KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, CNN's Nic Robertson is in Afghanistan, and Taliban forces told him the U.S. bombing campaign has helped to unite them. We spoke with Nic earlier this morning while he was in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, and he talked about the Taliban troop morale.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Taliban troops are telling us their morale is fine. They say, in fact, that it's very, very good at this time. They say several things on that issue. One, they say -- they deny rumors that they're forcibly recruiting people into the army. They say they have plenty of volunteers. We talked with an army commander a couple of days ago, and he even said that he didn't need more volunteers coming from Pakistan. He said that the effect of the aerial bombing campaign on the Taliban, he says, has been to unite the Taliban and bring plenty of volunteer recruits into the Taliban forces. And he said that at this time, he had no problems with the strength of his force. He did say, when I asked him, and he was a regional commander for the southern part of Afghanistan around Kandahar, I asked him how many of his soldiers had been killed in the aerial bombing campaign, he said only 15 to date so far. Essentially morale for those soldiers, and certainly talking to the Taliban soldiers and fighters that we've seen around here, they would appear to back that up. They do say that their morale is high.</s>PHILLIPS: And that's our Nic Robertson, once again, reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Taliban Forces Report High Morale