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CNN Live At Daybreak

Taliban Leaves Kabul in Small Groups

Aired November 13, 2001 - 06:30   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right now let's check in with our Tom Mintier who is in Islamabad, Pakistan this morning. He's got the latest word now on the words coming from Pakistan on Taliban leaving Kabul and the Taliban -- it's actually Taliban ambassador to Pakistan leaving Pakistan, which happened in the recent hours.

Tom checks in now. Tom.

TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Leon, the political situation is cloudy at best. The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan departed several hours ago for Kandahar along with his deputy ambassador and several others from the embassy. They were seen leaving both from the residence and from the embassy itself.

But whether they have withdrawn their ambassador remains to be seen. The ambassador simply saying that he was going back to Kandahar for consultations. Here at the foreign ministry some very strong words against the Northern Alliance, a warning not to occupy Kabul, that a political solution needs to be what takes place. Also calling on the United Nations and the Security Council to put a peacekeeping force on the ground and basically be the government in Afghanistan until a political solution can be put into place.

So Pakistan is waiting to see how the situation develops. No indications yet that the Northern Alliance despite the fact that they have entered Kabul have called on basically creating a government and wanting to send ambassadors to places like Pakistan and elsewhere. So far that development has not happened.

Now the president and the foreign minister are in route back to Pakistan arriving here much later tonight. The president was in New York for the U.N. meeting and all of these developments occurred while he was in the air before stopping in the United Kingdom and then coming on here to Islamabad late tonight. So he will arrive back in Pakistan with a major development on his plate with the Northern Alliance going in and basically taking over Kabul.

Leon.

HARRIS: Tom, let me ask you about -- one question I heard in that press conference that we were covering, just about 25 or 30 minutes or so ago. I heard the word betrayal of Pakistan by the U.S. That idea introduced a couple of times there. Do you have a sense there that that's the movement the Northern Alliance has made now into Kabul as being interpreted that way?

MINTIER: Well, I think that word, betrayal, was used by a reporter in the audience. It was definitely not used by the spokesman for the foreign ministry. It was used once or twice and actually the spokesman got a little angry moving on from that question saying the language used was simply too strong.

There may be concern behind the scenes by Pakistani officials that the United States indeed bombed the Taliban positions, allowing the door to Kabul to open up and for the opportunism to occur here militarily for these units of the Northern Alliance to move forward despite the promises by the political leadership of the Northern Alliance that that would not take place.

Well it has taken place and that really can't change the situation now, but the word betrayal was not used by the foreign ministry spokesman. That was from a reporter in the audience.

HARRIS: Exactly. I'm glad you clarified that because that was -- that definitely was the case. One final word, if you can give us right now, on the perception there about whether or not a humanitarian crisis is actually going to develop because of this Northern Alliance move into Kabul. There was some concern about that.

MINTIER: Well, the situation is extremely fluid and with the Taliban moving out of the cities and into the hills, it may make it actually easier for the humanitarian organizations to redouble their efforts to move food back across the borders and into Afghanistan because it's quite possible that the air campaign may take a pause now that the Northern Alliance is basically established a presence in the populated areas, if indeed the Taliban has withdrawn to non-populated areas, the humanitarian assistance may be able to move forward.

Now we also should point out that the eight international aid workers who were being held in Kabul are basically being put on trial for preaching Christianity, were loaded up in the middle of the night, according to one of the person's father -- one of the Americans that is being detained there, was informed by the Taliban that they, for their own protection, moved them to Kandahar. So they apparently moved out with the Taliban in the middle of the night and those eight international aid workers, four from Germany, two from Australia, and two Americans are now probably in Kandahar still with the Taliban.

HARRIS: I'm glad you mentioned that Tom. There are a lot of questions that still are circling around that situation there with those aid workers. We'll get back to that a little bit later on. Tom Mintier reporting live for us this morning from Islamabad. Thank you.

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