Fighting continues as Taliban negotiates surrender

By Robert H. Reid

Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The Taliban have agreed to surrender their last major bastion Kandahar to tribal forces under a deal guaranteeing the safety of their supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, officials of both sides said today.

Within hours, however, differences over the deal emerged among the anti-Taliban forces – some reflecting personal rivalries and others over the fate of Omar, whom the United States considers a criminal for harboring terrorists.

In a sign of the continuing confusion and uncertainty, U.S. Marines fired mortars into the desert tonight after detecting what they said “appears to be a credible threat” around their desert base southwest of Kandahar.

Camp Rhino went on alert and Marines took up defensive positions. Journalists huddled in a trench heard more than three dozen detonations as the ground shook with mortar fire and the sky illuminated with flares. Reporters at the base were told to put on flak jackets and helmets.

The newly appointed Afghan prime minister said Omar would have to distance himself from terrorism but left unclear if he would be arrested, as the United States has demanded.

“Those are the details that we still have to work out. I’m not saying anything right now,” Hamid Karzai, head of the U.S.-backed interim government that is expected to take over later this month, told The Associated Press.

Until those details are finalized and accepted by all parties – including the United States – the deal for the surrender of Kandahar could fall apart. In a series of interviews with AP and others, Karzai refused to say explicitly whether Omar would face arrest or be allowed to remain free.

Karzai said he did not know the whereabouts of either Omar or Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States would not stand for any deal that allowed Omar to remain free and “live in dignity” in the region.

“Our cooperation and assistance with those people would clearly take a turn south if something were to be done in respect to the senior people in that situation that is inconsistent with what I have said,” Rumsfeld said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed news of the deal and said “it seems that the final collapse of the Taliban is now upon us.”

“That is a total vindication of the strategy that we have worked out from the beginning,” Blair told reporters at his Downing Street office in London.

In Quetta, Pakistan, a spokesman for Pashtun leader Gul Agha said his group was displeased with the agreement and Karzai’s role in it. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.

“Gul Agha has developed some differences with Karzai,” spokesman Abdul Jabbar said. “Gul Agha called Karzai and said: ‘Why didn’t you ask our opinion before making this deal with the Taliban? We are also a party.”

Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, said Taliban fighters in Kandahar would begin handing over their weapons to a local Pashtun leader, Mullah Naqib Ullah, starting Friday. Omar would be allowed to live in Kandahar under Naqib Ullah’s protection, Zaeef said.

“Mullah Omar has taken the decision for the welfare of the people, to avoid casualties and to save the life and dignity of Afghans,” Zaeef said.

But Jabbar rejected any role for Naqib Ullah in the power transfer, saying he was an ally of the Taliban. “We do not agree with him, and we do not accept him,” he said.

Zaeef said Omar’s decision was in response to heavy U.S. bombing of Kandahar, and was intended to prevent more civilian deaths.

U.S. aircraft have been pounding the Kandahar area intensively for weeks to soften Taliban defenses and support Afghan fighters advancing on the city.

However, there was no bombing in the Kandahar area today. The pause could either have been to facilitate negotiations or possibly in response to Wednesday’s accidental bombing of anti-Taliban forces in which three U.S. special forces troops and five Afghan fighters were killed.

Elsewhere, American B-52s pounded targets in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where local officials believe bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants are hiding.

Anti-Taliban Afghans launched a ground attack Wednesday against al-Qaida strongholds, including the caves and tunnels of the Tora Bora complex.

In Islamabad, Zaeef said the Taliban would not surrender to Karzai, who was chosen Wednesday in Germany to head an interim council to run the country for six months.

However, Karzai told AP the Taliban would surrender to him and that he had designated Naqib Ullah and another Pashtun leader, Gul Agha, to collect the weapons. Naqib Ullah maintained good relations with the Taliban during their five years in power.

Karzai said ordinary Taliban fighters would be free to return to their homes but that foreign fighters loyal to bin Laden must leave the country or face arrest.

“They have to leave Afghanistan,” Karzai said of the Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks and others. “They have to face justice. They (must) just stop what they are doing, leave my country and face international justice.”

Earlier, Karzai told AP that he would offer ordinary Taliban fighters amnesty but not Omar.

Zaeef said the handover would take three or four days and after that, it would be up to Naqib Ullah to decide who can enter the city. Zaeef also said further talks would be held to determine the fate of Arab and other foreign fighters loyal to bin Laden.

It was also unclear whether the surrender would apply to Taliban units in the town of Spinboldak or in mountain hide-outs scattered throughout southern Afghanistan.

However, Zaeef said the Taliban was finished as a political movement. “I think we should go home,” he said.

Until the agreement, Omar had been calling on the Taliban to fight to the death. “The fight has now begun. It is the best opportunity to achieve martyrdom,” Omar told his commanders by radio last week, according to a Taliban official.

At the United Nations today, the Security Council unanimously endorsed the power-sharing agreement for a temporary post-Taliban government and called on all Afghan groups to fulfill its goal of restoring peace to the war-battered nation.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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