Skip to main content
CNN.com /transcript

CNN TV

EDITIONS
SERVICES
CNN TV
EDITIONS

CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL

America's New War: Afghan Clerics Meet To Decide Fate of bin Laden

Aired September 20, 2001 - 05:13   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, speaking of Afghanistan there has been intense internal diplomatic activity in that country. As we reported earlier, the Taliban Grand Islamic Council has been meeting to decide whether or not that country will force Osama bin Laden to leave its confines. And the council just ended its meeting a short time ago. We're expecting a press conference on what this 600 clerics who got together to talk about this have decided about handing him over.

Our Tom Mintier is monitoring these rapidly developments -- developing events, I should say, in Afghanistan from Pakistan's capitol city of Islamabad. That's where he is right now And he joins us with more.

Tom, hello?

TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon. We are awaiting a press conference by the clerics after their day and a half -- two-day meeting in Kabul. What we have heard from the Afghan Islamic Press is that most of the speakers who stood up and expressed themselves inside the council meeting did not support handing over Osama bin Laden -- basically a hard line support calling for war with America.

So we're waiting to hear. They have wrapped up their meeting -- a meeting that because of logistics was late getting started a couple of days ago. We thought it was going to start and then it took some time for all of the clerics to make their way into Kabul.

As you can imagine, it's very difficult to move around that country -- it's been torn up by many, many years of war. So once the meeting did get underway -- it has finished within the last hour or so. We're expecting within the next 20 to 30 minutes a press conference from Kabul announcing the decision of the council. Now this will be something that I'm sure is going to be watched and waited for around the world -- I'm sure in all of the major capitals around the world waiting to see what the clerics say.

Now a couple of days ago there was a delegation that went in from Pakistan to Kandahar to deliver a personal letter from president Musharraf basically asking Mulla Omar to act rationally and find some way out of this situation. What he did was he moved the issue up to the council. The council has met. They have adjourned their meeting. They have completed their deliberations and they will announce their findings hopefully within the next half hour. Leon?

HARRIS: Tom, I don't want to speculate but I find it fairly interesting that the groups that we have been talking to were saying that this meeting with the Islamic council was expected to perhaps go on for days. And know you're saying that most of the debate was against handing over Osama bin Laden. The could be somewhat telling as we wait for that press conference.

But let me ask you about something else, yesterday President Musharraf addressed his country last night -- the country of Pakistan -- to explain exactly why he was recommending that that country participate with the worldwide coalition in alliance with the United States in the is matter. What is the fall out there this morning because so many in Pakistan were actually against that idea?

MINTIER: Absolutely. Pakistan has a population of 140 million and he estimated that maybe 10 to 15 percent did not agree with his position to side with the United States here. But it's the fence sitters who make up the actual majority here when you combine them with the opposition. It's those people who might not support working with the United States who don't want a war but if one does come which side will they go down to? That's something we really don't know.

The president talked about using reason and intelligence -- not emotion. What we were seeing in the days leading up to his speech was a lot of emotion in places like Karachi where 3,000 or 4,000 people were turning out on the streets.

We talked to a lot of people in Islamabad today and the majority have a difficulty with the Pakistan supporting the United States' position but they also look at the -- at the alternative much as the way Musharraf did and siding with the Taliban in this against the rest of the world would be like swimming up stream -- a trout swimming up stream.

So there is a lot of public opinion against the position of Pakistan siding with the United States but when you talk to people and they look at what happened in New York and Washington they find it difficult to really condone what happened and to support the Taliban and to support Osama bin Laden in something like this they find difficult. Leon?

HARRIS: Yeah, they say this is a key moment here if that president there -- President Musharraf -- is able to plead that case successfully. Tom Mintier standing by for us in Islamabad. Thank you very much. We'll be talking with you very -- quite a bit throughout the day so be careful and we'll talk with you later on.

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

 Search   


Back to the top