Naby and '60 Minutes' Crew Observe Afghan-USSR Combat

Eden Naby, an associate with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, returned last week from a five-day foray into Afghanistan where she accompanied CBS correspondent Dan Rather and his three-man crew as an interpreter and consultant.

Sunday evening the news magazine program, "60 Minutes" will air a 25- to 30-minute segment containing footage shot inside Afghanistan, showing fighting between the Afghanistan Freedom Fighters and Russian troops.

Naby said Wednesday the crew abandoned plans to interview Afghan refugees in Pakistani camps and hospitals when one Freedom Fighter commander befriended the team and helped them cross the border. He escorted them 50 to 75 miles to Jalalabad, the second largest city in Afghanistan, and to the Kumar Valley, the scene of heavy fighting.

"The trip went quickly from difficult to dangerous," Naby said. "There was a lot of shelling every night in Jalalabad. We were under fire for three days," she added.

Because so many journalists have been denied admission to the country, the crew tried very hard to escape notice by Afghan authorities, Naby said.

But she said Rather and one of the cameramen were spotted on the last day of filming as they tried to shoot pictures of Russian equipment from a hilltop. "The helicopters were swooping down near the rooftops all day looking for them," she added.

Naby said that although the Freedom Fighters have spirit and a lot of support from the Afghanistan people, their equipment is totally ineffective. "All of their weapons are vintage World War I, except for what they get from captured Russians," she said.