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CNN Live At Daybreak

Intensive Bombing Pounds Kandahar

Aired November 29, 2001 - 05:07   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: Let's check out the southern part of Afghanistan at the Chaman border crossing in Pakistan.

Reporting from there on the intense bombardment of Kandahar, we check in now with Nic Robertson -- Nic, hello.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, we've been talking with our sources in Kandahar. They say that intense bombing is under way today inside Kandahar. They say it's been going on for the last 24 hours, all through the day Wednesday, through Wednesday night and now into today. They say this is one of the most intense bombings that they've had. The intensity is such that there is no let up during, between the bombing raids.

They say that the Taliban are responding to a small degree with anti-aircraft guns, trying to shoot at the planes, but with no effect. The bombing, they say, is not only in the city, but around the city.

News also from these sources today in Kandahar that yesterday the Taliban hanged a man in Kandahar. They hanged him in the central square. Now, the reason, we are told, is that the Taliban picked him up with a global positioning device, they say, and that they believe, the Taliban believed this man was assisting U.S. forces by giving them key strategic information using this satellite positioning device in the city of Kandahar.

The Taliban, we are told, have left this man's body to hang through Wednesday and now into Thursday as a warning to the people in the city of what could happen siding with the opposition.

KAGAN: Nic, one thing that I think Americans have learned about Afghanistan as this war has gone on, about all the tribal rivalries and the disputes between the two, between the many, actually, tribes that are there. How, as the Northern Alliance moves south in this fight, how are they going to be received and how is that going to be taken in Pakistan?

ROBERTSON: Well, the view in Pakistan has always been from General Musharraf that there should be a broad-based government and that would include all the elements that we know from the Northern Alliance, those ethnic groups that tend to come from the north of Afghanistan, as we understand, where the Northern Alliance comes from in the north. In the south, of course, there is about a 38 percent of the Afghan population being from the Pashtun tribes, the same tribes that the Taliban come from. And certainly it's been Pakistan's view in the past because Pakistan has many of these Pashtun tribes, tribal people inside Pakistan, as well it's been in Pakistan's domestic and national interests that there should be a Pashtun element represented in any new government.

And as the Northern Alliance sweeps south, the Pashtun tribes here will be looking to work on equal terms with the Northern Alliance in any government and looking for the Northern Alliance to treat them with respect as essentially they would see the Northern Alliance as moving into their territory.

It is very complex. It's a very fluid situation. The lines and agreements between the tribes even within the ethnic group of Pashtuns is something that varies from time to time and certainly at a time like this there is a lot up for grabs, a lot for stake and there is obviously a lot of potential disagreement even inside this Pashtun element within the different tribes there -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Nic Robertson reporting from the Chaman border between Pakistan and the southern part of Afghanistan.

Nic, thank you very much.

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