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CNN Saturday Morning News

Taliban Surrender Continues Outside Mazar-e Sharif

Aired November 24, 2001 - 09:05   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: There is another massive surrender going on in the west of Konduz outside the city of Mazar-e Sharif. Let's go now to CNN's Alessio Vinci, who's monitoring the developments there, joins us by videophone with the very latest.

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hello, Catherine.

We've seen earlier today some 400 Taliban fighters giving themselves up to the forces of the Northern Alliance, about 30 miles out of Mazar-e Sharif, going east towards Konduz in the middle of the desert. It took all day for the Northern Alliance commanders to coordinate that surrender.

We have seen also many U.S. Special Forces on hand there, and right next to the Northern Alliance commanders, trying to coordinate the surrender of those troops. At some point we've seen a truckload of weapons that we understand were the weapons of those Taliban forces have given up, and then we saw four truckloads completely filled with Taliban fighters. Those fighters were then brought into the Kalajengi (ph), which is the fortress-like compound of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is the top Northern Alliance commander here in northern Afghanistan here in Mazar-e Sharif.

As those prisoners of war were brought inside this compound, they were asked to come down on those trucks, and then they were being searched by Northern Alliance soldiers. They've been stripped of all their belongings. We've seen copies of the Koran, we've seen flashlights, batteries, some bullets, some scissors, all kind of small items that the Northern Alliance soldiers thought that those prisoners of war could not keep with them.

They were then being moved away from the dispersal area into a second area where they were being processed to try to establish whether these were northern -- whether they were Afghans, Afghan fighters, or the so-called foreign fighters. We understand from Northern Alliance commanders that the majority of those fighters are actually foreign fighters, mainly from Pakistan, from Chechnya, and from Saudi Arabia.

And according to Northern Alliance commanders, once those soldiers are being processed here, the foreign fighters will be handed over, according to General Dostum, to the United Nations. That's what he told us earlier today. However, today and so far here in Mazar-e Sharif, there is no functioning United Nations office. As far as the Afghan Taliban, they will receive an amnesty. They will be allowed to go back home. Northern Alliance commanders here are telling us that they will be going, most of them, down to Kandahar, the southern province of Afghanistan, which is a Taliban stronghold.

A bloody incident actually happened today as those Taliban soldiers were being searched. One man pulled out a grenade out of his pocket before he was being searched and detonated that grenade, killing himself and also two other soldiers, Taliban soldiers, who were nearby, and also injuring one top, we understand top Northern Alliance commander. We understand he was seriously injured. He's still alive.

But this man, obviously, this Pakistani fight -- we understand he was a Pakistani fighter who had decided to give himself up but not give up the fight against the Northern Alliance. And as he arrived inside this compound, after he was searched, he detonated -- before he was searched, he detonated this hand grenade, killing himself and two other Taliban fighters.

Back to you, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: All right, CNN's Alessio Vinci outside of Mazar-e Sharif, thank you, Alessio.

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