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CNN Sunday Morning

Northern Alliance Determining What to do With Taliban Prisoners

Aired November 25, 2001 - 09:08   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Northern Alliance leaders in Kabul are now tackling the question of what to do with the Taliban prisoners of war.

CNN's Harris Whitbeck is joining us now live from there, and has the very latest on the situation -- Harris.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Catherine, good morning. President Rabbani said in a press conference this morning that some of the foreign fighters who have been fighting alongside the Taliban should be dealt with by the United Nations.

He also said that Afghan Taliban fighters who have surrendered would be welcomed back into Afghan society and would be granted an amnesty. President Rabbani also spoke about the process by which the future provisional government of Afghanistan will be formed.

He said that a 21-member delegation from Afghanistan will be traveling to Bonn to start a series of talks on next Tuesday. He said that this delegation will be comprised of four principal groups that include the Northern Alliance, also known as the United Front.

He said there would be a group from Rome, representing the deposed King Mohammed Zahir Shah. There would also be a group from Peshawar that would represent the millions of Afghans who have become refugees in the last decades, and who would also represent the majority ethnic tribe here, the Pashtun.

The last group would come from Cyprus, which would represent the Afghan diaspora. All of these 21 participants will choose a 15-member Executive Council that would become the provisional government after being confirmed as such by a traditional meeting of tribal chieftains, known here as a loyajerga (ph).

This meeting would take place, of course, after the meeting in Bonn and could last several days. U.N. officials are saying that the meeting in Bonn could last several weeks. Catherine.

CALLAWAY: OK, Harris Whitbeck joining us from Kabul. Thanks, Harris.

Well, as he said, there are a growing number of Taliban prisoners to deal with, opposition forces continually trying to gain ground in Afghanistan.

With the latest developments now, we're going to join CNN Military Analyst, retired Air Force Major General Don Shepperd. He's in Washington.

Good morning, general.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Lots to talk about this morning with Northern Alliance troops moving into Konduz, at least on the outskirts of Konduz. We also have Khanabad, the Khanabad situation there of Taliban soldiers giving up. It has to be a good move for the Northern Alliance. What's the future of the Taliban now?

SHEPPERD: Well, never a dull day in Afghanistan, Catherine. We're never ceased to be surprised. Predictions of a battle to the death in Konduz and now it looks like a fairly orderly surrender so far, but still reports, according to Satinder Bindra of as many as 10,000 troops remaining in Konduz with 3,000 of them being the foreign fighters.

So really what's developing is, the Taliban are being asked to, are being offered a surrender with amnesty. In other words, disarm and go back to your local villages and resume your lives, while the foreign prisoners, if you will, being taken are being sorted in an area called a Kalajengi (ph) which is a mud-walled fortress, the headquarters of General Dostum, west of Mazar-e Sharif.

They're being sorted and basically we're going to have to figure out now who's going to hold them, where they're going to go. Reports that they're going to be put under U.N. control, but there's no U.N. force in the area. There's not enough U.S. forces to guard them right now, so that's going to develop over the course of the day.

But again clearly in the Konduz area, no real heavy fighting yet, with reports of the Northern Alliance and opposition forces entering the city from the east, there could be more battles later on tonight and even tomorrow from those who refuse to surrender.

CALLAWAY: Were there plans, were they prepared for such a massive surrender of Taliban?

SHEPPERD: I think that the scene that developed was a city of 15,000 defenders surrounded by 30,000 Northern Alliance, and I think everybody predicted a battle to the death. I don't think anyone predicted the surrender as rapidly as it took place.

Just like the entire battles throughout the country, everybody predicted set piece battles that would last a long time. Nobody predicted the rapid collapse.

What appears to me to be taking place is the realization by the Taliban that these foreign fighters and al Qaeda are the ones who have occupied their country and have caused the misery that they're being subjected to, and there's a galloping movement to surrender and now throw out these foreign troops. That appears to be from a distance what's developing.

CALLAWAY: What about the coalition, U.S. and British forces? Could there possibly be Special Forces now on the ground, monitoring the surrender of the Taliban?

SHEPPERD: Clearly there are. We're receiving reports that at the Kalajengi (ph), the place where the prisoners are being taken to be sorted, that there are U.S. forces there.

Now remember, we've had reports of several hundred Special Forces in both the north and the south reported by the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon briefings.

We've not been given details on where they are, but these are not, you know, huge fighting forces. They're conducting clearly operations there. They're gathering intelligence, forming liaison, but they are indeed involved and we, when I say we I mean the U.S. and coalition forces, clearly want these foreign prisoners, particularly the al Qaeda.

We don't want them killed. We don't want them massacred. We want them for intelligence purposes.

CALLAWAY: Yes, which gets us back to Enemy #1, Osama bin Laden, the whole, you know, project here is to find Osama bin Laden. Are we getting away from that? Is all of our attention now being focused on handling the surrender of the Taliban? What's going on in the search for Osama bin Laden right now?

SHEPPERD: Not at all. You can bet that in the intelligence cells and the military cells over there, we are really concentrating our effort on rapid gathering of intelligence and focusing of our sensors to say, "where are the remaining al Qaeda and where is bin Laden."

Now again, something could develop, is you may have an entire nation now searching for one man, and when I say one man, I mean bin Laden and his minions, the al Qaeda, with the whole nation rising up to help the United States and coalition find him, with the realization that this is what's caused misery.

It could be that we're going to have 25 million people helping us to find him now, rather than a few.

CALLAWAY: We talked a little bit about Tora Bora and the air strikes in that region. Still a focus of the U.S. military today?

SHEPPERD: I suspect that there's a lot of focus going on in that area, but again we're going to get intel from everyone and focus our sensors on where they are. I suspect that bin Laden is still in Afghanistan, from everything I'm hearing. I suspect he's near the border.

Tora Bora would be one area and another area would be down in the Kandahar area. Both of those are likely places because of the tunnels and training areas where he's operated before.

CALLAWAY: All right, definitely a fluid situation in Afghanistan today. Thank you for joining us, General Don Shepperd.

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