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CNN Live Saturday

Taliban Soldiers Surrender in Konduz

Aired November 24, 2001 - 15:00   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.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: Now more details on the Taliban surrenders that are taking place in Northern Afghanistan by the truckloads. Taliban fighters are leaving Konduz and giving themselves up to the Northern Alliance. But hundreds of other Taliban troops are believed to be preparing to fight to the death to try to keep control of the city.

CNN's Satinder Bindra is in northern Afghanistan. And he has the latest on the situation there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the surrender that at times looked more like a circus. An estimated 500 Afghan-Taliban fighters drove into Northern Alliance territory, to be greeted as heroes.

They were literally mobbed by their former enemies, who pushed each other aside just to shake hands. There's a reason for all this joy. Northern Alliance soldiers believe this large-scale defection will encourage hundreds of other Taliban fighters to follow.

It's clear fighters on both sides are emotionally charged. For weeks, they've been firing at each other. Now they have a chance to survive.

It's a feeling that overwhelms Taliban tank driver Gul Mir.

GUL MIR, TALIBAN TANK DRIVER (through translator): Anything the Northern Alliance wants me to do, I am ready to accept it.

BINDRA: All these surrendering fighters are Afghans. Most owe allegiance to an Afghan warlord, Mullah Hamidullah (ph). They'll soon be disarmed. The Northern Alliance says the men will be trucked back to their home provinces.

(on camera): Many of these Afghan-Taliban fighters say they surrendered because they just couldn't take the heavy U.S. aerial bombardment anymore. They say it demoralized them. Now these Afghan- Taliban fighters say they're willing fight with the Northern Alliance against the remaining Taliban fighters in Konduz.

(voice-over): So far, no indications the Northern Alliance will accept the offer. These Northern Alliance soldiers estimate there are more than 10,000 Taliban fighters still trapped in Konduz. More than 3,000 of them are believed to be Chechens, Arabs and Pakistanis. So far, those fighters aren't like these Afghans, have shown little inclination to surrender.

For those Taliban who don't surrender by Sunday, the Northern Alliance promises an attack by this armored column.

MIR (through translator): I'm not scared of these people. Whatever God wants, I will accept.

BINDRA: Tank driver Gul Mir doesn't really care what happens in Konduz now. He's starting a new life and says he's not scared of the Northern Alliance because they, like him, are Afghans.

These fighters say they don't feel like traitors. Switching sides in war, they say, is an old Afghan tradition. Besides, for them, the war is finally over.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, Banghi (ph), northern Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: We want to talk more about the Taliban surrender in Konduz and what does it mean for the opposition. CNN's military analyst Major General Don Shepperd joins us now from Washington.

General, to look at it, it seems casual, friendly, even festive. Is this kind of surrender standard operating procedure for armies around the world? Or is there something more going on here or something less?

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE: Jonathan, we've learned that nothing in Afghanistan should surprise us. We see our special forces troops in there, American special forces troops with space-age gadgets hanging over them and then riding into battle with the Northern Alliance on horseback. There's nothing that surprises us.

But quite frankly, what's taken place here is a fairly orderly surrender. The troops, the Taliban are surrendering. They are being disarmed and taken to an area west of Mazar-e-Sharif, where they are being again interrogated and sorted into what I will call the local Taliban of being released to their villages and then also interrogated for the hardcore Taliban and any foreign troops that may be amongst them.

So far, no foreign troops amongst them. So it's fairly orderly so far. The big test comes tomorrow when supposedly the surrender is supposed to take place. And if the surrender doesn't, then a battle to the finish for those remaining.

MANN: Now we're watching the Afghan troops come across whether by truck or on foot the old-fashioned way. You're talking about the foreign troops. And let me ask you about that.

There you are persistent reports that in fact foreign troops have been air lifted out of the country. The Pentagon, we should note, is denying this. But is it possible that as has been reported, Pakistan is flying some of his nationals, perhaps even Pakistani agents out of Afghanistan, into Pakistan, and others may be doing something similar?

SHEPPERD: Well, let me go to a telestrator if I can and show you again where Konduz is and talk about it. Konduz is surrounded on four sides by troops of the Northern Alliance. There is no way out by road. And there's no way out by air, unless the U.S. and its coalition partners allow it.

We have radar surveillance of this entire area. We are watching it. So if any airplane's coming in there, we will know it. And if any airplane is allowed to land, it's because we as a U.S. and coalition allow them to land.

Now reports are the Pentagon has vehemently denied this. Again, nothing surprises me in Afghanistan. And also, there's lots going on with the CIA and what have you, but I would be very, very surprised if the United States is allowing foreign troops, who we want interned and moved to a neutral country under U.N. auspices if at all possible, allow them to escape. It doesn't seem plausible to me.

MANN: OK, let me ask you about something else. It's an apparently friendly time around Konduz, but there are still enemies of the United States on the loose. They're believed to be in the caves around Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden among them. What's being done to look through those caves?

SHEPPERD: Well, again, if I could go to another map here and show you another map. This is the area that goes from the Kabul area down to Kandahar. And if you'll notice, the troops now, the Northern Alliance has to move down toward Kandahar if they're going to take Kandahar. And look at where they have to go, along these roads with high mountains on either side.

And when they come from Herat, the same thing, high mountains along the way. All of these mountainous areas provide a very good place for retreating Taliban to hide for guerrilla pockets. There's going to be a lot of cleaning up in all of these areas.

So naturally, we are looking at all these caves. I think, however, there's been one mistaken impression given. And that is that we're going cave to cave. We can't go cave to cave. There's thousands of caves in this area.

We have to focus our censors on this smaller area south of Kabul, in the Kandahar area, and south of Jalalabad to look for action around certain caves. And then we go in against them with bunker busters and perhaps even troops on the ground, but we can't go cave by cave in there.

MANN: Let me ask you more about that map that you were just showing to us, because as I was looking at your drawing, you're drawing almost parallel lines with the border with Pakistan. What are the chances are that Osama bin Laden is somewhere there, close enough to Kandahar and close enough to Pakistan that either of those places represent options for them?

SHEPPERD: Yes, going back to the map here. Here's an area that we are being told right now is heavy activity in an area called Torah Borah (ph), that's to the southwest of Jalalabad. They have a saying that there's a lot of Arab fighters in that area and lots of caves that bin Laden has used before. So I'm sure we're focusing our censors on that area to take a hard, hard look for him.

Remember, the Taliban are retreating to all of these areas. And we are getting intelligence from those that are defecting. We're looking for these hardcore al Qaeda cells and the foreign fighters that might know the whereabouts of bin Laden, so that we can focus on an area with a focused operation, with lots of people, rather than sending a few teams from cave to cave, which is going to take a long time and be very unproductive.

MANN: A lot of people, a lot of weapons are in motion right now, but there's one weapon in particular that is so singular that on the few occasions when it's actually used, we draw attention to it. So let's do that once again now, because I gather the "daisy cutter" was used once again this week. Can you tell us about that?

SHEPPERD: Yes, the BLU-82 is a concussion bomb, a 15,000-pound concussion bomb dropped out of the back of C-130s.

I was on some missions where it was used in Vietnam to clear helicopter landing areas. It's very powerful. Theoretically, at least, it decimates everything within a 600-yard area of the impact zone.

The whole idea is concussion. Now you normally employ it against a target. In other words, troops that would be in trenches near the surface, that type of thing. It also has psychological effect.

Possibly, one of the reasons for dropping it in Kandahar is that there was a troop concentration. Another one is to say psychologically, "Here we come and there's a lot more of these coming unless you all work out a solution for Kandahar and turn the city over."

MANN: General Shepperd, thanks so much for talking with us once again.

SHEPPERD: You bet.

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