As the battle for the Taliban's last northern stronghold of Kunduz heated up Monday, diplomats reportedly agreed to meet this weekend in Germany to discuss forming a broad-based government to replace the tottering militia with the opposition Northern Alliance and other factions, said reports.
B-52 bombers circled high above the Kunduz, their bombs creating a series of massive explosions that shook the surrounding hills, according to the BBC Online.
AP quoted refugees as saying that foreigners - mostly Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens - were preventing Afghan Taliban fighters from surrendering, and that several hundred would-be Taliban defectors were shot by their own side.
Apparently preparing for an attack on Kunduz, alliance tanks fired from ridges that had been held by the Taliban just a day earlier, said the agency, while rebel soldiers moved into what had been no-man's land in a valley near the town.
In contrast with press reports of an imminent attack, the BBC reported that rebel General Abdul Rashid Dostum said he had spoken by telephone to the Taliban commander in the city, who allegedly agreed to meet him later on Monday to finalize terms of the surrender.
US jets have also bombed the town of Gardez, south of Kabul, seven days after it fell to tribal leaders opposed to the Taliban. The reasons for this were not clear, said the BBC.
US bombs have reportedly caused heavy civilian casualties, but the Pentagon has ridiculed such claims, calling them Taliban propaganda. Nevertheless, both the UN and the Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite channel have provided evidence to the contrary.
Further south, local tribal leaders said Monday that they were trying to strike a deal with the Taliban over the future of the key city of Kandahar, according to the BBC.
But the Pentagon has declared it would be unhappy with any negotiated surrender that would allow key Taliban figures like leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to flee from the city, said the UK-based news service.
SOLDIERS, DIPLOMATS RACE TOWARD FINISH LINE
Negotiators reported progress Monday in persuading Afghanistan's major ethnic groups to work together on forming a government, said AP.
No date or place for talks has been announced, but a Pakistani diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a meeting would begin Saturday, possibly in Berlin, added the agency.
The UN secured a rare success in its diplomacy when the Northern Alliance foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, agreed to send a representative to a meeting of all Afghan factions to be held outside the country, said the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Western allies are in a rush to create a broad-based, if not democratic, government in a country where ethnic wars killed tens of thousands in the early 1990s.
The US warning to the Northern Alliance to stay out of Kabul - which was ignored - was one attempt to stave off such power struggles.
The presence in the capital of Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of the largest constituent member of the alliance, the Jamiat-e Islami, has alarmed leaders of the Pashtun tribes, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, reported the Herald on Monday.
"This man Rabbani is going to be an obstacle," Professor Rasoul Amin, a prominent Pashtun intellectual in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, told the paper.
According to the Herald, Rabbani is a life-long Islamist who backed Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War and had close ties with the Arab fighters grouped around Osama bin Laden.
In an interview yesterday, US National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice described him as a "complicated figure," but said Washington was determined to look on the bright side, at least until it succeeds in its main objective of catching bin Laden.
With regard to the elusive bin Laden, blamed by Washington for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Bush has repeated his refrain that "the noose is beginning to narrow," added the paper.
In Jalalabad, the new anti-Taliban governor of Nangarhar province, Abdul Kadeer, offered to help US and British commandos search for bin Laden and Al Qaeda fighters in the rugged mountains of his province, said AP.
The official said there were hundreds of Arab fighters holed up in the Tora-Bora camp in Nangarhar, added the agency, and he would be happy to help coalition forces root them out - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
