Exclusive: Afghan Warlord Talks Resistance
From remote mountains in northeastern Afghanistan, one of the country's most notorious terrorists has attacked U.S. troops and evaded capture for nearly seven years, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.
Afghan warlord Gulbeddin Hekmatyar spoke exclusively to CBS News about the state of the insurgency in Afghanistan, in this interview smuggled out of his secret hiding place.
"The resistance is spreading in all directions," he said through a translator. "It is becoming stronger and more powerful,"
Hekmatyar was once embraced by the United States as a freedom fighter - part of the mujahedeen resistance against the Russian occupation of the 1980's.
Now he's a U.S. enemy, accused of leading an insurgency that has killed American soldiers and destabilized Afghanistan.
Today, he lives on the run, hunted by the U.S. military.
"Although I am confined to one bunker and a village, which is under the threat of American war planes all the time, I sleep very peacefully at night, while George Bush cannot sleep in White House without the help of sleeping pills," he said through a translator.
Hekmatyar mocks President Bush as a war monger and blames him for Iran's meddling in Afghanistan. He says the Iranians are pouring money and weapons into the fight that's destroying his country.
"Iran trespassed into our territory [into Afghanistan] and established military posts in very sensitive areas on our side of the border," he said.
The failure to stop people like Hekmatyar is one of the reasons several thousand additional U.S. troops have been deployed to Afghanistan. But he claims American boots on the ground are only prolonging the resistance.
Hekmatyar offered an ominous warning for Afghan security forces: "Our fighting now is against those hired Afghan soldiers whom the Americans have placed in the frontline to fight us."
Nearly seven years after that fight began, one of America's top enemies in Afghanistan remains as determined as ever.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The original Web description on this story mistakenly misrepresented how the exclusive interview with Afghan warlord Gulbeddin Hekmatyar was conducted. In fact, correspondent Lara Logan submitted written questions and Hekmatyar responded on videotape.
