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CNN Live At Daybreak
Taliban Forces Have Withdrawn from Kabul as Northern Alliance Moves In
Aired November 13, 2001 - 08:04 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: Now, it's back to lightening-fast developments in Afghanistan. In a stunning retreat, Taliban forces have withdrawn from Kabul as the Northern Alliance moves in.
CNN's Matthew Chance is one of the very few Western reporters in the Afghan capital. He is watching the dramatic events unfold. He joins us now, by phone, from Kabul.
Matthew, what is the latest from there?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (by phone): Well, certainly, Paula, a dramatic turn of events here in the Afghan capital, Kabul. I've overlooking the city now, which really just in the early hours of morning local time was still in the hands of the Taliban.
I can tell you those forces have now completely abandoned this city and left it open to be taken over by the forces of the opposition, the Northern Alliance. And, indeed, they have been doing that, and throughout the course of the day, we've been seeing trucks filled with troops moving through the streets of central Kabul. Crowds of Kabul residents coming out, cheering those soldiers as they go by, chanting anti-Taliban slogans and anti-Pakistani slogans as well -- Pakistan, of course, a former sponsor of the Taliban.
Those scenes of joy, though, and relief, perhaps, masking concern on the part of many residents of Kabul. The divisions in the Northern Alliance may lead to the kind of fierce infighting that really devastated this city in the years before the Taliban took over.
So those (UNINTELLIGIBLE) also some gruesome scenes elsewhere. I've been traveling around the city trying to get a better picture of exactly what the situation is here. We've been seeing some gruesome scenes. In one place, we visited a park in the middle of town, for instance, a number of bodies were strewn across drainage ditches and then on the grasslands there. Local residents told us these people had been killed by the Northern Alliance. They were Pakistan volunteers, they said, until the Taliban, then they showed had been killed in a firefight.
So indications there that this city, although it fell very speedily, there were, at least, some pockets of resistance from the remnants of Taliban forces that have now, as I say, left the city for their strongholds in the southwest, particularly the city of Kandahar -- Paula.
ZAHN: Matthew, you did an interview with Abdullah Abdullah, or one of our correspondents, who is the foreign minister of the Northern Alliance, and he talked about how Kabul, when taken, must remain a neutral city. He said that it should serve as a venue for talks and negotiations for peace.
Is that viable, given what you've seen so far?
CHANCE: Well, that's right. I mean, in fact, I've been in conversations with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah over several weeks, and repeatedly, he stressed that previous to this situation, now at least, that his forces, the forces of the Northern Alliance would wait at the gates of Kabul and not enter the city until there was some kind of ethnically broad-based agreement on the table that really brought together all of the diverse ethnic groups in Afghanistan in a kind of power sharing administration.
The reality, though, is very different. As I mentioned, that those Northern Alliance forces have pretty much spread out now across the Afghan capital, Kabul. They've abandoned that commitment of waiting at the gates, and quite simply, they seemed to have not been able to resist the temptations to seize what has always been their ultimate military prize -- Paula.
ZAHN: So, Matthew, in closing this morning, what is the Northern Alliance's expectation that at some point in time, an international peacekeeping force will be brought in?
CHANCE: Well, one of the big concerns of the Northern Alliance is, of course, that there would be, with the departure of the Taliban, some kind of power vacuum forming in Kabul. They've moved very swiftly to make sure that that does not happen. They've moved into the shoes that the Taliban occupied, taking up the positions of power here.
We're expecting to get an interview, a press conference, within the next hour or so with the foreign minister, again, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, so we can put those questions to him. But the fact is that everybody is a little bit surprised that the Northern Alliance didn't wait at the gates, despite the concerns of the United States, despite the concerns of the international community at large, and that they did come inside the Afghan capital of Kabul. It's one of the questions, of course, we're going to be asking the foreign minister about what he sees as the future.
ZAHN: And we will be coming back to you after you attend that news conference to hear more about that -- Matthew Chance, thank you very much for that report. Matthew Chance, just a quick reminder to you all, once again, one of the first Western reporters into Kabul as the Northern Alliance made this advance.
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