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CNN Live Saturday

Hundreds of Taliban Soldiers Surrender at Konduz

Aired November 24, 2001 - 17:01   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: Well, as we've been reporting, it's been a busy day on the road out of Konduz. Hundreds of Taliban troops are leaving the city to give up to the Northern Alliance as a surrender deadline looms. But not all are giving up peacefully. There was violent incident near Mazar-e-Sharif.

ITN's Tim Ewart has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TIM EWART, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Taliban are giving up in their hundreds. This convoy pulled out of the besieged northern town of Konduz. Fighters taking with them vehicles and heavy armor to surrender to the Northern Alliance. Many have switched sides.

Their reception was a warm one. These are Afghan-Taliban. And the alliance reserve their hatred for troops from abroad.

Taliban weapons were discarded and dumped in heaps on the ground, a symbol of defeat. But there was still tension. One prisoner of war detonated a hand grenade, killing himself and two others.

The Northern Alliance was strengthening its grip across Afghanistan today, as resistance by the Taliban continued to crumble. These troops gathered in the village of Mydanshah (ph), about 20 miles south of Kabul. They've been fighting a renegade band of Taliban in the mountains, pounding their positions with tanks and artillery fire.

The alliance commander, Haji Shurra Alam (ph) told me he'd attack if the Taliban didn't surrender. But in Afghanistan, such matters are seldom simple. Some of these alliance troops are ethnic Pashtuns. Others are Tajiks. And it appeared the Taliban would deal only with one faction of the alliance forces.

Eventually, negotiations on a distant hilltop reached agreement. Truckloads of soldiers were sent in to organize the collection of Taliban weapons, which included some artillery pieces.

At the same time, a mountain road closed by the hostilities was opened. And civilians trapped in the crossfire were finally allowed to escape.

(on camera): The Taliban have kept this road closed for many days. It is now open. Where the Taliban fighters have themselves gone still isn't clear, but what we've learned here is how easily fighting can break out at any time at anyplace.

The alliance sealed the road to journalists trying to go in. Some Taliban, they explained, were still armed and still dangerous.

Tim Ewart, ITN, Madan Shahr, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: In a fast-moving war, a slow surrender in Konduz.

Joining us now from Washington to talk about that is General Donald Shepperd, our military analyst. Let me ask you, first of all, what does Konduz look like to you?

MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Konduz looks more like a frat party than a surrender, but I tell you it's a serious surrender going on there. The weapons are being discarded by the Taliban. The Taliban are being welcomed by the Northern Alliance and opposition forces that they just fought for the last few days and weeks. And the surrender seems to be fairly ordinary.

Now we're learning, interestingly enough, if there's two types of Taliban. The good Taliban, that's the ones that are being allowed to throw down their weapons and go back unarmed to their homes, and then the bad Taliban, which are the ones that are the serious Taliban close to al Qaeda. And then there's a third type of fighter, which is the foreign fighters. And we have not received any reports of those people surrendering at this point.

But they're all being taken west of Herat to be disarmed, surrendered and sorted. And the United States and its coalition really want to talk to a lot of these people and get information from them.

MANN: There have been reports about the men you identify as the third group of Taliban fighters, those from countries other than Afghanistan, being ferried out of the country, in particular Pakistan fighters going to Pakistan by some kind of unofficial air lift. That report has come more than once. It has been denied, we should point out, by the Pentagon over and over again, most recently in just the last few hours.

Let me ask you two questions. Why would Pakistan want to do that? And how can any one be sure it's not happening?

SHEPPERD: Well, let me go to the telestrater here and show you a couple things there, Jonathan. Up in the Konduz area, basically Konduz is surrounded on four sides. Also, United States Air Force and coalition airplanes are watching it with radar. So nothing can get in there without being seen.

It's also a long way over here to Pakistan. And the only way out is to up into Tajikistan, over into the Kashmir area. And that's a long way to walk.

Now if you're going fly out of there, we'll be able to see any airplanes that come in. And the United States has to be complicit in allowing those airplanes to come in and also to take off.

I doubt very seriously that we would allow that. And the Pakistanis might have interest in getting Pakistan citizens out of there, even if they're on the wrong side of the war. Probably protect their citizens would be a good guess.

MANN: General, there are only two cities on the map that you've got. One of them is Konduz. And the other is Kandahar. Those are the only two cities where the Taliban are really in strength, still dug into position. Konduz, it looks like, is going to fall one way or another within the foreseeable future.

Tell us about Kandahar? What's ahead there?

SHEPPERD: Yes, Kandahar is the next big prize. And let me go do a playback, if you can, that we can take a look at that, that we telestrated before.

What's going take place is forces are going to move from the Northern Alliance south and east out of Herat and also southwest out of Kabul. They will be supported by air power from the United States and the coalition forces. The prize being the Kandahar area there. That's the last remaining city after Konduz falls.

Now this is the traditional stronghold of the Taliban. And a lot of the Taliban are going to be going from the city of Kandahar up into the mountains, and probably hiding for guerrilla warfare. Also, remember from Kabul down to Kandahar is about 280 miles. From Herat down to Kandahar is about 350 miles.

That's a long way through bad guy territory, especially when the Taliban can escape to the hills and can attack the convoys that will be necessary to move over those roads. If a fight develops, it could be very ugly, the journey to Kandahar and the fight for the city itself.

Now what seems to be taking place is a great deal of effort to make sure that a fight does not take place, but rather that Kandahar is surrendered just like Konduz has surrendered. The Pashtun tribal chiefs basically being -- having Kandahar handed over to him by Mullah Omar.

The question is, is this going to work? We'll see. It's probably going to take a week or two to play out.

MANN: Let me ask you more about that very subject. Because the air attacks have been so effective, it would seem to a non-soldier like there really hasn't been the kind of ground fighting that many people feared the Northern Alliance would need to defeat the Taliban. Could this really all end without ever seeing the Taliban make a serious stand in any city? SHEPPERD: That is an excellent point. What we've seen is the effectiveness of modern air power on one side, having air supremacy. And the other side not having any air power available at all. And what we've seen is no set peace battle, no fight to the finish, if you will. And that could be that in Konduz tomorrow we will see that with the foreign fighters in there.

But on the other hand, we could see an entire country taken essentially by air power and special forces action, combined with the ground action of the Northern Alliance and its opposition forces. And yet, no huge fight having taken place. This could happen.

MANN: General Shepperd, thanks very much.

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