Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Saturday

Taliban Fighters Surrender by Hundreds at Konduz

Aired November 24, 2001 - 18:01   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: Now more details on the Taliban surrenders that are taking place in northern Afghanistan. By the hundreds, 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 Alessio Vinci has the latest from Mazar-e Sharif, where many of the Taliban prisoners are being taken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The surrender took place in the middle of the desert some five hours away from Konduz. Four truckloads of Taliban fighters give themselves up, the trucks packed tight.

(on camera): Northern Alliance commanders say a total of 400 Taliban fighters have surrendered. Among them only 30 are Taliban fighters from Afghanistan. All the others are from abroad -- Pakistan, Chechnya and Saudi Arabia.

(voice-over): Those are the so-called foreign fighters linked to the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.

Flanked by U.S. special forces, Northern Alliance General Abdul Rashid Dostum had promised the Taliban in Konduz would surrender to his troops. He says the Taliban will be dealt with fairly.

"We will invite the U.N. representatives, and we'll hand over the prisoners to them," he says. "They are not Afghan, but foreign terrorists, and the U.N. will decide."

For now, the U.N. office in Mazar-e Sharif remains closed. The prisoners were taken through town as thousands watched. Then taken to this fortress like compound near by, one of General Dostum's leading quarters.

(on camera): The prisoners will now be thoroughly searched. Although they have given up all of their weapons, the commanders here are telling us that some of them may have kept hand grenades and use them as a suicide bomb.

(voice-over): Northern Alliance soldiers confiscate all of the Taliban's personal belongings, including copy of the Koran, flashlights, batteries and money.

Some of the prisoners began praying. Others appeared cold and scared. Then, what Northern Alliance commanders feared -- one of the prisoners who had not yet been searched managed to detonate a hand grenade, killing himself and two other Taliban fighters. A Northern Alliance commander was also seriously injured. A sign that for many of these soldiers here surrender does not necessarily mean giving up.

Alessio Vinci, CNN, Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com