Taliban forfeits base in north

By Ellen Knickmeyer

Associated Press

BANGI, Afghanistan – Taliban commanders agreed Thursday to let Northern Alliance troops into their last stronghold in northern Afghanistan to oversee a surrender of the besieged city of Kunduz, anti-Taliban officials said.

Alliance fighters, apparently unaware of the breakthrough, launched a chaotic offensive outside Kunduz just as details of the agreement emerged. Fighters attacked Taliban positions east of Kunduz with rocket launchers, artillery and tanks. Commanders said they also pushed toward the airport.

In Washington, D.C., Marine Lt. Col. Dave LaPan, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday that 75 U.S. aircraft struck Taliban military forces, tunnels and caves over the previous 24 hours, concentrating on the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad in the east.

Under the purported deal for the surrender of Kunduz, reached during negotiations in the alliance-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghan fighters would be allowed to leave city, the alliance said.

Arabs, Pakistanis and other foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden would be placed in camps until the alliance and the U.S.-led coalition can decide what to do with them, alliance officials in Tajikistan said. The United States has insisted that suspected al-Qaida members not be allowed to go free as part of any deal.

Alliance spokesman Ashraf Nadeem said the alliance would send 5,000 fighters to Kunduz “possibly Saturday” to oversee the Taliban surrender. Both sides agreed to meet today in Mazar-e-Sharif to finalize details, Nadeem said.

The Taliban representatives, including Deputy Defense Minister Mullah Fazil Muslimyar, returned to Kunduz late Thursday to explain the deal to the foreigners.

Alliance fighters said they feared the foreign fighters – thought to number up to 3,000 – might try to break out of the city and escape to Uzbekistan or Pakistan rather than accept surrender.

The issue of the foreign fighters had been the main stumbling block to an agreement to surrender the city, which the Taliban militia held on to after their control of the north collapsed following the loss of Mazar-e-Sharif on Nov. 9. The foreigners feared a repeat of the summary executions that followed the alliance’s takeover of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul.

In Geneva, the international Red Cross said Thursday it had recovered 400 to 600 bodies in Mazar-e-Sharif but would not say whether they were killed in fighting or had been executed.

A spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan, Shamsulkhak Orienfard, said the foreigners would be placed in “filtration camps” and “their fate will be decided by the legal government of Afghanistan and countries of the international anti-terrorism coalition.”

Reports of massacres of Pakistanis and other foreign fighters have raised alarm in Pakistan, a key Muslim ally in the anti-terrorism campaign.

Although Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf supports the campaign, the government believes it cannot remain silent while its own citizens are massacred even if it opposes their cause.

On Thursday, Musharraf urged the visiting president of the International Committee of the Red Cross to help prevent massacres. However, ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said his organization was unable to make safety guarantees.

President Bush launched the campaign against the Taliban in early October for their refusal to hand over bin Laden. After weeks of U.S. bombing against Taliban positions, a Northern Alliance advance swept the Islamic militia out of almost all the north and took Kabul, the capital, on Nov. 13.

A surrender in Kunduz would leave only one major city – the southern base of Kandahar – in Taliban hands. Taliban spokesman Syed Tayyab Agha vowed that the Taliban would fight to defend Kandahar, their spiritual base, and the surrounding provinces they still control.

During the late afternoon attack outside Kunduz, several groups of Taliban fighters appeared to be giving themselves up. One group of Taliban fighters surrendered with trucks, an anti-aircraft gun and rockets. Two higher-ranking Taliban commanders accompanied the defectors.

Before the surrender agreement was announced, Taliban fighters shelled the main road leading eastward out of Kunduz, sending refugees streaming from the city by foot, donkey and car. Terrified civilians dashed for cover. The head-to-toe white shrouds worn by women flapped as the shells crashed around them.

Refugees said they were escaping the anger of foreign fighters trapped in the city and the U.S. bombs.