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American Morning

With the Bounty on His Head, Where Can Bin Laden Hide?

Aired November 20, 2001 - 09:09   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: Right now, we are going to go live to the war front and the hunt for Osama bin Laden with a 25 million dollar bounty on his head and the world's most powerful military on his trail. The big question is, does bin Laden have anywhere to hide? CNN's Nic Robertson is in Spin Boldak near the city of Kandahar. Describe what's going on there today.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, Spin Boldak is a border town. It's under Taliban control, and is about two or three hours' drive from Kandahar. And certainly the answer is for Osama bin Laden as long as the Taliban has some territory left, he at least has some friends, essentially, to hide with. But as the Taliban territory shrinks, so does his ability to run and hide. He has a number of options.

He could take to the mountains, but as the Taliban's territory shrunk to the south of Afghanistan, the sort of more distant and remote mountains that are more typical of the north of Afghanistan are essentially cut off to him.

He could, of course, try and hide out in some of the desert villages, but these are very closed and small communities. The chance of word getting out from those villages that he was holed up there, that is quite a possibility. And, also we know from recent experience in the villages around Kandahar, people there don't like to have strangers turning up and staying with them. They're afraid that this could bring about a bombardment on their village.

25 million dollars is a massive sum in any country. But this is, after all, one the poorest countries in the world. The average monthly salary here is about $10. Now, we talked to several people here in Spin Boldak today. Several of them told us that haven't even heard about this bounty on Osama bin Laden's head. We also talked to Taliban commander and we said to him, "are you concerned that any of your men could turn on Osama bin Laden for this type of money?"

And he just laughed. He said, "no, there's no chance of our men doing this."

But this has to be a concern for Osama bin Laden. 25 million dollars is a huge sum of money here. And, as we know, he does travel with a small contingent of security guards, but as that area that he can operate in inside Afghanistan shrinks, the Taliban's control shrinks, so the focus of finding him can be more focused on him. And it is going to be much harder to hide. That is the situation here he's presented with here at this time. Paula.

ZAHN: Nic Robertson, we're going to have to leave it there for this morning. Thank you very much for that update.

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