOPER: I talked to the Pakistan ambassador to the U.S. the other day. He said the people in (UNINTELLIGIBLE), the people along the border in Pakistan are with the central government. I found that surprising because that doesn't seem to match facts on the ground.
BERGEN: I don't think that's ever been true. Even when the British were around. I mean, this has been an area where people are very independent, as Nic says, they want all the people to mind their own business and just, they want to do their own thing, very tribal society.
COOPER: Nic Robertson, appreciate it.
Peter Bergen, as well.
When we come back, we're going to take you on patrol with U.S. forces fighting a very dangerous battle beyond this wire. Stay tuned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPTAIN JASON DYE, U.S. ARMY: Even before I came here, I was like thank God I'm going to Afghanistan. It's going to be safer than Iraq. And now that I've gotten here, I can say for sure it is exactly the opposite of what I thought.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're still out here. We're still doing what we came here in 2001 to actually do.
I went home on leave, I was home on my R&R, and people were asking me, oh, you know, how's Iraq? And after a while, I just got sick of correcting them. I was like, no, I'm in Afghanistan. And people just, again, like I said, people don't realize, you know, Afghanistan is still going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: There are some 20,000 U.S. troops now fighting in Afghanistan and this very much is an unfinished war. The combat is very real.
I went out on patrol with soldiers from the Bravo Company, Third Brigade, 10th Mountain Division. They are engaging with this enemy every day. This forward operating base has taken more incoming rounds than any other base in all of Afghanistan. And they have given as good as they have gotten. They have fired more shells than any other base. Every day, as I said, they are out there engaging the enemy. Out on patrol, we went to find some launch sites used by enemy fighters. We certainly found those and a whole lot more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Captain Jason Dye has served in Iraq, but says his mission in Afghanistan is far more dangerous.
CAPTAIN JASON DYE, U.S. ARMY: Even before I came here, I was like, thank God I'm going to Afghanistan, it's going to be safer than Iraq. And now that I've gotten here, I can say for sure, it is exactly the opposite of what I thought. It is dangerous here. There's a lot of stuff going on.
COOPER: Dye commands Bravo Company, 3rd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division. His base is dangerously close to the Pakistan border.
DYE: This is one of the main infiltration routes for the enemy. They've begun to do a lot more rocket attacks. We used to get a rocket attack maybe once a week. Now it's every other day, every couple of days, every day. And they've resorted to that and IEDs and mines.
COOPER: Captain Dye doesn't know for sure, but he believes Taliban militants are learning how to make IEDs from foreign fighters trained in Iraq.
DYE: There's a trainer coming out here telling them how to do stuff. That's what my intelligence tells me.
COOPER: To stop jihadists and the Taliban from crossing into Afghanistan, Captain Dye and his men routinely patrol the rugged mountains along the border.
(On camera): The problem for the soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division who patrol this area is that this border is really a border in name only. It's incredibly porous. People can move back and forth.
Intelligence sources we've talked to are concerned that now that the Pakistan government has signed a cease-fire deal with Taliban militants that those cross border incursions are only going to increase.
(Voice-over): The soldiers fire mortars to clear areas they've been attacked from in the past.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before they maybe had 30 guys in this whole area. Now I'm estimating they probably got about 250.
COOPER: The terrain is extremely difficult. The slopes, steep; the environment, treacherous.
(On camera): What's so strange when you're on patrol is even if the soldiers don't make contact with the enemy, even if you don't see enemy fighters, you know that they were here. On a lot of the trees you find these, these cross marks or horizontal slashes. They're reference points, helping enemy fighters figure out where to fire rockets that will hit the forward operating base.
(Voice-over): The markings are everywhere. Further up the mountain, the unit checks out a destroyed bunker position.
(On camera): About two weeks ago U.S. helicopters passing over this mountain noticed this bunker. There were fighters inside. They fired rockets, later called in an air strike. It's been destroyed now. But what remains, you can see is well built. These large stones were used to create like a supporting wall. Over here there's some heavy timbers which were probably used to build the roof of the bunker.
Soldiers say as many as 10 or 15 fighters could have used this bunker at any one time.
(Voice-over): From the bunkers' firing position, there is a direct line of sight to Captain Dye's base, but there's no sign enemy fighters have been here recently.
On the way back down, however, the soldiers get some troubling news.
(On camera): The unit has just received some intelligence. And we can't tell you how they received it, but it indicates that there may be fighters in this area. Could mean an ambush, could be just talk, it could be nothing at all. It just means that the soldiers have to be extra vigilant as they head back down the mountain.
(Voice-over): What do you look for?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Movement, personnel. Anybody gathering in a spot that looks odd. People trying to hide in the tree line, that sort of thing. Spotters. Usually the locals don't go up into these hills. If you see someone sitting on them, that's a spotter.
COOPER: On this patrol, however, there are no spotters, no ambush after all. Captain Dye and his men head safely back to base. One mission down, countless more to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I have a family. All of these guys have families. We're out here fighting so that we don't have to do this at home, so that our families can stay safe and that makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you're doing something.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It is not just members of the Taliban that U.S. forces are fighting. They are also facing al Qaeda insurgents, Uzbeks (ph) and Chechens (ph), foreign terrorists, jihadists who have come here to conduct what they consider to be holy war.
When we come back, some of the propaganda that al Qaeda is putting out, showing what they say is a foreign fighter about to commit a suicide bomb attack here in Afghanistan.
We'll have that when "Afghanistan: The Unfinished War" continues.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: If you want to get an Afghan rug, this is the street to come to. Chicken Street. In the 1970s the tourists used to come here. Under the Taliban, it was almost deserted. Now five years on from the Taliban rule, there are plenty of foreigners here. But when the Taliban decided to start striking back, one of the first places they targeted with a suicide bomb was here on Chicken Street, targeting Westerners.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It's not just Taliban militants that U.S. forces are up against here in eastern Afghanistan. It is also al Qaeda jihadists, foreign fighters who come here to conduct what they consider to be holy war.
A tape now has been put out on the Internet by al Qaeda, a well produced, slickly produced tape that purports to show a suicide attack by a foreign fighter here in Afghanistan against U.S. forces.
We have not been able to independently verify that the events you are about to see on this tape took place and took place as described by al Qaeda on the tape. Nevertheless, we are showing them to you because we think it's very instructive as an example of the kind of propaganda that al Qaeda is routinely putting out.
The translation of this tape was provided by MEMRI, which is a monitoring service. Take look and see for yourself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): On the video, we see a man showing off a trunk filled with mortar rounds. Mortars like these are commonly used in suicide car bombs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pray to Allah that this operation will be vengeance upon the American pigs and their apostate collaborator dogs.
COOPER: The would-be suicide bomber, called Abu Muhammad, makes a statement. From a name we hear later on the tape, he appears to be from Yemen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To my family and friends, I say, we will meet in paradise, Allah willing.
COOPER: The video then cuts to inside the bomber's car. A crudely rigged detonator is attached to a wooden board.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will carry out the operation within a few minutes. Test it for the last time, Muhammad. Only 10 minutes left until the operation. What do you feel, Abu Muhammad?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel a great calm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In your heart?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I pray that Allah accepts me. I've never felt so calm in my life.
COOPER: For a brief moment, we see the man who recorded these pictures. He urges the bomber forward.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Allah willing, your prayers and ours will be answered.
COOPER: The two men survey their target. A voice says the vehicles are American.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are the American cars.
COOPER: There is an edit in the tape. Now the suicide bomber is driving on the road, his white car clearly visible.
The video is shot from a distance while the bomber talks to the cameraman on a walkie-talkie.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you see them in front of me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you see the Americans in front of you? Go on a little further, and you will see them in front of you. Abu Muhammad, there are Muslims behind you. Move a little faster. They are in front of you now. Place your trust in Allah, Muhammad. Remember, paradise, my brother. Remember paradise.
COOPER: You can hear the cameraman's heavy breathing, waiting for the explosion.
(EXPLOSION)
COOPER: The U.S. military says it has no record of such an attack. It is not clear whether this video is purely propaganda, or a blend of propaganda and an actual attack. On the tape, the cameraman drives off, rejoicing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Glory to Allah, his prophet, and the believers!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (on camera): Some of the propaganda put out by al Qaeda. Of course, this is not just a military confrontation. This is in many ways a war of ideas, a counterinsurgency. And the U.S. forces here are trying to win over the Afghan population. They do that by building roads and building wells and building schools. The Taliban, of course, targets those schools, as you are about to see when this special edition of 360, "Afghanistan: The Unfinished War," continues.
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ROBERTSON: Back down there, there's two classrooms. They haven't been too badly damaged. This is where the major destruction begins. The roof has been blown off. The walls, completely blown apart. And this appears to be the spot where the explosives were placed. This crater in the ground here, that's where they were placed.
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COOPER: The U.S. military is fighting a counterinsurgency. It is not just a military campaign, it is an effort to win over the local population. And they do that in some case by building schools and wells and roads. In one example here though, a school built by U.S. forces was targeted by Taliban militants.
Once again, here's CNN's Nic Robertson.
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ROBERTSON: If you want to see what the Taliban are attacking, just check out the remnants of this school. The U.S. military had just finished helping fund and get it built. That was several weeks ago when the class was not in session.
LT. DANIEL GORDON, 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION: Once we heard that actual explosives were placed into it, it just -- just kind of took the wind out of all of our sails because we had high hopes for this place.
ROBERTSON: High hopes because the Army is running a counterinsurgency and that means showing Afghans they're here to help. It's exactly what the Taliban is fighting to stop and they're ratcheting up their campaign.
(On camera): Back down there, there's two classrooms. They haven't been too badly damaged. This is where the major destruction begins. The roof has been blown off, the walls completely blown apart. And this appears to be the spot where the explosives were placed. This crater in the ground here, that's where they were placed. Up there, shrapnel splattered on the freshly painted walls.
The Afghan government says this isn't the only school that's been attacked this year. They say so far 150 have either been attacked or threatened. That's a 70 percent increase over last year, they say.
(Voice-over): Soldiers say villagers already offered to help rebuild the school. But ask them who did it, and you can see the Taliban tactics of fear and intimidation are paying off.
GORDON: The villagers haven't said really anything to point it out. You know, they still live in a lot of fear due to the large amount of activities that happen in this area.
ROBERTSON: As we drive towards the nearby town, I see more of the Army's efforts to win the people over.
(On camera): The army is also helping the townspeople build a new road. It's vital to improve the economy and the security. It's classic counterinsurgency techniques, as the Army says, to separate the people from the enemy.
(Voice-over): The center of the town running through the bazaar is now paved, courtesy of U.S. tax dollars. Afghan contractors built it and made money. Everyone seems to have made friends. This is how a counterinsurgency is supposed to work.
(On camera): I notice we're walking around, you're not wearing your body armor here, you've taken your helmet off?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes. None of the local people have it on.
ROBERTSON: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They feel safe enough to be in here. I'm in their community. I'm secure. If they feel secure, then I'm secure.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): According to this trader (ph), everyone does feel secure and is grateful to the U.S. army. I look for another trader (ph) to ask about the school attack and suicide bombers I'm told operate in the area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you, my friend?
ROBERTSON (on camera): Your English is better than mine.
He's very friendly, but will he tell me who's behind the attacks?
God knows better than us, he says. We are scared of them.
Army Translator Asad Ahmadi, an Afghan-American from Glendale, Arizona, has been here two years helping to win the local population over.
Today, handing flyers out, explaining who attacked the school. He understands better than most why people are afraid to talk.
ASAD AHMADI, ARMY TRANSLATOR: The bad guys are here. A lot of people are afraid to do anything about it. They control most of the places around here.
ROBERTSON: With sharp lessons in non-cooperation, it's clear counterinsurgency here is only just beginning and has a long way to go.
Nic Robertson, CNN, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border.
(END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: On that long road there are some people uncomfortable with the new found freedoms here in Afghanistan. Prostitutes, western movies, even music, once outlawed by the Taliban, now for sale in the market. But could those days of freedom soon be over?
The battle over virtue and vice, when this special edition of 360 continues.
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ROBERTSON: Five years ago on September the 11th, this is where I was outside the Afghan Supreme Court. The Taliban court at that time were trying eight Christian aid workers, accused of spreading Christianity.
The war started and eventually the Taliban let them go. But the court now has been faced with a very interesting case recently. That of an Afghan man converting to Christianity. The court that sat in there in the room, just to the right of the building only a few months ago decided because the Afghani converted to Christianity, he should therefore be executed.
The president here, Hamid Karzai, tried to find a way to back out of this awkward issue. What was concluded? The man was declared insane, and then he later moved to Europe.
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COOPER: Welcome back to "Afghanistan: The Unfinished War." The Taliban regime which ruled this country more than five years ago and was driven from power by the United States was brutal. There's no doubt about it. Their abuses of human rights was well documented.
There are many here in Afghanistan, though, who wish the Taliban would come back into power. They see some of the newfound freedoms now in existence in Afghanistan as a threat to Islamic values.
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COOPER (voice-over): The video is grainy, taken surreptitiously in an illegal Kabul brothel. The women are Chinese prostitutes. The men, Afghans and Westerners paying for sex. A brothel in Kabul would have been unthinkable under the oppressive rule of the Taliban. Now it's one sign of just how much here has changed.
In the markets there is music, once outlawed by the Taliban. CDs are everywhere. You can also buy DVDs. Jean-Claude Van Damme is popular. So is American wrestling.
There are beauty parlors and bridal stores, even a modern mall, where 21-year-old Narula (ph) sells perfume.
Under the Taliban, he says, I couldn't have had this business. They would have taken all of this from me. (On camera): Despite Democratic reforms and newfound freedoms, Afghanistan remains a very strict Islamic society and many people here are simply uncomfortable with the pace of social change. There is widespread corruption, the drug trade is booming and the Taliban is on the rise.
Now the government of Hamid Karzai is threatening to crack down. Police are raiding restaurants that are accused of serving alcohol to Afghans. They've arrested dozens of suspected Chinese prostitutes and now they're threatening to bring back a government ministry, which under the Taliban became synonymous with human rights abuses, the so- called Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Discouragement of Vice.
(Voice-over): Under the Taliban, the vice and virtue police patrolled the streets, enforcing strict, sometimes arbitrary Islamic law. Women could be beaten if their ankles or wrists were visible. Men could be arrested if their beards were too short.
The government minister who would be in charge of the new vice and virtue department insists the mistakes of the past won't be repeated.
We wouldn't be punishing anyone, he says. All we'll do is advise people and show them the right way.
While most Afghans are outraged by the growing corruption and illegal activity, some are afraid the move to police morals will once again go too far.
The Taliban doesn't have a presence here, she says, but their mentality is present here. Members of the parliament have a Taliban mentality. Sometimes they're worse than the Taliban.
Malica Deama Amene (ph) was whipped by the Taliban and worries the few rights Afghan women have won in recent years may now be in jeopardy.
Women are still scared of intimidation, she says. They don't feel comfortable when they are outside. Afghan women haven't received 10 percent of their rights.
While the resurgence of the Taliban is not yet a threat to the democratically elected government of Hamid Karzai, it may yet threaten many of the freedoms that have come along with it.
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COOPER (on camera): So just how powerful is this Taliban resurgence and where are their followers? When we come back from the break, we take you to the streets where the Taliban brazenly walked and even threatened our cameramen. It's not even in Afghanistan. Wait until you see where they are lurking, when this special edition of 360 continues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They also started resorting to, which was a new phenomenon in this area in the suicide killings.
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COOPER: The Afghan government has little control over this part of eastern Afghanistan. The same can be said of the Pakistan government's control of the tribal areas just over the border. Both are breeding grounds for the Taliban, as CNN's Nic Robertson found out firsthand.
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ROBERTSON (voice-over): Watch as this man threatens our cameramen. He and his friends don't want to be filmed. It's un- Islamic, they say. Off camera they describe themselves as Afghan Taliban.
But these streets they brazenly stroll are not in Afghanistan. This is Quetta, a major Pakistani city close to the Afghan border. Exactly what is happening here is explained to me by Pakistani Journalist Amir Mir.
MIR: Pakistan is essentially for the Taliban. Almost their entire leadership of Taliban is hiding in Quetta.
ROBERTSON: In Pakistan.
(On camera): In Afghanistan American intelligence officials say the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, is also living in Quetta.
In London, senior British government officials say they are angry Pakistan has not rounded up the Taliban leadership who they say are planning and plotting and getting stronger from the safety of Pakistan.
(Voice-over): Tensions are mounting. The British and American death toll at the hands of the Taliban is rocketing. Talking to Pakistani officials, I realize nothing incenses them more than insinuations they turn a blind eye to the very men who kill their coalition partners across the border.
SULTAN: Let me make it very clear, that whosoever says Mullah Omar is in Pakistan, we would very clearly like to know the evidence so that we can move against it.
ROBERTSON: But the Pakistanis are moving against some Taliban in a way you wouldn't expect, by making peace with them.
(On camera): Roughly, how many soldiers do you have on each border checkpoint?
To get the details, I head to Pakistan's tribal border area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm able to indicate to you the border once we go up there.
ROBERTSON: The general in charge tells me the Taliban he targets are homegrown Pakistani Taliban. And it's costing his soldiers dearly. Hundreds have been killed.
GEN. AZHAR, PAKISTANI ARMY: At night they will put some IEDs on the road. And later on, once the, one of the comrades is going, they will just blast it off from the remote control.
ROBERTSON: The Pakistani Taliban have been releasing attack videos reminiscent of Iraqi insurgent propaganda. Even their terror tactics like IEDs seemed honed in Iraq.
AZHAR: They also started resorting to -- which was a new phenomenon in this area -- to the suicide killing.
ROBERTSON: In this mountainous border area, where U.S. troops say Pakistani Taliban regularly cross into Afghanistan, Pakistani officials say Pakistani Taliban are growing ever more popular. So they decided to negotiate, not fight.
(On camera): The Pakistani government is very keen to show the world that its new deal with the tribes in north Waziristan can work, that they can effectively put an end to any Taliban cross border raids going into Afghanistan.
LT. GEN. ALI MUHAMMAD, NW FRONTIER PROVINCE GOVERNOR: We have not struck the deal with the Taliban. It is with the -- all the tribes of north Waziristan agency, which includes Taliban also because they're living there, they're the people of that area.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): The governor tells me, Pakistan will strike more deals like this. It seems they are taking care of their own problems first, apparently ignoring the Afghan Taliban on their soil.
Indeed, Pakistani officials claim they can't spot them among the quarter million Afghan refugees they say are in Quetta.
SULTAN: Who is Taliban amongst them and who's not Taliban amongst them? You can't differentiate because everyone is having the same beard, the same turban, the same dress.
ROBERTSON: Such cooperation hardly orders well for the next five years. Afghan or Pakistani, all Taliban have a common ideology -- driving Americans and other Westerners out of Afghanistan.
Nic Robertson, CNN, along the Pakistan-Afghan border.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: I want to thank the soldiers of Bravo Company, Third Brigade, of the 10th Mountain Division for hosting us here at their forward operating base along the Pakistan border.
And thank you for watching this special edition of 360, "Afghanistan: The Unfinished War."
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