Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

Taliban Suicide Bomber Kills Northern Alliance Commander

Aired November 24, 2001 - 11:04   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: In Afghanistan today, 400 Taliban fighters surrender in Mazar-e Sharif, but not without incident. A suicide bomber among their ranks takes his life and the lives of two others.

CNN's Alessio Vinci saw it happen. He joins us now live by videophone.

Alessio, how close were you?

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Kyra, we were about -- maybe 20 or 30 meters away. That's about, I guess, 15 or 20 yard away from this man. We were interviewing -- we were trying to begin an interview with one of the suicide -- sorry, with one of the Taliban soldiers who had just surrendered. And as our camera was rolling, we heard this loud explosion, and then we saw a lot of people running around.

We went close to the place where the hand grenade had detonated, and we saw two bodies on the ground and, of course, both of them were dead. We also were told by a Northern Alliance commander there that one of their commanders had been seriously injured.

Up until that moment, the surrender had taken place very peacefully. We had followed the four truckloads of Taliban who had surrendered earlier on, about 30 miles outside of this town of Mazar-e Sharif being driven back into town.

They were taken to this fortress-like compound, which is the house of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the main commander of the Northern Alliance here in Mazar-e Sharif. And they have been processed. They have been searched through all their belongings. We've seen copies of the Koran. We've seen some flashlights and batteries and bullets, all small items that were taken away from those Taliban fighters.

And then, all of a sudden, we heard this loud explosion and then that's when we find out that one of them had blew himself up in killing two other soldiers that were nearby. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Now Alessio, as these Taliban fighters begin to surrender, obviously this is a bit of a wake-up call. What is being done now to try and prevent this? Are they taking away arms even quicker, and what about you and the protection of fellow journalists? VINCI: Well you know, this is also -- I mean the situation was very chaotic today, I must tell you. When we first arrived in this, we followed the road into the desert towards Konduz.

We drove only 30 miles and then we were stopped by the Northern Alliance troops who told us that the Taliban soldiers actually were coming this way from Konduz. So a very chaotic day.

They have negotiations that followed with the convoys of journalists and Northern Alliance soldiers, driving back and forth a stretch of about two or three miles, trying to get ahold of and trying to find out who (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Taliban fighters where, because there were some conflicting reports earlier on that both of them -- conflicting reports that the Taliban who had surrendered were not just the Afghan Taliban, but also the so-called foreign fighters.

Later on, we managed to confirm that these were the foreign fighters, the hard-core fighters within the Taliban group, those ones who are supported by the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.

When we followed them back into town, we had been told by the Northern Alliance that all their weapons had been taken away, and indeed we witnessed a huge truckload of weapons and other heavy machine guns being taken away from the same site from where the Taliban had given themselves up.

So when we entered this compound, we were pretty sure that they had no more heavy weapons. However, one of the commanders before this detonation had taken place had warned us that there was a possibility that some of them had hidden some hand grenades.

So there was -- we were warned about this risk, and perhaps we didn't take it seriously enough. Fortunately enough, we were away from where this man blew himself up. I think that he was mainly -- his attempt was mainly to try to kill a Northern Alliance commander rather than injure the journalists. We were the only two journalists there anyway.

PHILLIPS: Alessio Vinci, live from Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan. Listen to those warnings. Thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com