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CNN Live At Daybreak

Taliban Claims 2 U.S. Helicopters Shot Down as It Accuses U.S. of "Genocide"

Aired October 22, 2001 - 08:13   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: Next, back to the war front. The Taliban say they shot down a pair of U.S. choppers. The Pentagon says that is an absolute lie.

CNN's Walter Rodgers in Islamabad, Pakistan with that development.

Walter, what's the latest from there?

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Paula.

Well the latest from here is that the Taliban has just indicted the United States for alleged genocide. A few moments ago Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan held a news conference in which he ranted and raved about the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan.

He said Afghan villages are being obliterated. He started citing more and more alleged civilian casualties, and he said the United States is targeting the Afghan people in terrorism merely because he said the Afghan people have embraced an Islamic system of government.

And then he gave us the latest Taliban allegation of this so- called genocide.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ABDUL SALAM ZAEEF, TALIBAN AMBASSADOR TO PAKISTAN (through translator): So far, 1,000 Afghan innocent civilians have been killed by American air raids, these include men, women and children.

Today 100 bed hospital in Herat was bombed by American and British planes. More than 100 people are reported to have been martyred.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

RODGERS: Abdul Salam Zaeef flatly contradicted Pentagon claims that the United States has lost no military aircraft to hostile fire over Afghanistan. He repeated the Taliban claims that over the weekend, two U.S. helicopters were allegedly shot down and earlier this morning in Kandahar in Afghanistan, the Taliban invited a CNN news team with a video camera to look at what the Taliban says is the under carriage of one of the helicopters allegedly shot down.

Where is the rest of the helicopter? Where is the smoking gun? The Taliban would not show the CNN news team that. They said that the helicopter came down in a minefield, and it would be too dangerous to allow video pictures of the alleged helicopter shootdown.

One of the other aspects of that was that the Taliban said even if it took a news team out into the field in which the helicopter was allegedly shot down, the news team might be targeted by U.S. aircraft passing overhead.

Again, we have no independent confirmation of either the helicopter shootdown or independent confirmation that a hospital in Afghanistan was killed as Abdul Salam -- was hit killing 100 people . As Abdul Salam Zaeef said. Again, some of this may clearly be designed to boost Taliban morale because the United States has so pummeled them with bombs over the -- more than two weeks now.

That being the case, Taliban may be reaching for any possible straw they can grasp at to boost their own morale at this point, thus they show you four wheels off what's said to be a U.S. helicopter.

Paula.

ZAHN: Water Rodgers, thanks so much for that update, appreciate it.

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