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CNN Sunday Morning

Target Terrorism: Is Uzbekistan the First Battleground in the War on Terrorism?; Refugee Crisis Builds Around the Afghan/Pakistani Border

Aired October 07, 2001 - 08:00   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Taliban troops have their marching orders. Will the Northern Front near Uzbekistan be the first battle ground?

A refugee crisis is building around the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Is help on the way?

And good morning, it's Sunday, October 7th, from New York. I'm Kyra Phillips.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jeanne Meserve in Washington. Our colleague Miles O'Brien is in Atlanta and will also be joining us throughout the hour.

Let's begin with the latest developments as America targets terrorism.

The head of a pro-Taliban party has been placed under house arrest in Pakistan. Maulana Fazlur Rehman has been leading many of the recent anti-American rallies in Pakistan.

CNN has learned the Taliban are moving a significant number of troops toward Afghanistan's border with Uzbekistan. The Taliban claim to have between 40 and 60,000 soldiers ready to fight any U.S. invasion.

U.S. troops are being moved into Uzbekistan. Witnesses say activity at an air base in southeast Uzbekistan has increased dramatically in recent days.

PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to begin our global coverage right now of America's war against terrorism in Pakistan, where there are several important developments.

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now, live from Islamabad, Pakistan. I understand you just got off your cell phone and have some new information for us. Go ahead, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, indeed the Taliban news agency in Kabul is reporting, the Bakhtar, is reporting that the British journalist, Yvonne Ridley, who has been held by them for the last nine days, has now been released by the Taliban intelligence services.

However, we understand from the Bakhtar that she will remain in Kabul tonight before traveling likely to the border with Pakistan early Monday. Now, that is from the Taliban press agency back here, Bakhtar agency, that Yvonne Ridley, the British journalist held there for nine days by the Taliban after she went secretly across the border to try and do an assignment on refugees, has now been released by the Taliban intelligence services.

Here in Pakistan, developments: the Pakistan security services have detained, put under house-arrest, a senior Islamic cleric closely allied with the Taliban here. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, from the Jamiat- e-Islami Party, has been put under house-arrest. He has been leading rallies and demonstrations in the last number of weeks here in Pakistan. These rallies typically 3,000, 5,000 up to 10,000 people at a time.

But what may have been his undoing here, you can see in this picture here, he was seen in a demonstration, in a rally just outside the capitol of Islamabad, on Friday, holding a, the gentleman behind him, one of his escorts, holding a machine gun.

Pakistani authorities say what they have done is they have arrested him because it is illegal for anyone to have an assault weapon of this type. They also say that he is being held under house- arrest because he is violating other laws that the government put into effect here before September 11th, and that is causing inciting violence, inciting people against the government, and inciting disruption on the streets.

Now, we contacted Fazlur Rehman earlier at his house, and he said that he'd been put under house-arrest in the middle of the night, that he tried to leave to go to another demonstration in an area of Pakistan earlier today, and that he was denied from leaving his house by the police. But he also said that the police had not given him any specific reason why he was being detained -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So, Nic, there was no specific paper work or a warrant?

ROBERTSON: Absolutely. We asked him, he said that he had not been presented with paperwork or documentation. Merely that he'd been prevented from leaving the house. It has to be said, that this is not atypical, this is not unusual, for Pakistan. There are also reports today of other senior Islamic clerics, those also allied, that have had big supports from crowds in recent weeks, reports that they are also under detention.

However, the Pakistani government does deny that some of these other leaders are under detention. At the moment, the Pakistani government only says that Fazlur Rehman is under detention at this time. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Nic, with regard to the Pakistani government, I was reading, and I was listening to previous reports, that there was talk that the Pakistan government was issuing a deportation list. Have you heard anything about this, or can you confirm this?

ROBERTSON: Well, indeed humanitarian agencies had been concerned at those reports. There were reports that some 89 people had been requested by the Pakistani government to be deported.

Now, we contacted the Pakistani government about that today, and they said that's not true. Now, these reports indicated that the 89 foreign nationals were working for humanitarian organizations in the area of Peshawar, close to the border with Afghanistan, and that many of them were Egyptians, Saudis, people from those particular countries.

But so far, the government says this is not true, that on occasion, if they are asked to deport people, they will deport them. But they say they are not operating under any special instructions from any other countries for the deportation of people at this time -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Nic Robertson, live from Islamabad. Thank you so much.

We're going to go back to Washington, D.C. now and Jeanne Meserve -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Kyra, an explosion in Saudi Arabia killed at least two people and injured several others. It happened yesterday at a busy shopping area in the city of Al Khobar. An American and a Briton are among the wounded.

A Bush administration official says so far it doesn't appear the bombing is related to the September 11 attacks in the United States.

President Bush yesterday held a video conference with his national security team. For more on the military planning going on, let's go to Patty Davis at the Pentagon -- Patty.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, no word from the Pentagon, Jean, today on Taliban reports that it opened fire with its antiaircraft guns on an aircraft over Kabul yesterday.

Now, the Taliban foreign ministry is saying that that was an American aircraft. The Pentagon not commenting on that. The Taliban says that it did fail to hit that aircraft.

Meanwhile, 1,000 U.S. army troops from the 10th Mountain Division have been deployed to a base in Uzbekistan near the border to Afghanistan as the U.S. continues to ratchet-up its military pressure on Afghanistan's Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden.

Now, that base near the border there with Afghanistan, for now that base simply to be used for humanitarian purposes, for launches of food. Also search and rescue, if that becomes necessary. However, that country is not ruling out possibly using that base for U.S. combat missions.

Now, as you said, Donald Rumsfeld met with the president yesterday, at least by teleconference. He has returned now. He is back in the United States. He was on a whirlwind five country tour, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Oman, Egypt, others as well, Uzbekistan, to try to secure more support from those countries as well as others. Build up that support, morale, and also get support for bases, launches as well, in those countries, as the U.S. repairs to go after Osama bin Laden -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Patty Davis at the Pentagon, thank you.

For his part, President Bush is paying tribute to the nation's fallen firefighters this morning. CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace is in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Kelly, tell us about it.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jeanne, President Bush and the first lady will be arriving here just about an hour from now at the site of the National Fallen Firefighters Monument. The president will be paying tribute, as you noted, to the 101 firefighters killed in the line of duty last year. He, of course, though, will also be paying tribute to the more than 300 members of the New York City Fire Department killed in the attacks on the World Trade Centers on September 11th.

And President Bush has been doing this throughout these past couple of weeks, something all Americans have really been doing, and that is recognizing just what firefighters do to protect fellow Americans. The president was up in New York City just on Wednesday. It was his second visit to New York City since the September 11th attacks, and he visited a station house in Lower Manhattan, Engine Company 55, a station house that lost five firefighters in those attacks on September 11th.

And Jeanne, as we noted, to put this all in perspective, according to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, an average of 100 firefighters killed in the line of duty every year. Obviously, three times that number killed in the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11th.

Now, the president will be speaking here at this memorial service, due to start at about 10:00 a.m. Again, his remarks paying tribute to the contributions made and the sacrifices made by firefighters.

From here, Jeanne, the president heads back to the White House. This after, in his radio address yesterday, he gave the clearest indication yet that military action against Afghanistan might not be to for away. For the first time, Mr. Bush saying time is running out for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia. The president saying the Taliban must adhere to his demands, which include turning over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, associates of the Al Qaeda organization, closing down terrorist training camps, and also releasing those eight Western aide workers, or else the Taliban could face consequences.

And, Jeanne, the president will have another busy week, indeed, as you know. A big order of business on Monday morning, swearing in former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge to be the new director of the Office of Homeland Security.

Jeanne, back to you.

MESERVE: Kelly, this is Sunday. That means talk shows. When you look at the roster of who is being put out today, it's economic advisers, it's no members of the national security team. What can we draw from that, if anything?

WALLACE: It's an interesting observation, Jeanne, because it is the first Sunday where the national security team not appearing out on the Sunday talk shows. So, for today, the focus on economics. That is because you did see the president making a big point at the end of the week, talking about efforts to try to give a boost to the ailing economy. He obviously talked about proposing up to $75 billion in economic stimulus. He also, on Friday, said that most of that stimulus, all of it, should be in the form of tax cuts.

So, the message on the Sunday talk shows, at least from the administration, is what this White House is trying to do to get the economy going again. Jeanne, back to you.

MESERVE: Kelly Wallace in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Thank you.

And now, Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jeanne, thanks so much.

When CNN's coverage of Target: Terrorism returns, a closer look into the developing refugee crisis in Afghanistan, and efforts to bring aid to that region.

And later, Operation Sky Guard; we'll chat with one national guardsman who is ready to protect and serve in an airport near you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Taliban military commanders say they are moving troops north to the border near Uzbekistan. The move comes after 1,000 U.S. troops arrived in the former Soviet republic.

Kamal Hyder is a CNN correspondent in Kabul.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMAL HYDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Taliban declarations are already complete and their defenses are on a high state of alert. They are ready to face any possible attack, and as they've been saying all along, they are not planning to fight a conventional war. They are planning to wage a guerrilla campaign. And as one commander we spoke to earlier today said, that by hitting us, they will be strengthening us. Meaning, that support for the Taliban across the region will, of course, be a significant factor and a morale boosting measure for the Taliban.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: CNN's Chris Burns is in Northern Afghanistan, an area controlled by the opposition Northern Alliance.

Good morning, Chris. Have you seen any activity, air or ground, this morning?

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra. Well, very quiet, very calm here. The two buzzwords here are tension and anticipation. Of course, anticipating some kind of U.S. action. Thousands of troops on either side. Northern Alliance and Taliban side are facing off about 15 to 20 miles from here. That's between here and Kabul, and those tensions have continued.

Now, what's a good indication of any possible action is the weather. The weather had been very, very fierce the last few days; wind and blowing sand, blowing dust. The last two days, however, have been very calm. As you can see over my shoulder, it's quite calm and clear and beautiful here. Perhaps setting the stage, at least a good stage for battle.

At the same time, we've been watching today exercising by some of the Northern Alliance troops. They are struggling with a lack of equipment, a lack of arms, obviously a fairly ragtag band, but commanders are claiming victories up in the north, north from here, in two different provinces.

They claim to have seized the provincial capital of Samangan, called Ibeck (ph), and taken five villages in that area. Also captured 100 Taliban fighters and they say that 60 other Taliban fighters defected. That is on the road to Mazar-e Sharif. That is a Taliban stronghold in the north. That is a prize, if the Northern Alliance can consolidate their holdings up there in the North, then they would be better geared and better footed to go to the south, toward Kabul.

The other province they're talking about is Ghor province. They say they have now besieged the provincial capitol Chaghcharan. They are within a kilometer and a half, that's about a mile, of the city. They say they have taken ten villages in that area.

So, here during the exercises, we head a pep talk by one of the commanders who says he vows to defeat the Taliban, with U.S. or without U.S. action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMED NAZIR ZAHIR, NORTHERN ALLIANCE COMMANDER (via interpreter): My message for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden is this, we will never put down the guns until we've eradicated your supporters from our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNS: One other interesting development is that helicopter flights by the Northern alliance have been suspended for a couple of days, even though in the past they had been suspended because of the weather. The weather here, as you can see, is quite nice. They give no other explanation for the suspension of those flights. Anyone's guess what that could mean -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Chris, Kamal Hyder said just before we went to you that the Taliban is saying that they are going to carry out a guerrilla campaign, not a conventional war. Can you tell us the difference between the two?

BURNS: Well, obviously, it's striking at the weak points. Of a conventional force, it would be moving as a ground force quite visible, and not as commandos. However, interesting though that Washington is also vowing to send commandos as opposed to a large force. We're not seeing any buildup of large forces, so it looks like it could be commandos fighting commandos, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. CNN's Chris Burns in Northern Afghanistan. Thank you so much.

International aid agencies are stepping-up their please for emergency food shipments to Afghanistan as the countries refugee crisis worsens. We're going to go for more on that with Miles O'Brien in Atlanta. Hi, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you very much, Kyra. On Saturday, the U.N. high commission on refugees announced they were preparing for as many as 1.5 million more additional refugees to flee Afghanistan in the coming weeks, and that their priority is to get help into Afghanistan.

As we take a look at a map, we can ask the difficult question of how. Let's zoom in on Afghanistan once again for you. You know, we've been making this point time and again about the terrain of Afghanistan. This is very, very rugged country. Peaks that extend well beyond 10,000 feet. Difficult mountain passes. Difficult, certainly, when you consider any sort of military campaign. And also difficult when you consider the possibility of flying airdrops in.

Now, the idea is to bring in C-130 airdrops, you're familiar with that. The C-130 is a four engine turboprop which dates back to 1955. Take a look at this image we pulled off the Web from the Federation of American Scientists. Familiar aircraft to you. It's a multi- functional cargo carrier.

As we take a look at the C-130, it has a range of about 2,300 miles fully loaded. And when I say fully loaded, it's about 16 one ton packs of food. And those things are palletized, and then dropped out the back door, and hopefully very carefully.

Now, let's take a look at that map one more time, and I want to give you a sense of the range of this C-130 and give you a sense of exactly where it might be coming from. Here's Afghanistan, that's the center of your radius. The range of the C-130 is about 2,300 miles round trip, as we just told you. That puts the circle pretty much about like that.

What that does for you, essentially, is it puts you in Iran, skirts around Saudi Arabia a little bit, but basically it does force, the bottom line in this, it does force those C-130's to stage from Uzbekistan.

That's no problem, because we know the president of Uzbekistan has already granted the U.S. the ability to use Uzbekistan to stage humanitarian missions. Certainly, this would qualify under a humanitarian mission.

Jim, John, Jay, excuse me, Jim Jennings is with Conscience International. He is involved in this sort of thing and has flown on C-130's during these kinds of food drops. Jim, thanks for being with us, first of all.

JIM JENNINGS, CONSCIENCE INTERNATIONAL: Yes indeed.

O'BRIEN: Give us a sense of the kinds of challenges that we face as there is an attempt to bring food to these refugees, wherever they may be.

JENNINGS: I think one of the biggest things is the remoteness of the area, and it's hard to reach, as you've seen on all of your maps.

We've been working in Central Asia, mostly Uzbekistan, since 1992, and Afghanistan since 1996. More recently, in Pakistan on the border areas of Afghanistan. And when we flew in with the C-130's following the Gulf War, into Iran, it was evident that you need a runaway about 1,800 feet long, or maybe 2,000 is better, in order to land and load off these size loads that you mentioned to me.

But, if you try to airdrop it from a high altitude, for example, if there is danger of antiaircraft fire, then it's hard to hit the target. But what impresses me most is that in the Herat area alone there are about 600,000 internally displaced persons. If you calculate out that you're delivering one pound of food per day to each of those people, you need 500 airplane loads in a month to go in there and just handle that one area alone.

So, it's problematical. We really need to get the truck convoys in from the World Food Program and to -- before the snow comes, to develop a massive effort.

O'BRIEN: Well, that really puts it in perspective, when we talk refugees on the order of, you know, seven-figure numbers, and you talk about the number of plane loads just for the amount in Iraq. Maybe this is more symbolism than practicality?

JENNINGS: I think it's both. I think it's important to get the food to them, but really it's, in a way, it's symbolic, and I think, I have to give praise to the Bush administration for their humanitarian efforts so far, but we must not make the mistake that more bombing equals more terrorist, and the more delicate the operation is, actually, the more effective it will be. That is, the military operation.

O'BRIEN: What were the lessons learned, for example, during those airdrops that were attempting to help the Kurds in Iraq post Gulf War? JENNINGS: One of those, that maybe you remember, is that some of the drops hit people and killed them, and so in order to help these people we have to kill them. That was an ironic factor. I think that we can do better now, but they have the Lapse (ph) Program, where the extraction by parachute and low level flying, and they can drop the tonnage right on a dirt airstrip, or just a place -- a wide place in the road.

O'BRIEN: Do you have fairly good confidence that, number one, they can avoid hitting people; number two, they can find the people? You sort of want to find them so you know you're getting close enough so they can reach it. At the same time, you don't want to hit anybody on the ground.

JENNINGS: Well, the Haratas (ph) are the people in the mountains, and they're about 19 percent of the population, and they have been fleeing for months. We've been getting reports from the U.N. for six or nine months that there's a complex humanitarian emergency developing.

For that reason, I went to Afghanistan, was in the camps a few months ago, on the border, in the northwest country province of Pakistan. And as far as the eye can see in every direction, there are tents of people four inches apart, 120 degrees, sitting on the hard ground, each family. Only water they get, they have to go out and find their firewood or their food.

And we've been feeding these camps, and in July we fed the whole camp of 50,000 people. Then our money ran out. So, we're a private effort. We're trying to organize now a number of agencies, private agencies, from the U.S. and United Kingdom, and we're going in there in the next week or so to help pre-position supplies around the edges of the country, and if we can go into Afghanistan itself, we will do so as well.

O'BRIEN: Well, by all means, be safe, sir, and we hope that in this message maybe you'll get some assistance in your efforts. We appreciate that.

JENNINGS: Thank you. Well, some of the worst humanitarian indicators for help are in Afghanistan. The second worst mortality, the fourth worst child mortality rate in the world, and it really needs to be addressed.

O'BRIEN: All right, Jim Jennings, who's with Conscience International. He's an expert on getting aid to people in these sorts of situations. Thanks for being with us this morning on CNN.

And, Kyra, as we're pointing out to our viewers, just a little bit of back story here, not only has there been years and years of conflict in Afghanistan, starting in 1979 with the Soviet invasion and the civil war, which followed the takeover the by the Taliban. On top of that, they've had many, many years of drought in recent memory, so these are people that could really use some help. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Yeah, that's true. And I know Dr. Jim Jennings can do it. His efforts are admirable. Miles O'Brien from Atlanta, thank you so much.

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