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American Morning

Some Al Qaeda Fighters Trying to Flee Tora Bora Area Arrested at Border in Pakistan

Aired December 19, 2001 - 07:04   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: We're going to go right now to the war in Afghanistan. As we just reported, five people are dead after a gunfight between al Qaeda prisoners and Pakistani border troops. Some al Qaeda fighters who are trying to flee the Tora Bora area were arrested at the border in Pakistan. The prisoners fought with the guards and in the gunfight that erupted, three Pakistani guards were reported killed, along with two of the prisoners.

Now, north in the mountainous region near Tora Bora, the bombing has subsided and the dust is settling. But the cave to cave searches, while fruitful, have still not turned up Osama bin Laden. He's nowhere to be found.

For the latest on all this, we have this report from Nic Robertson.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eastern Alliance commanders have now withdrawn most of their forces from the Tora Bora Mountain range. There are still some fighters there along with U.S. and British special forces who are still searching out any al Qaeda members and possibly Osama bin Laden, who may still be in those mountains. But for the most part, the war in this corner of Afghanistan appears to be over.

B-52s were flying over here this morning. One circled five times before leaving the region. We have seen planes in the last few days, but they have not been dropping bombs.

Also, local commanders here have been able to capture some al Qaeda members. They are being held in a prison facility not far from here and earlier we talked with one of them who relived some of his time spent on the mountains.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. AYMAN SAID, PRISONER: They asked me to escape and they saw the people surrounding the hospital with their guns. And I saw some people were killed in front of me. So they forced me to escape and the only way, and the only trust was only for us these mountains.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: He claims not to be an al Qaeda member, but true or false, all his accounts and those of others with him will likely be heard by investigators who are trying to ascertain the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Commanders here say they don't know where he is. The search does continue.

Nic Robertson, CNN, near Tora Bora, Afghanistan.

ZAHN: We're going to move right now to the Afghan capital. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul opened its long shuttered doors this week to find that, like Afghanistan itself, the rooms inside the embassy seemed frozen in time.

CNN's John Vause is in Kabul -- good morning, John.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Paula.

It's a pretty amazing experience to walk around that building. We were there yesterday. The embassy staff were taking us through. They described it as a living time capsule. Indeed, they were right.

They were very conscious of security so they limited our access to a few rooms, a few boardrooms and some hallways. Still, we got to see the ambassador's office, the deputy ambassador's office. There were conference rooms. And everywhere we looked there were reminders of the '80s.

There was an old record player, an old clunky VCR machine. There was a cigar half smoked left in an ashtray, half empty bottles of sodas on boardroom tables. There was an old photo of George Shultz, then secretary of state, an indication of how quickly the staff had to evacuate the building back then on January 30, 1989.

Documents and papers left scattered on desks. Filing cabinets had been culled out. They pulled the furniture out from behind, against the walls to check to make sure there was no top secret documents left behind as they made their evacuation.

They tell us that the Taliban did, in fact, get into the building and that they did steal some equipment, some office equipment. And they took the carpets from the floors. But that's pretty much all they took.

They were quite surprised that the building, apart from the disrepair and the ravages of time and the very thick layer of dust and dirt, the building itself is in a pretty good condition. They hope to have it cleaned up, operational, in the next couple of weeks.

But the staff there told us that the reopening of the embassy is not so much about all these relics of the past, as interesting as they are, but really it's more about the future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KINCANNON, U.S. EMBASSY OFFICIAL: This, of course, is, you know, a key building block, you know, for the, you know, the future of American relations with Afghanistan and -- but I assume it will not be too long until we have another ambassador here and America is back in Afghanistan in a big way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Now, the other big news out of Kabul today is there seems to be some kind of agreement on the numbers of troops which will make up the international stabilization force. That's the number of international troops which will be on the ground here in Afghanistan to try and maintain the peace, to support the interim government as it slowly establishes itself, as it tries to get this country back up and running. It seems now that that number is around 3,000, at least 3,000.

A few hours ago, the foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, arrived at Bagram Air Force Base. CNN was there as he got off his plane from New Delhi. He was there with his family. They've just returned from New Delhi, where they celebrated E (ph), which is the celebration at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Now, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah told CNN that, in fact, there was agreement on the number. He wouldn't tell us officially what that number was, but he said that everyone seems satisfied with it and that those troops should be deployed as soon as possible. He had no problem if those troops were, in fact, on the ground before there was this transfer of power, which is just a few days away now on Saturday. We're expecting that transfer of power, a fairly big ceremony here in Kabul.

Now those interim, those international troops should be on the ground here for anywhere up to two years and they'll be protecting the interim government as it tries to get Afghanistan back working and back on its feet -- Paula.

ZAHN: John Vause, thank you very much for that update.

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