KABUL/MAZAR-E-SHARIF, 23 November — The siege of Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan has ended with an all-out assault by the Northern Alliance after talks on a Taleban surrender in the besieged province ended in failure. Contradicting an announcement by a top Northern Alliance commander that surrender terms had been agreed, Alliance Interior Minister Yunus Qanuni confirmed that the deal had in fact fallen through.
"We have tried to settle the issue of Kunduz through negotiation but we have been forced to choose a military solution," Qanuni said. "At the moment our forces are advancing. We hope by tomorrow we will have secured Kunduz."
An Alliance offensive south of Kabul ran into trouble and was forced to beat a retreat after a smaller Taleban force hit back. A 1,000-strong Alliance force backed by at least 11 tanks and artillery and rocket fire assaulted Taleban hill positions about 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Kabul.
Commanders with the alliance, which now controls Kabul, said the battle against an estimated 600 Taleban troops, including 300 Arabs and Pakistanis, lasted about five hours. They said their forces attacked northwestward near Maidan Shahr but had to retreat when the Taleban responded with a flanking maneuver from the southwest.
An AFP reporter saw Northern Alliance troops launch a fierce artillery and rocket onslaught on Taleban positions around Khanabad, some 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Kunduz, where a US B52 bomber was seen dropping its payload. "We are first attacking Khanabad, then we will march on Kunduz," alliance commander Abdul Jamil said.
The attack on Kunduz came as 11th hour talks between the rival factions were reported to have secured the surrender of at least some of the die-hards holed up around the town facing vengeful opposition fighters and fierce US air raids. "Most Afghan Taleban have agreed to surrender, but the foreign fighters will not lay down their arms, negotiations are continuing," Alliance Gen. Muhammad Daoud said.
Thousands of Taleban fighters and Pakistanis, Arabs and Chechens linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network are encircled in Kunduz. Qanuni said 15,000 Taleban troops, including 9,000 to 10,000 foreigners, were in Kunduz city and its surroundings.
He said the Taleban forces in the city had never intended to lay down their arms: "They wanted to buy time. They had no intention of surrendering."
Northern Alliance warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum held surrender talks with Taleban commander Mullah Faizal in Mazar-e-Sharif, saying they had agreed to allow Afghan Taleban fighters safe passage and try foreign Al-Qaeda troops. "I think they will surrender on Saturday and Sunday," Dostum said. About 200 Afghan Taleban decided not to wait, leaving Kunduz in 15 vehicles to give themselves up.
An opposition leader said Taleban forces trapped in north Afghanistan are seeking safe passage to join the defenders of the militia’s southern stronghold of Kandahar. The opposition commander Abdul Khaliq, one of several supporters of ex-King Zahir Shah seeking a peace deal with the Taleban, said he believed hard-core Taleban forces in Kandahar numbered just 4,000 to 5,000.
"They are very concerned about Kunduz where they have many major commanders and also six or seven Taleban governors," said Khaliq, a member of the influential Pashtun Noorsai tribe. "They want to bring those major commanders to Kandahar to support the defense of Kandahar," he said in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.
A senior Northern Alliance leader said a meeting of Afghan groups to be held next week in Germany will elect a leadership council to oversee the transfer of power to a broad-based government.
Interior Minister Qanuni said the election of a shoura, or council, and agreement on a framework for a future Afghan government were the main aims of the UN-brokered meeting to open on Monday in the Petersberg castle near Bonn. "The meeting in Germany is a preliminary meeting," Qanuni told Reuters in an interview.
Qanuni said a shoura would be elected which in turn would agree a working team to draw up a mechanism for the transfer of power to an interim government. "This working team will start work in Afghanistan immediately after the meeting," Qanuni said.
Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah rejected the inclusion of moderate Taleban elements in a future Afghanistan government, a key demand of Pakistan. "It would be very broad-based if we accept such a term (including moderate Taleban). Such a terminology is a contradiction," Abdullah told reporters after talks with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Tehran.
Abdullah refused to endorse the deployment of further Western troops in Afghanistan. "Our position is that it (Western troop deployment) should be decided in the light of developments. If we are consulted about it we will consider it," Abdullah said. Asked if there had been any Western requests to send further troops, he said: "Not at this stage."
A senior Red Cross official said Red Cross workers found up to 600 bodies in Mazar-e-Sharif after it was abandoned by the Taleban, but cannot say how they died.
Olivier Durr, head of operations for central and south Asia for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said 400 to 600 bodies were found in the city after the Taleban left Nov. 9. "But we cannot say these people had been brutally executed or died in fighting," Durr told a small group of journalists in Quetta.
A group of relief agencies is calling for the immediate deployment of an international stabilization force to Afghanistan to secure the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The appeal comes amid the growing disintegration of the security situation in the country.
"We believe there’s a dangerous lack of security in parts of Afghanistan that is making it difficult to distribute aid adequately," said Ken Bacon of Refugees International, which, along with four other groups, on Wednesday urged urgent action to restore order.
"There’s a cruel momentum to disorder and misrule and ... it feeds on itself more and more and the time to stop it is at the earliest possible minute, not to wait and wait and diddle around and come in months later," Bacon said.
"A multinational presence ... is required now to bring the security that we need to get relief flowing in all areas of the country," he said.
