Gorgeous! In Black

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CNN's Anderson Cooper faces the enemy in 'Taliban' exclusive documentary
BY Richard Huff
Daily News TV Editor

Friday, December 10th 2010, 4:00 AM


Anderson Cooper says journalist Paul Refsdal risked his life to get the 'Taliban' report.
Hutchens/Getty

Anderson Cooper has spent a lot of time in Afghanistan embedded with U.S. troops, but he's never really gotten to see the enemy.

"They come and go, and fade into the night," Cooper says. "For some people, there's an air of mystery about the Taliban."

CNN viewers tomorrow night at 8 will get a chance to see some Taliban fighters in a way they've probably never seen before when the network airs "Taliban," a documentary hosted by Cooper featuring the work of Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal.

Refsdal got access to some Taliban fighters, and was eventually kidnapped. His escape is covered in the special, as well.

"He took a tremendous risk to do this, he risked his life and got kidnapped," Cooper says. "I, frankly, would not have done it. Kidnapping is the one thing that freaks me out. I would not have put my faith in the Taliban to keep their word."

The risk Refsdal took resulted in footage of Taliban fighters launching an attack.

"It's a bunch of guys on a mountain, yelling and cussing and whooping and hollering," Cooper says. "It demystifies them. It's not the propaganda we usually see."

Indeed, Refsdal tells Cooper in the piece that most journalists, if they get a shot of the Taliban, get arranged footage of training and one commander with his face covered.

To see the real Taliban, he says, "you have to stay for a while."

The documentary also shows how the Taliban filmed by Refsdal inflate the impact of one of the battles recorded, and how they spent lots of time gossiping on the radio.

"The footage is something I've certainly never seen before," Cooper says. "It's a very thin slice. It's not pretending to be all the Taliban. It's one reporter's experience."

Whether the scenes of the ragtag Taliban members change the insurgents' image is the big question. Cooper says the interpretation depends on the viewers.

"You see where they live, you see the training they have. It's just a bunch of guys. They do terrible things and they have terrible motivations. And they're the enemy," he says. "But they're not superhuman."

Superhuman or not, Cooper has no intention of trying to capture the same footage.

"The Taliban looks for prized targets, people they could kidnap," he says. "As a journalist, it is something I would be interested in, but it would be incredibly stupid. I'm easy to Google."