- PESHAWAR - Taliban fighters
holed up in Kunduz stuck to their stand not to surrender as US planes
heavily
bombed their frontlines and forces loyal to Northern Alliance launched
ground assault on Sunday. CNN, however, quoted tribal elders as saying
that Taliban leaders in Kunduz had agreed to surrender control of the
besieged
city to the United Nations. Pro-Taliban governor of Kunduz Omar Khan has
reiterated his stand to cooperate with the UN sponsored new set-up in
Kabul,
but refused to surrender to Northern Alliance forces and let them take
over the pre-dominantly Pushtun province, which shares borders with
Tajikistan.
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- More than 50 civilians are reported dead and scores of
others injured as a result of the US-led intensive air strikes. "The
target of US and British bombing is mainly towns and villages, killing
innocent people. This is a wrong perception that all Taliban forces have
assembled in Kunduz. We have presence all over northern Afghanistan",
said a Taliban official. However, Northern Alliance sources claim that
bombing of Kunduz and the ground attacks were justified because of the
heavy presence of Arab and Pakistani nationals in the province.
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- Reports reaching Peshawar and telephonic contacts in
Mazar-i-Sharif suggest that Kunduz witnessed severe bombing on Saturday
night and all the day long on Sunday, which caused destruction of
residential
areas and loss of human lives. The exact number of people dead and
destruction
caused by the bombing was not immediately available.
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- The importance of Kunduz for the Northern Alliance is
because of its closeness with Tajikistan, which can open a new supply route
and the taking over of the province will also weaken the hold of the
Pushtun
population, which kept control of the province even during the Soviet
occupation
of Afghanistan.
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- As many as 30 people have been confirmed dead and dozens
of others injured when US planes dropped bombs on a village near the
Pak-Afghan
border in Shahshad area of Nangarhar province, east of Jalalabad on
Saturday
night. "A total of 16 persons, including students of a religious
school
and occupants of a pick-up truck have been confirmed dead in Gorgori area
of Nangarhar", eyewitnesses said. More than 18 bodies have been
recovered
from the rubbles of Shinwaro Kalay, some three kilometer from Pak-Afghan
border, they said. All of them are victims of the US-led air strikes,
locals
said.
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- Another 18 persons, including six bodyguards of Taliban
Minister for Frontiers Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqani and the entire family
of his host, Maulavi Sirajuddin was killed in Tosha village of Zadran area
in Paktia province. "We have reports the family members of the host
were martyred in the bombing. But my father is safe and is inside
Afghanistan,"
said son of Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqani.
-
- Locals from Tosha village said that the bomb was dropped
on the house midnight, which killed Maulavi Sirajuddin and his 11-member
family. Six of Haqani's bodyguards were also killed. It was learnt that
the Taliban minister and former Mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqani
was staying as guest with Maulavi Sirajuddin on the night of the attack,
but he escaped unhurt.
-
- It is to be noted that mosque and the Madrasa of Haqani
were also bombed in Khost two days back, which resulted in the death of
15 students, his son said without disclosing his name. This was the third
such attack on Haqani in one week, but the Taliban minister remained unhurt
and continued to defy US warning to desert Taliban ranks, his close
relatives
said.
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- Reports of heavy bombing of Kandahar have also been
received,
but details of the loss to human lives and damage caused to property could
not be obtained. Meanwhile, chief of Tanzeem Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi
Maulana Sufi Muhammad was arrested along with his heavily armed followers
near the Pak-Afghan border in Kurram Agency on Sunday and taken to
undisclosed
destination. Sufi Muhammad along with his 30 followers carrying AK-47s,
rocket launchers and other light machineguns, was taken into custody after
successful negotiations with the political agent Kurram, official sources
confirmed.
-
- Sufi Muhammad had been on the Pak-Afghan border for the
last three days, due to his reluctance to surrender himself and his
followers
along with their weapons, but finally agreed to give in. There is still
no clue to whereabouts of more than 2,000 Pakistani tribesmen, who were
sent to different frontlines by Taliban, amid reports that a number of
them have been killed, fighting the Northern Alliance forces and some of
them have been arrested. A sizeable number of these Pakistani tribesmen
are believed to be in Kunduz at the moment.
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- The siege of Kunduz has descended into a bloodbath with
Taliban choosing death over defeat, fearsome Arabs loyal to Osama bin Laden
turning their guns on the frightened militia and US jets raining death
from the skies. The United States sent wave after wave of warplanes,
including
giant B-52 bombers, to pound the last holdout of the Taliban in the north,
and fighters of the Northern Alliance -- or United Front -- battered their
frontlines with artillery fire, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday
from the nearby northern town of Taloqan.
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- The anti-Taliban alliance that has surrounded the city
has offered the thousands of Taliban fighters inside -- but not their
foreign
hardline brothers-in-arms -- the possibility of surrender. When some
frightened
Afghan Taliban tried to yield, they were killed by the fearsome Arabs,
Pakistanis, Chechens and other foreign fighters associated with bin Laden's
al-Qaeda network, the foreign ministry spokesman said from Taloqan.
"We
have heard that a group of local Taliban tried to surrender in Kunduz but
they were killed by the foreign soldiers," the spokesman said, adding
that the death toll was less than 150 as reported in some media.
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- The desperation of the beleaguered Taliban in Kunduz
was reflected in an incident last week when six Arabs blew themselves up
in front of the advancing Alliance forces at Dasht-i-Archi, near the Amu
Darya river that marks the border with neighbouring Tajikistan. Many of
the foreign fighters in Afghanistan have chosen to fight to the death,
knowing that they face revenge at the hands of Afghans who hate them, and
because they have no safe haven to which to flee -- unlike the Taliban
who can just melt into the mountains and go home.
-
- Several hundred people have been killed in Kunduz by
US bombing raids in the last few days, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic
Press said. It said no exact estimate of the number of deaths was possible.
The Taliban, routed from most of the country in just a week, have holed
up in Kunduz and Kandahar, determined to fight it out. "The American
planes bombed the Taliban frontline from this morning, for the whole
day,"
the spokesman said. "There was also some exchange of artillery fire
on the ground, but there has been no movement of the frontline today,"
he said.
-
- Repeated efforts to persuade the Taliban, backed by
Pakistani
and Arab fighters, to surrender have failed since the capital fell to the
Alliance on Tuesday. By late on Sunday the patience of Sher Allam, the
Alliance's overall commander in the area, was wearing thin. "We have
given them enough chances to surrender, but they haven't listened so
far,"
Allam told Reuters. "We want this to be resolved peacefully and if
they don't surrender then we will have to start our attack," he
said.
-
- Alliance officials spoke by radio and satellite phone
with the local Taliban forces led by Ghulam Muhammad. But Allam said the
Taliban fighters were under pressure from Arab Islamists in their ranks
not to surrender. Some living below the Taliban positions were preparing
to flee, fearing fighting was imminent. Under the fluid rules of war in
Afghanistan, local commanders can often be persuaded to surrender or swap
sides. But that option is not open to the widely despised Arab, Pakistani,
Chechen and other foreign fighters.
-
- Taliban leaders in Kunduz have agreed to surrender
control
of the besieged city in northern Afghanistan to the United Nations, CNN
quoted tribal elders as saying Sunday. The move follows a meeting in Kunduz
between the six elders, the Taliban commander of Afghanistan's northern
zone, Mullah Dadullah, and the pro-Taliban Kunduz governor Haji Omar Khan.
The elders then travelled to Peshawar, Pakistan and briefed reporters on
Sunday on the outcome of the meeting.
-
- The development follows reports from Kunduz, currently
surrounded by 30,000 Northern Alliance troops, that Taliban fighters were
committing suicides rather than giving up. CNN was also told that Taliban
fighters were killing local Taliban who wanted to surrender. Dadullah and
Khan agreed to surrender their heavy weapons and all foreign fighters to
the UN and said they were willing to let the international body appoint
a neutral caretaker and neutral governor for Kunduz.
-
- The UN has not responded to the offer. Following their
surrender, the two men said they now support the Loya Jirga and the former
Afghan king Zahir Shah, who has pledged to help construct a post-Taliban
Afghan government. Dadullah and Khan insisted that they would not surrender
to the Northern Alliance because they said the alliance has no respect
for human rights, property and honor. They said the Taliban would continue
to fight if the Northern Alliance enters the city.
-
- The Northern Alliance had attempted to engineer a Taliban
surrender, promising the Taliban troops -- which include Chechen, Pakistani
and Arab fighters -- safe passage from Kunduz if they gave up their
weapons.
Sources inside the city told CNN that some 60 Chechen fighters in Kunduz
drowned themselves in the Amu River rather than give up. A Northern
Alliance
commander told CNN of 25 trapped Taliban fighters who fatally shot one
another when they saw opposition troops advancing towards them. The Kunduz
mayor had expressed concern over civilian casualties, asking the Northern
Alliance not to launch a full-scale offensive on the city but to try to
persuade more Taliban to defect.
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- The News International, Pakistan
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