Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Saira Shah's New Documentary Shows Life on Afghanistan's Front Lines

Aired November 15, 2001 - 09:24   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: Earlier this year, Saira Shah gave us a shocking view of life under the Taliban. It was called "Beneath the Veil." Now, she has risked her life again to return to Afghanistan to see what has changed since the beginning of this new round of fighting. In her new documentary, "Unholy War," she reaches the front-lines for a first-hand look at war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAIRA SHAH, JOURNALIST (voice-over): The front-line fighters couldn't be more different to the exhausted men we saw six months ago. They've been given new spirit by the Allied bombing of their enemy. But the Taliban aren't beaten yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN NATIVE TONGUE)

SHAH (on camera): They can't fire from that position because if they did there would be an enormous amount of smoke. The Taliban would know where their gun was and would fire back atit.

(voice-over): In the trenches, we found Machmud Issa (ph), he said he was 15. He looked younger. He's been fighting for two years.

MACHMUD ISSA, ANTI-TALIBAN SOLDIER, AGE 15 (through translator): I've seen fighting, tanks firing, rockets going off. There's people, corpses without hands or without heads. So what?

(MUSIC)

SHAH (voice-over): Even though he fights for the Northern Alliance, this man sees their thoughts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The Northern Alliance's wail will (UNINTELLIGIBLE) when they capture kabul. God forbid that the Northern Alliance should ever return to the anarchy and lawlessness brought, which it brought about, when the communist government fell. Then, every street of the capital was in the control of a different commander. Some commanders may not support peace, because they fight for money. When there is no war, they have no income; therefore, they want war to continue.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And Saira Shah joins me now from London to talk more about her new documentary, "Unholy War." Welcome back, Saira. How long were back in Afghanistan for?

SHAH: We were back in Afghanistan only for about three weeks, this journey. And our main aim was to try to find three young girls that we found last time in "Beneath the Veil." Their village is right on the front-line at the moment, and I wanted to try and find out how they are now.

ZAHN: And what kind of precautions did you have to take? Did you go undercover while making this documentary?

SHAH: No. Last time we traveled into Taliban-controlled area. This time, we only went to the area controlled by the Northern Alliance. We did have a very difficult trip though. We went from Pakistan, across the mountains, into northern Afghanistan, but, really, the whole purpose of this trip was -- partly to find the three young girls, but really see how the Allied actions were affecting the people on the ground, the ordinary people, really to hear their voices.

ZAHN: And share with us this morning some of those observations that I know we will see in the documentary.

SHAH: Well, the clip that you saw was the young man who became our guide when we went down to the village where the three little girls were. And he was a -- a friend from last time who I was trying to catch up with as well. I think his -- his comments then are incredibly perceptive now when we again have a situation where the Northern Alliance has come into Kabul.

And this was a young man who actually fights for the Northern Alliance, but he remembered the time in 1992, when many of the same people who are fighting now within the Northern Alliance also carried out massive abuses of human rights. And, he was also warning -- he took me aside from his men to do that interview, I should say, because he didn't want anyone to hear him make the points about there being so many small commanders in Afghanistan. And this being actually the huge problem with Afghanistan, at the moment. That this is such a militarized country, all these commanders have weapons and men. If there was no war they'd be unemployed. They don't -- they care less about who they fight for, than that they should keep fighting. And this is what was worrying this man, and I think -- I think it's something really to be worried about.

ZAHN: The one thing we couldn't see in the clips this morning that I know you address in the documentary is the Afghan perception of Americans. Share with us some of the thoughts of some of the people you interviewed in the documentary.

SHAH: There was a huge range of thoughts. And we tried to sort of share all of them in the documentary. We weren't really taking any line at all in the documentary, we were just trying to be a mirror, and hold that up to the Afghan people, and reflect their views. And we found everything from Afghans in Pakistan who were really rioting against American -- Americans, and they were furious saying "why are they bombing our country?", refugees who had fled from -- from the bombing in Kabul, to people in -- in internal refugee camps, inside Afghanistan, who were saying, "well, this is wonderful, because this is now the end of all of our problems, because America's going to take over." And you know, "next week we'll go home, and we don't need to worry about anything else for ourselves again."

I mean these were all different points of view that people had and many of them -- you know, sometimes touching, sometimes frightening, and sometimes just unrealistic.

ZAHN: Well, we always learn very much from your insights. Saira Shah, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Glad to have you with us.

SHAH: Thank you.

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