Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Four Journalists Identified; U.S. Offers Reward For Bin Laden in Afghanistan

Aired November 20, 2001 - 06:02   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime our Satinder Bindra is near Konduz. The Northern Alliance commanders are trying to meet with their Taliban counterparts in the besieged northern Afghan city. That's one of the last strongholds for the Taliban. We get the latest from there from Satinder Bindra.

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's very cold and it's very cloudy on the frontlines today, and that's perhaps restricting U.S. planes from dropping bombs on front-line Taliban positions. Since morning we've seen just two U.S. planes drop bombs very close to us, about two miles away from us.

Now what's also happening here on the frontlines is some intense diplomatic activity. Northern Alliance commanders are meeting the Taliban -- the trapped Taliban in Konduz. Of course it's been the Northern Alliance's strategy for several days now to try and engineer defections from the Taliban camp. So far they say they've managed to get 1,000 Taliban fighters to defect, but most of these Taliban fighters are described as local Taliban fighters.

There's also a hard core element of Taliban fighters. These are the Chechens, the Pakistanis and fighters from Arab countries who are still trapped in Konduz. Now these fighters have so far shown little inclination to surrender. In fact Northern Alliance commanders are telling us that this hard core group -- these hard core fighters are killing those local Taliban commanders who've expressed any interest in surrendering.

Now the Northern Alliance says it's going to continue this strategy. It's going to try, with these negotiations, for another few days and if they don't succeed, then it's going to launch some attacks on Konduz.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, on the frontlines near Konduz.

KELLEY: And as we were telling you the bodies of those four journalists killed yesterday near Jalalabad were identified. On videophone with us now is Bill Delaney -- Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes Donna, four journalists now confirmed killed, shot repeatedly Monday morning on the road between Jalalabad, the eastern provincial capital where I am and the Afghan capital of Kabul. That's about a five-hour drive. They were shot right at the halfway point about two and a half-hours from Jalalabad.

The bodies were retrieved by a local commander -- one of the commanders of the factions here, who brought the bodies to Jalalabad's main hospital just about three hours ago. Now they were -- they will be kept here overnight Donna in the main hospital in Jalalabad and then will be driven the two hours or so to the Pakistan border tomorrow morning.

Now the victims are Harry Burton and Aziz Haidari of Reuters, Maria Grazia Cutuli of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. They were in the lead vehicle of a convoy of journalists traveling without the armed escort that is common here in this part of Afghanistan.

Their two vehicles had gotten well ahead of the rest of the convoy when they were stopped by armed men and pulled out of the car. Now two drivers and a translator managed to escape, either pleading for their lives according to one account or simply reversing and going back to warn the other journalists who'd fallen far behind these two lead vehicles.

There were at least eight to 13 other journalist vehicles that were turned back by the drivers. Their lives possibly saved because they did not encounter the armed men that the other journalists did. Now this region of eastern Afghanistan, at the moment, is for all intense and purposes without a governor. The Taliban gave up power here without a fight last week and a governor has been installed.

But the streets of the eastern provincial capital of Jalalabad where I am is strong with thousands of armed fighters from at least four different factions now jockeying for power. Jalalabad has been calm, but many predict a return to violence here. As for who committed these killings on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul, there are varying reports that the drivers said the men identified themselves as Taliban, but this is also an area well known as the haven for bandits.

Back to you Donna.

KELLEY: Bill, word was that this was an unguarded convoy. Are most of them guarded and why wasn't this one? Do you know?

DELANEY: Well for example Donna, when we came in here from Pakistan a couple of days ago, we came in a heavily armed convoy, but there had been reports that this road between Kabul and Jalalabad was secure. An example of how fluid and dynamic and dangerous the situation is here that these journalists selected to set out without the armed escort most people use and apparently paid a terrible price for it -- Donna.

KELLEY: On our videophone from Jalalabad, our Bill Delaney. Thanks very much.

There is hope that big bucks will lead the United States to Osama bin Laden. The United States is spreading the word of a huge reward for bin Laden in a leaflet campaign. CNN's Jim Clancy joins us for a live report from Spin Boldak in Afghanistan with more on the hunt for bin Laden -- Jim.

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Perhaps that's because the U.S. military knows he's unlikely to be hiding out right along the Pakistan-Afghan border. In fact when I talked with people in Spin Boldak in Afghanistan they are telling me, many of them, that they don't know about a $25-million reward.

Some of them are quite surprised, even quite interested and believe that that is going to encourage people to give up information about Osama bin Laden. Still there is a very strong sense here that that would be against the tenets of Islam -- betraying a guest and Osama bin Laden after all is viewed by many here as an invited guest of the Taliban. Under those circumstances, people say, it would be impossible to hand him over.

But the real problem with what the U.S. is doing, a $25-million reward is perhaps the logistics that would be involved say if someone in the high mountains knew of Osama bin Laden's presence, the question is whether they would even have the knowledge of how to make or where to make an international phone call to turn him in -- Donna.

KELLEY: Jim Clancy in Spin Boldak. Thanks very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com