Briefing by Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan

(13 Oct 2001)

1. Quetta airport with security forces standing around vehicle
2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Abdul Salam Zaeef, Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan,
Question: Can you tell us the latest on the situation in Kandahar sir, civilian casualties, bombing?
Answer: "I think there is (a) lot of civilian casualties, but I don't know exactly how (many) are these casualties."
Q: Will you be looking at any arrangements for the press to have a look for ourselves what the situation is in Kandahar?
A: "The situation is good, not bad."
6. Cutaway cameraman
7. Zaeef getting into car
8. Car drives away with close up of Zaeef through car window, pull out to car driving away

STORYLINE:

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef spoke on Saturday of a large number of civilian casualties in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Zaeef was speaking to reporters in Quetta, in north west Pakistan, on his way to Kandahar by road.

He flew as far as Quetta where he addressed journalists before continuing his journey by road.

Reports of casualties are extremely difficult to verify, with Afghanistan all but sealed off from the outside world.

Foreigners, including foreign journalists, have been ordered to leave Afghanistan.

There are no international telephone lines. Use of equipment like satellite phones and computers is severely restricted.

Only the deaths of four guards working for a mine-clearing agency contracted by the United Nations have been confirmed by U-N officials in neighbouring Pakistan.

The supreme leader of Afghanistan's Taliban militia ruled out handing over terror suspect Osama bin Laden and appealed again to Muslims everywhere to help defend his country, the Afghan Islamic Press reported Saturday.

"We have not agreed with America to hand over anyone," Mullah Mohammed Omar said in a statement issued in Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, and distributed by the independent Afghan Islamic Press agency here.

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