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American Morning
No Clear Clues as to Why Four Western Journalists Were Killed, Or By Who
Aired November 20, 2001 - 08:07 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As we have been reporting overnight, the bodies of four journalists missing in Afghanistan were recovered and then identified.
CNN's Bill Delaney is in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. He joins us now by videophone with more on their deaths.
Bill, I know when we checked with you last hour, it was sort of unclear of what the circumstances were surrounding the deaths of these journalists. Is anything more nailed down at this hour?
BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via videophone): It's difficult to nail down exactly how and why these journalists were killed Monday morning on the road between the eastern provincial capital of Jalalabad, where I am, and Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. That's usually about a five-hour drive. They were killed at about the two- and-a-half hour mark, right at the halfway point between these two cities.
It's not clear who killed them, as I say, and it's not clear just why. An example, Paula, of how murky things are here is that the bodies of these four journalists were not even returned here to Jalalabad until this afternoon -- Tuesday afternoon Afghan time, because no one could get to them, except eventually, one of the many heavily armed local factional commanders here, who took it upon himself to go out and retrieve the bodies, get them back to Jalalabad, and hand them over to the Red Cross at Jalalabad's main hospital.
Now, the four journalists are Harry Burton and Azizullah Haidari of Reuters, Maria Grazia Cutuli of "Corriere della Sera," the Italian newspaper, and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish newspaper "El Mundo." They were in two lead vehicles of a convoy of journalists on that road. They were without an armed escort, as is usually the case in these parts, but the road had been calm for days. They got well ahead of the convoy, were stopped by armed men and pulled from their cars.
Now, what we do know about this tragic incident is from two Afghan drivers and an Afghan translator who escaped, either by pleading for their lives, accounts here even differ, or simply by reversing out of the scene when they realized what was going on. And they, at least, were able to get back and warn 8 to 13 other vehicles full of journalists to turn back. Paula, here in Jalalabad in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, there is no government. The Taliban left here without a fight last week, but they left in their wake many competing factions. These are armed militias. There are at least four main groups now competing for power here, so far peacefully, although the streets are jammed with thousands of heavily-armed men. Many predict eventually these factions, inevitably, will begin fighting with each other for power, s they did again and again throughout the 90s until 1996, when the Taliban took power.
Now, finally, as for whom may have done these killings, one driver said the men -- the armed men who took them identified themselves as Taliban. But this is an area also well known as a haven for bandits -- Paula.
ZAHN: Bill, what kind of special precautions, now, are journalists in the field taking where you are?
DELANEY: Journalists here have been concerned about the instability and the many armed men on the streets here since we came in. At the same time, there is, and has been, an almost jovial atmosphere here in Jalalabad -- a very deceptive and dangerous situation when a highway hundreds of cars had passed on in the past couple of days suddenly turns into a situation where people are killed.
It has made everybody here very wary, and many journalists are considering, at this point, pulling out of Jalalabad. It's always a difficult decision, whether to leave a situation like this or not. But what makes it most difficult is that, while we were able to contemplate that despite all of the guns and despite the fact that there's no government or authority here, the atmosphere had been calm. Well, the atmosphere had been calm on that highway too, and it turned violent in a moment. Many fear that could happen here.
ZAHN: Well, we expect that you and your crews will take the precautions that are necessary. Bill Delaney, take care -- thank you for that update.
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