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CNN Live At Daybreak

As Airstrikes Continue, Others Gather in Pakistan to Discuss Post-Taliban Afghan Government

Aired October 25, 2001 - 05:12   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: On the military front, the campaign against Afghanistan does go on this morning. U.S.-led air strikes hit the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, targeting a fuel storage facility outside the city. And as we just heard, U.S. fighter jets have been targeting the Afghan capital of Kabul and Taliban military positions along the front lines there north of the city.

Our Chris Burns is in northern Afghanistan with more -- Chris, what can you tell us about these latest strikes?

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, those strikes occurred overnight. A number of bombs dropped along the front between here and Kabul. In fact, that front is just over my shoulder. It's before that mountain range. Right along there is Bagrham Airport and the town of Bagrham. That is where the front line runs right through and that's where the air strikes occurred overnight as well as in the past five days, where the U.S.-led campaign is now trying to soften up Taliban positions, apparently to no avail. The Northern Alliance has yet to advance along that front and we've heard some very intense mortar and machine gun fire in the last hour or so. So tensions remain high along there. And we also heard some jets flying overhead crisscrossing in the last hour. However, no bombs dropped yet.

Let me give you a little bit more of a geography look here. Is, if you look over this way, that is the road to Kabul. It's about 25 miles to the south. That is where we've seen some of the shooting going on as well, some of the bombing last night, as well. And the mountain range over here is where the Taliban are also dug in. That is where they lob rockets and mortar down on villages like this one and another one further down about five minutes from here, where two people were killed in a rocket attack by the Taliban.

So that fighting goes on. The tensions go on here. And also fighting in the north, where air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition have pounded away at Taliban positions in Samangan (ph) and Balk Province (ph). That is along the road to Mazar-e-Sharif, the strategic town the Northern Alliance is trying to fight its way to. However, it's getting bogged down despite the air strikes. They're making very little progress. The Taliban are putting up a heavy fight not only up there, but down here -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Chris, a quick weather question for you. We keep hearing about this harsh Afghanistan winter yet here we are at the end of October and I can't help but notice that today on this bright, sunny day, you're in a short sleeved shirt.

BURNS: Well, it's a bit of a blip, if you could believe me. This does look more like the Mojave Desert than it does winter. But it has been deteriorating in recent days. We've been, we got our first fierce thunderstorm and very, cold rain a few days ago. So it is overall deteriorating. This is just a bit of a blip in the deteriorating weather and that, of course, is making it -- going to make it hard for the fighters on the ground as well as for the hundreds of thousands of refugees who are on the move, displaced people across the country, especially in some of those rugged mountains to the north of us -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Ah, so I guess we're just getting a glimpse of Indian summer Afghanistan style, one last little breath of warm weather.

Chris Burns in northern Afghanistan.

BURNS: You can call it that.

KAGAN: Yes, thank you.

BURNS: That's right.

HARRIS: All right, let's travel now just south of Chris. Let's go over the border for the latest on the air raids there in Afghanistan. Let's check in with our Nic Robertson, who lies on the other side of the Taliban controlled territory from Chris Burns.

Nic checks in now from Islamabad, Pakistan -- hello, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.

Well, our staff in Kandahar say there were bombing raids in that city overnight. They say this morning they went out to a bus depot on the northern side of Kandahar. They say at 4:00 a.m. in the morning they were told that a bus there was hit. They say they saw this bus. The front of it was damaged. And they say they saw two people who had been killed on that bus.

Now, this was a bus that they were told was getting ready to depart for about a 16 hour road drive all the way up 300 miles north to Kabul. They also talked with a surgeon, they say, in the hospital in Kandahar. He said six other bystanders were killed. Our staff there also say overnight that they believed fuel supplies around the city of Kandahar were hit, as well.

Here in Pakistan, however, there have been political efforts underway to try and find a new political solution for Afghanistan once the Taliban are removed. About 600 or 700 tribal, religious and former military commanders from Afghanistan just wrapped up a meeting in the last hour or so, about three hours drive west of here in the border city of Pashawar.

Now, at the end of that meeting, they called for several things. They've called for peace in Afghanistan. They have called for the new political dispensation to be agreed by what they call a loya jirga. Now, this is the traditional Afghan way of bringing together all different forms of opinion. And essentially it calls for a larger group similar to the one that has just been meeting. It'll be religious leaders. It'll be tribal leaders. It'll be political leaders. And what they want to see is all those people come together to put forward a new platform for Afghanistan.

The political platform they've been articulating so far is that the former king, Zahir Shah, should lead an interim government, that there should be a new constitution for Afghanistan, an Islamic constitution, they say, that there should be a U.N. representation in Afghanistan. And they say that the U.N. contingent should be drawn from Muslim countries.

Interestingly, also, Leon, they said that there should be space in the new political makeup of Afghanistan for what they term as moderate Taliban leaders -- Leon.

HARRIS: Nic, let me ask you, did that group there have a stance on exactly, on the U.S.' participation in these air strikes in Afghanistan right now? It seems rather odd, some of the language I've heard has been somewhat negative toward the U.S. even though had not this bombing begun they wouldn't even be sitting together talking about a peaceful solution in the first place.

ROBERTSON: Indeed, that does seem to be somewhat at odds with the position that they have taken on the United States' bombing. The majority feeling inside Afghanistan and in that particular border region of Pakistan -- and a lot of these leaders have been drawn from inside Afghanistan -- is the feeling there is that there have been too many civilian casualties. And really a lot of people, analysts, politicians here in Pakistan are saying look, you know, we believe that we could prize away a more moderate element from the Taliban, create shifts, create splits in the Taliban, create splits in the rural communities who support the Taliban if only there weren't these civilian casualties.

They say the fact that the Afghan nation feels as if it is being attacked as a nation rather than the Taliban is causing it to bind together as a nation and around the Taliban. And really that's what's coming out of this group, political aspirations, but the feeling that it's Afghanistan and Afghan people that are suffering, and that's causing them to bind together behind the Taliban and making the job of trying to get a new political dispensation free from hard-line Taliban elements very, very difficult at this time -- Leon.

HARRIS: Boy, they've got a full plate ahead of them, that's for sure.

Nic Robertson, thank you very much. We will talk with you later on, of course, much throughout the day. Be good -- Daryn.

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