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CNN Saturday Morning News
Taliban, Northern Alliance Forces Clash
Aired October 20, 2001 - 09:12 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: While the Taliban are being pounded by U.S.-led forces from the air, their troops battle with the opposition Northern Alliance on several fronts, including along a critical front north of Kabul.
CNN's Chris Burns joins us live from northern Afghanistan with the latest on the Afghan civil war -- Chris.
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Martin, the Taliban are fighting back. Even the Northern Alliance admits that. They say that up in Mazar-e Sharif, very strategic town up in the north, that the Taliban hold, that the Northern Alliance would like to get ahold of before winter sets in, that the Taliban pushed the Northern Alliance back about a mile and a half in the last day or so.
So now they're are about five -- between four and five miles outside of town. The Northern Alliance claims that seven commanders and 200 troops on the Taliban side defected, but that doesn't seem to be doing much on the ground. The Taliban claim, on the other hand, that they -- that Commander Dostum (ph) of the Northern Alliance was killed in the fighting. The Northern Alliance was quick to respond and say, no, he is still alive.
Dostum is now with a number of U.S. military personnel, as many as 20 believed to be liaising, perhaps as far as intelligence and so forth, up there around that battle area. And at the same time, there are U.S.-led air strikes in Samangan Province, that is just to the south and east of Mazar-e Sharif. They're striking at Taliban troop positions.
So it does appear that there is a coordinated effort to try to get ahold of Mazar-e Sharif before winter sets in.
Also fighting going on in Ghor Province. The Northern Alliance says the Taliban are launching an attack in a district there. The Northern Alliance had ahold of that district up until now.
And also in -- along the front here, we saw exchange, a fierce exchange of mortar, machine gun, and artillery fire today, as well as the night before. Fighting going along there, not much progress on either side, but it is going on, and it does terrorize people who live very near -- very close nearby. We went to a town very close nearby to see how people live with war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Mohamed Yasim (ph) pumps tires in the shadow of Taliban guns on the mountains above. Two months ago, he scrambled for cover from a Taliban mortar attack. But he's back, working in the same spot.
"This is my country, this is my soil," he says. "We have to stay here and work and hope to stay alive."
Repeatedly overrun by the Taliban, Terakhar (ph) is currently in the hands of the Northern Alliance, but just minutes from the front line, a town that's defiant but also anxious.
Shoe repairman Abdul Jihan (ph) recounts abuses during Taliban occupation and fears their return.
"We can't sleep by day or by night," he says. It's a fear people here try to live with, even if the geography around them is a constant reminder that war could break out again without warning.
Amid the ruins of what used to be a rural retreat north of Kabul, Terakhar struggles along. These women bake bread at home and sell it to try to survive.
"It's been five years that we've worked here," says Bibi Zubaida, a mother of eight. "It's because of the Taliban that we've been reduced to this."
With the gasoline station wrecked, people tank up by the bottle at Mohamed Yakub's (ph) shop. "People are scattered as refugees," he says. "There's hardly anybody left here."
The town, he says, is not what it used to be. Even the cinema is in ruins, another casualty of war.
It's Friday, Muslim prayer day. The mullah preaches confidence to his flock. "We will finally defeat this enemy and enter Kabul," he says. "Our fronts will become strong and people united." Trying to reassure a town traumatized by war, with hopes that after years of bloodshed, the end may be in sight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNS: Gas station vendor Mohamed Yakub couldn't be more right. The U.N. high commissioner for refugees says hundreds of thousands of people are on the move in this country tonight -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: CNN's Chris Burns reporting to us from northern Afghanistan, thank you very much.
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