America's New War: Taliban Allow Group of Journalists to See Damage on Ground in Kandahar
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: As United States airstrikes continue in Afghanistan, the Taliban has now allowed a group of journalists to see the damage on the ground in the city of Kandahar. CNN's Nic Robertson was among those journalists allowed into the city. The Taliban did not put any restrictions on what Nic could say. Here now, his report via videophone, from Kandahar.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): In Kandahar, at least, has been a quiet day. A few jet aircraft burst around the city, but no bombs were dropped. The Taliban has taken a group of 26 journalists, including CNN, to see various sites in Kandahar. The first site we were shown was the ministry of the religious police, which had been completely destroyed in downtown Kandahar. Also next to that, two other ministries have been destroyed. Now the Taliban did want to show us that they had been destroyed, but they also wanted to show us across the road collateral damage. Now we were taken to what had been a tailor shop, where we talked to several people, who told us that various friends and relatives have tied in the bombing there in that collateral damage. We also were able to travel outside of the city, into the surrounding countryside, and visit some villages there. We were not allowed to visit military sites. However, while we have been touring around, we have been able to see evidence of the Taliban say they say, they will not meet the United States head on militarily. What they say they will do is to disperse their military hardware around the countryside, and that's what we have seen today, antiaircraft guns, armored personnel carriers, either In the mountains or in trees, but hidden around the countryside, and this is very much in line with what the Taliban have been saying on who they will deal with the current air bombardment. But we did also see downtown one destroyed armor personnel carrier. We were told that that was destroyed by American fighter jets a few weeks ago, but relatively speaking, the city of Kandahar appears to be returning to normal. The stores are open. There are a lot of people out on the streets, and we are told that the last 10 days, people have been returning to the city, people who were initially afraid very afraid that the heavy bombardment in the early days of the air campaign are now coming back to the city. The city is without electricity and without running water, but the stores are open. There is a lot of traffic on the road, and we are told that the city is returning to normal. Certainly, from our view, from what we have seen before the air campaign and before the September 11th attacks, it is not as busy as Kandahar would have been then, but there still are a lot of people on the streets here, Nic Robertson, Kandahar, CNN.</s>WOODRUFF: And we would just remind you, as we also do now with these reports from inside the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, that you are seeing only one side of the story, that these U.S. military actions that Nic Robertson was talking about are in response to a terrorist attack that killed 5,000 and more innocent people inside the United States. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com