- KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- Taliban forces besieged in the northern Afghan enclave of Kunduz agreed
on Thursday to surrender, leaving the fundamentalist militia's southern
spiritual heartland as its last real bastion in the country.
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- With President Bush telling his troops that Osama bin
Laden and his fighters were their main target, the Taliban commander in
Kunduz said all its defenders, both Taliban fighters and bin Laden loyalists,
would give themselves up.
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- As Americans prepared to celebrate their Thanksgiving
holiday, a 94-year-old woman from a rural Connecticut town became the fifth
person to die from inhalation anthrax -- reviving bioterrorism fears.
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- Kunduz Taliban commander Mullah Faizal told reporters
in the nearby town of Mazar-i-Sharif all fighters in the city, Afghans
and foreigners alike, were under his control and would give themselves
up.
-
- "There will be peace," he said. "Nothing
will happen."
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- Some 10,000 Afghan Taliban troops and Pakistani, Arab
and Chechen fighters loyal to bin Laden were trapped in the city, which
has faced days of U.S. air strikes.
-
- The terms of the surrender were still being discussed.
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- As Germany prepared to host U.N.-sponsored talks on the
future of Afghanistan, Bush warned that the war on terrorism was entering
a dangerous phase and that the fight against bin Laden's al Qaeda network
must stretch beyond Afghan borders.
-
- "Afghanistan is just the beginning of the war against
terror," Bush told U.S. troops in a pre-Thanksgiving pep talk.
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- "America's not waiting for terrorists to try to
strike us again. Wherever they hide, wherever they plot, we will strike
the terrorists," he said on Wednesday, as U.S.-led war in Afghanistan
neared the end of its seventh week.
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- DEAD RATHER THAN ALIVE
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- The United States has offered a $25 million bounty for
Saudi-born bin Laden, the man it accuses of masterminding September 11
attacks on the United States which are now estimated to have killed nearly
4,000 people.
-
- The attacks prompted the U.S.-led war of retaliation
on the Taliban, whom Washington accused of sheltering bin Laden.
-
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. special forces
had stepped up their hunt for bin Laden in the Afghan mountains.
-
- Asked by the U.S. network CBS whether he would rather
see him dead than alive, he replied:
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- "Oh, my goodness gracious, yes, after what he's
done."
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- Capturing Kunduz would allow the anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance to open up strategic routes to neighboring Tajikistan.
-
- Northern Alliance warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum
said talks were continuing on surrender details.
-
- The Northern Alliance says Afghan Taliban troops in the
city have been ready to surrender for days, but their Pakistani, Arab and
Chechen comrades were fighting to the death, fearing Northern Alliance
forces would show them little mercy if they surrendered.
-
- Northern Alliance commanders and Taliban defectors have
said al Qaeda fighters were refusing to take orders from Afghans and were
executing Afghan Taliban troops who wanted to surrender after days of pounding
by U.S. bombs.
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- But Dostum has said the foreign fighters would be treated
according to international laws and human rights conventions.
-
- Surrender in Kunduz would leave the Taliban only in control
of their southern bastion of Kandahar, home of their supreme leader Mullah
Mohammad Omar, and nearby provinces.
-
- A Taliban spokesman vowed on Wednesday to defend their
southern strongholds to the death and said that they had no idea of bin
Laden's whereabouts.
-
- U.N.-sponsored talks begin on Monday in Bonn, Germany,
on the political future of Afghanistan. The talks among rival Afghan factions
are intended to map a path to the formation of a multi-ethnic post-Taliban
government.
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- TALKS ON THE FUTURE
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- Lakhdar Brahimi, the special U.N. representative for
Afghanistan, wants Afghans to create a small body to run Kabul before a
larger, more representative group can be organized.
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- Originally, he proposed a large provisional council to
choose a transitional administration pending formation of a government.
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- The talks will group representatives of major factions
and ethnic groups, including a sizable number of ethnic Pashtun, the largest
ethnic group in the 20 million population.
-
- The Pashtun-dominated Taliban, whose grip on Afghanistan
has slipped in little over a week, were not invited to attend.
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- To help rebuild Afghanistan and restore the hopes of
ordinary Afghans, would-be donors met informally in Washington and discussed
a $10 billion, 10-year plan for the country, but they need to make final
estimates of how much money will be required.
-
- Japan, the United States, the European Union and Saudi
Arabia have joined to lead a multi-billion-dollar campaign to repair the
damage to Afghanistan from two decades of conflict.
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- U.S. officials have said they want to start some "quick-hitting"
projects to inspire hope among ordinary Afghans, who have endured war,
years of famine and weeks of bombardment.
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- The United Nations estimates that some five million Afghan
refugees are at risk this winter. Many lack shelter and food.
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- As Bush spoke of extending his war on global terrorism,
a key U.N. panel gave up trying to draft a new treaty on the issue before
the end of the year.
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- The U.N. General Assembly's legal committee, charged
with drafting the anti-terrorism pact, is bogged down over provisions dealing
with the Middle East and Kashmir. It said it would try again during the
week of January 28.
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- As Americans focused on Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday,
officials revised down to 3,682 the toll of people killed or missing in
the September 11 World Trade Center attack -- taking the total killed in
the suicide hijack attacks that day to 3,915.
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