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Target: Terrorism - Pro Taliban Supporters Rally in Quetta

Aired October 2, 2001 - 05:06   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets today in Quetta, Pakistan, chanting "Death to America!" That appears to be the largest anti American protest there since the attacks on New York and Washington.

CNN's Nic Robertson is there. He joins us now but on the telephone -- Nic, what do you have?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, those demonstrations earlier today very much focused initially on getting the message out to the international community. The demonstrators walked some four miles from the city's airport past the one and only main hotel in the city where the world's international press are located. The press were not allowed out by the police. Security services at that time kept the press behind locked gates.

Subsequently, however, the demonstrators have now gathered in a large square inside, a kind of very dusty square. They're listening right now to speeches from their leaders and in a few moments their chief mullah, if you will, the top leader of this particular Islamic party, the JUI. Now this party has very strong links to the Taliban. From its religious schools here in Pakistan it sent many fighters off to fight with the Taliban in the past, and their religious leaders here really calling on them now to support the Taliban, to condemn the United States, to condemn President Musharraf.

And many of the people we've talked to at the demonstrations this morning, Leon, saying that if America gets involved inside Afghanistan, then this could be a very, very bad thing for America, they say, and Afghanistan would become the graveyard, they say, for American soldiers.

Inside Afghanistan today, we also have reports of a demonstration in the city of Kandahar. That is the city that is the heartland, the stronghold, if you will, of the Taliban. There some two and a half thousand demonstrators came out on the streets, we are told, the numbers not that high, people in Kandahar tell us, because many people are very concerned about the current situation. There's a lot of concern that the country could be attacked at some stage in the future.

But those demonstrators in Kandahar burning effigies of President Bush, burning flags of the United States and also, we are told, burning effigies of the exiled king, Zahir Shah, who at this time is working on forming a broad based support potentially to allow him to return and form some kind of interim government with inside Afghanistan. The message coming from the demonstrators in the Taliban's stronghold of Kandahar today that they are not willing to accept Zahir Shah. This is somebody that, who they say, no longer has relevance in Afghanistan.

However, the numbers not that big in Kandahar. What we are told by our staff there in Kandahar is that the government inside, the Taliban government at the moment is trying to win the hearts and minds of the citizens of Afghanistan. We are told that the hard-line vice and virtue ministry and the defense ministry are relaxing some controls on the people, dropping some of the checkpoints on the roads and releasing some restrictions on the people at this time. Leon.

HARRIS: Nic, can you give us a sense of how you're interpreting the signs that you're seeing? A lot of the signals that we are seeing and hearing seem to indicate that perhaps something might be coming to a head and fairly soon, that perhaps there will be some action either on the ground there or in the air in Afghanistan. Is that the sense that you're gathering from what you're seeing happening over the border?

ROBERTSON: Certainly the, there is a very, very high level of expectation inside Afghanistan and there has been, it's been like that for the last few weeks. Many people there who, staff who remain inside Afghanistan, a local staff, they tell us that people they've talked to really want, in some ways, the attacks to happen because they say that the pressure of the sort of level of expectation is almost unbearable.

They do tell us that some people have begun to move back from their villages into the cities, into Kabul and into Kandahar. But from the perspective inside Afghanistan, there's a very, very real fear at this time, we are told, that there could be an attack at any moment. Each night they tell us they believe that it could come -- Leon.

HARRIS: Nic Robertson reporting live this morning on the phone from Quetta, Pakistan. Thank you very much.

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