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CNN Live At Daybreak
America Strikes Back: Taliban Escort Journalists Through Village Supposedly Hit by American Bombs
Aired October 15, 2001 - 07:15 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to go inside Afghanistan now. The Taliban claim U.S.-led air strikes killed 200 people in the village of Koram. Over the weekend, the Taliban took a group of journalists to see that village.
CNN's Nic Robertson was among them. Even though the Taliban are escorting the journalists, Nic's reporting was not restricted in any way. Here is his exclusive report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a rundown hospital in Jalalabad, 1 1/2-year-old Azibullah (ph) clings to his father, Achmed Zai (ph). Achmed says he remembers hearing the call to prayer early Thursday morning. Then, he says, planes started dropping bombs. His four other sons died in the attack, he says, and his wife was also injured.
In the bed next to him, Mohammed Shah Khan (ph) has a similar story. His wife died in the bombing raid. All he has left, he says, is his 3-month-old daughter Allie (ph).
In the next ward, Samina (ph) sits silently waiting. Doctors say her parents were killed in the same raid on the village of Koram.
And so the patient list goes on. Rachmed Barby (ph) also orphaned in the Koram raid, according to doctors.
UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: I think that the first time wounded, the number of persons came, injured people came last (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was 28, 28. And we are doing that in the hospital. And today we just started picking up the list of injured thus far.
ROBERTSON: In Koram, anger over the attack is still palpable and so, too, memories in this village where 90 percent of the houses appeared destroyed still fresh.
Masdoud (ph) describes how he escaped the bombing. "My boys went in this house here and I went there. My three brothers and mother are dead."
The hunt for the living is more or less over, even though some villagers still sift through the debris. All around, dead livestock add to the stench in the air. A hundred yards away, an unexploded bomb juts out of the ground, evidence, villagers say, they were attacked by Americans. Others display bomb fragments, for them, more justification to hate America.
Journalists were brought here by the Taliban. But the anger among the villagers seems authentic to reporters experienced in Afghanistan. And the number of bomb craters and variety of armaments seen here suggests this was not an error.
The Pentagon won't comment on specific targets. But it says it has strived to avoid targeting civilians, aiming only at the stronghold of the Taliban, or Al Qaeda. Asked if the hard to reach hillside cluster of houses could have been mistaken for a terrorist training camp, the answer a firm no.
"Does Osama use these field tools and are these Osama's clothes?" Seagoul (ph) says, passing up items from the devastation around him.
Keen to leave no stone unturned in their efforts to prove their innocence, villagers unearthed the remains of what they said was a girl. Several dozen fresh graves now litter the almost totally destroyed village. Many others, villagers say, have been buried elsewhere.
(on camera): Taliban officials and local leaders say 200 people died here and while it is impossible to independently verify such figures, it is clear the attacks have greatly fueled anti-American sentiment in the area.
(voice-over): In nearby villages, demonstrators come out to protest in front of international journalists. "Death to Bush! Death to Tony Blair!" the cry. And while noisy, they appear readily controlled by the Taliban, able to show the support they command.
UNIDENTIFIED AFGHANI: Yes, all the people is so angry about it and so angry about that action, maybe that people that they injured and dead, they are common people, not belongs to the Al Qaeda Arabic people.
ROBERTSON: At the request of journalists, Taliban officials did show the pinpoint accuracy of American missiles. The radar at Jalalabad Airport, they say, took a direct hit the first night of the strikes. The airport is now out of action, the Taliban airport commander says, because communications are also down.
Away from targets, life appears to have some normality. In downtown Jalalabad, most stores are open and fuel readily available at the pumps. While some people are still heading to the countryside for safety, a very senior Taliban official announced that after the first week of strikes, they have widespread popular support. Few in this area appear ready to argue with that view.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
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