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CNN Live At Daybreak

Pakistani Concerns over Conflicts and Government in Afghanistan

Aired November 16, 2001 - 06:20   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, we shift our focus back now to Afghanistan. The first day of Ramadan is seeing no let up in the war there and that has Pakistan officials nervous over the possibility of anti-American protests.

CNN's Carol Lin joins us now live from Quetta. She has the very latest.

Hello, Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, good morning, Leon.

Yes, we were monitoring what would happen today very carefully because it is the day before Ramadan and it's been one week since the fall of Mazar-e-Sharif to the Northern Alliance.

We went out to downtown Quetta, surveyed the streets, lots of frontier police and after the prayers in the afternoon is traditionally when the demonstrations began. Well what happened is the prayers were conducted and about a thousand people, maybe a few -- maybe even fewer than that, marched down the main streets of Quetta. It appeared to be a very large crowd, a very vocal crowd, but they were not a dangerous crowd. And when you consider that in Pakistan it's a place where religious parties, political parties do not have a problem gathering as many as 10,000 people for a demonstration and here only 700 or 800 people show up, you can tell that the numbers are decreasing rapidly.

And what we're hearing from people here in Quetta is that though there is still a lot of support for the Taliban inside of Afghanistan, people here are beginning to feel more resolved that the Taliban is going to go away, that they are losing this battle. They don't see any evidence of a glorious battle being fought inside of Afghanistan. And until they do, I think the sentiment here, from what I'm hearing, is that people are beginning to think more about what the political future inside of Afghanistan is going to be, a sense of realism settling in this frontier town.

Also, Leon, I wanted to show you a couple of the headlines, though. You know everybody is still trying to get their message out during this conflict. And in one of the main newspapers here the headline here reads, "America Has Not Betrayed Pakistan," because there is this feeling that because the Northern Alliance was able to takeover the city of Kabul that the -- that the Pashtun majority here in Pakistan was sandbagged and that promises have been broken. So at the same time, local papers are reporting that the United States is going to be giving massive amounts of foreign aid and that is the government's way of getting its newspapers to say there is still something at stake for the people of Pakistan.

The Taliban supporters, the main headline here reads, "Al Qaeda Still In Action." And they are reporting dozens of Americans have been killed. No evidence to that effect, of course. But the newspapers are very telling as to what the concerns are going to be here in terms of trying to keep the Taliban fight alive spiritually here in Pakistan and the government trying to keep things calm on the political front.

HARRIS: Well, Carol, yesterday you were showing us some pictures yesterday of what looked like some Taliban troop buildup there on the border. You're talking now about a sense of resolve settling in there in Quetta amongst Pakistanis that the Taliban is going to be going away, but have you been seeing that at the border?

LIN: Yes, what we were showing you yesterday and what we've been showing you every once in a while are the border patrol -- the Taliban still patrolling their side of the Pakistan-Afghan border. But what we are hearing here in Pakistan is that the Pakistani army is sending some 2,000 troops, 6 tanks, beefing up its army line along the border. This is very unusual. This has not been seen since the end of the Soviet-Afghan War.

When we were out at the Charman border yesterday, we saw a very heavy presence of frontier police, which is not unusual. I think you're looking at those pictures right now. But what I saw that was different was that they were more heavily armed, they were in trenches with light machine guns. So in addition to these frontier police who are supposed to monitor the border, that's part of their job, army troops are joining them. They are digging trenches; they are sending reinforcements in.

And what I'm hearing is a couple of concerns. Now that the military situation has changed inside of Afghanistan, the Pakistani army is concerned about a couple of things. First of all, obviously the conflict with the Northern Alliance spilling over their borders, but they're also concerned about anti-Taliban groups inside of Afghanistan who have no love loss for Pakistan either.

They're also concerned about Pashtun groups inside of Afghanistan. Even though Pakistan shares an ethnic tie to these groups and you would think they would be more closely aligned, the Pashtun groups inside of Afghanistan are angry that Pakistan has sided with the United States in these military strikes. And so what is happening along the border is this hornet's nest of potential problems that could spill over into Pakistan. Pakistan is trying to show its people it's going to maintain a strong line of defense there until things settle inside of Afghanistan.

HARRIS: Carol, have you heard anything at all there in terms of the opinion in Pakistan about the process of developing these conversations among all the different parties with the U.N. and coming up with some sort of a coalition government in Afghanistan? What's the going opinion there in Pakistan?

LIN: Right. Yes, you're talking about all these various meetings between tribal leaders and some Taliban commanders are even coming over to this side to participate in some of those discussions. Public opinion is that, frankly, it is a good move. Everybody wants to see a -- everybody I've spoken to wants to see a coalition government inside of Afghanistan, but a government that must represent this Pashtun majority.

Here's the problem, Leon. The Pashtun majority is made up of, I would say, dozens, if not hundreds, of tribes and subtribes, each with its own agenda, each with its own history with each other. So you can't look at this Pashtun majority as a monolithic voice. And so these meetings are going on right now.

In fact, one very important one just outside of Quetta is going on right now and two things are being decided. One, can they convince the moderate Taliban inside to defect to a political coalition. But more significantly, if they do not agree, will these Afghan tribal leaders organize inside of Afghanistan and they are heavily armed. And what they are saying is if the Taliban does not cooperate with the political solution, these tribes are willing to take up arms and create a southern front and attack Kandahar.

Now what does the United Nations think about this and the United States? They are scrambling to try to get all of these different Afghan, Pashtun groups together at a big convention either in Geneva or Dubai, but time is of the essence because there is a political vacuum and right now the struggle is over Kandahar. So that's why we're watching these Afghan tribal leaders meetings both way up in Pashawar and down here in the southern province.

HARRIS: And as it has always been in every step along the way here, as soon as you see a ray of light there is something else that pops up to complicate matters.

LIN: Yes.

HARRIS: Carol Lin, thank you very much. Take care and stay safe there in Quetta. We'll talk with you later on.

LIN: Thanks, Leon.

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