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CNN Live At Daybreak

Hamid Karzai Heading for Kabul; Cease-fire Between Eastern Alliance and al Qaeda Falls Apart

Aired December 12, 2001 - 06:03   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: The interim leader of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai is planning to leave Kandahar and travel to Kabul to meet with other members of the interim government. We're going to go now to CNN's Christiane Amanpour live who is standing by in Kandahar with the very latest. Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Catherine, this city of Kandahar has been liberated for the last several days and now Hamid Karzai who has been here since the hand-over is, as you say, scheduled to go this afternoon to Kabul, the capital. He is, we're told, going to be flying aboard a U.S. military aircraft and he will be going there to meet with other members who have been appointed to lead this interim government.

So the first beginnings of trying to put together a plan for Afghanistan's future democratic and broad-based alliance will start today. Then Hamid Karzai is going off to Rome where he'll meet with the former King Zahir Shah and then he will come back to Kabul for the inauguration on December 22nd of this new interim government.

In the meantime, as I said, he was here. He's been temporarily housed in Mullah Omar's compound. That is the Taliban leader who has now fled from here and when we interviewed him, of course, there was no electricity. That compound had been heavily bombed by the U.S. - at least parts of it had been. So we interviewed him by gaslight and it was during a meeting he was having to consolidate support with other tribal leaders in this region.

We asked him how he thought the future government would take shape - would it be stable; would it bring peace for Afghanistan. And he said both Afghanistan and the United States will make sure that happens because they've both learned a lesson at great parallel to their own national security.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HAMID KARZAI, INTERIM LEADER OF AFGHANISTAN: The Afghans have learned a mutual lesson; so have the international community; so has the United States - I must be very blunt. If the world does not pay attention to Afghanistan, if it leaves it weak, and basically a country in which one can interfere, all these bad people are coming in. So a strong Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan is the best guarantee for all. (END VIDEOCLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now Hamid Karzai also said that he felt that the world this time would stick by Afghanistan, and he was confident that there would be a continued pledge of international assistance. He said the top priorities are the things as simple as roads for this country, to enable some kind of commerce and economy to flourish again, education, of course, and a health system.

He also vowed that he would, if they caught any senior Taliban leaders who, as he said, have been involved in crimes or any al Qaeda leaders, that they would be brought to justice and we will have much more of that interview with Hamid Karzai tonight at 8:00 p.m. Catherine.

CALLAWAY: All right, we'll be watching. CNN's Christiane Amanpour in Kandahar. Thank you Christiane.

We're going to move east now and go to CNN's Brent Sadler who is in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. That's where U.S. airstrikes have continued there as the deadline has passed for al Qaeda fighters to surrender. Brent, what's the latest from there?

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks. It has been a very confused day here today. We've seen a continuation - a resumption rather of U.S. airstrikes in the mountains behind me. We saw a bomber come in just a few minutes before we came on live to you and a big flume of smoke in the mountains behind me. We've just had a news conference held by Hazrat Ali, who's one of the main Eastern Alliance force commanders, and he's told me that that 8:00 a.m. local time deadline for a surrender of al Qaeda passed with absolutely no pickup from al Qaeda to follow any surrender plan.

And what we do have on the table now is a new offer and the details of that are just emerging. What Hazrat Ali is telling the media is that around 20 or so, he says, hard core, top lieutenants of Osama bin Laden and bin Laden himself give themselves up within a very short space of time, then there can be a peaceful end to the ongoing siege of Tora Bora.

What would happen to the other al Qaeda fighters, I asked. Hazrat Ali said they would be free to go. We're talking about several hundred al Qaeda diehards up there still resisting and still firing back at Eastern Alliance forces. So this is a condition says Hazrat Ali, whether he speaks for the entire alliance, that's uncertain, but this is a new condition of surrender. If bin Laden gives himself up, and his main hard core sensor of this terror network, then there could be an end to this.

If not, says Hazrat Ali, a new attack will be launched and it will be launched soon. Time has almost run out said the Eastern Alliance commander. So that's a new development here just within the past few minutes. Earlier today we saw the skies again showing clear evidence of a continuation of bombing by heavy U.S. warplanes, spirals of vapor trails in the sky was a prelude to a resumption of attacks in many areas that we've actually been pretty close to yesterday. And if you recall 24 hours ago, I was reporting about significant breakthrough advances by the Eastern Alliance Afghan tribal warriors into former al Qaeda complexes.

And we have video showing the destruction to one of those terror training camps obliterated by the recent U.S. bombing of the past two weeks and we also for the first time got into one of those much talked about cave complexes, saw abandoned ammunition and discarded weapons. So that's where we are at the moment. A deadline passed many hours ago; a new condition on a deadline - no specific time for that deadline. Time is running out.

One other piece of information, we're now pretty sure from a number of eyewitness accounts that there is a significant deployment of Special Forces in an advanced position. That might explain why the media was kept very many miles away from the action today. We asked Hazrat Ali a short time ago what the special forces might be doing and he said that's a dangerous question to ask. Back to you.

CALLAWAY: All right, CNN's Brent Sadler. Things changing by the minute. Thank you Brent.

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