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CNN Saturday Morning News

Taliban Forces Report High Morale

Aired November 03, 2001 - 09:06   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: Well, CNN's Nic Robertson is in Afghanistan, and Taliban forces told him the U.S. bombing campaign has helped to unite them.

We spoke with Nic earlier this morning while he was in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, and he talked about the Taliban troop morale.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Taliban troops are telling us their morale is fine. They say, in fact, that it's very, very good at this time. They say several things on that issue. One, they say -- they deny rumors that they're forcibly recruiting people into the army. They say they have plenty of volunteers.

We talked with an army commander a couple of days ago, and he even said that he didn't need more volunteers coming from Pakistan. He said that the effect of the aerial bombing campaign on the Taliban, he says, has been to unite the Taliban and bring plenty of volunteer recruits into the Taliban forces. And he said that at this time, he had no problems with the strength of his force.

He did say, when I asked him, and he was a regional commander for the southern part of Afghanistan around Kandahar, I asked him how many of his soldiers had been killed in the aerial bombing campaign, he said only 15 to date so far. Essentially morale for those soldiers, and certainly talking to the Taliban soldiers and fighters that we've seen around here, they would appear to back that up. They do say that their morale is high.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And that's our Nic Robertson, once again, reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

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