N. Alliance closing in on Kunduz

What's next for the Taliban-held city? Mass surrender or a final battle for control.

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 24, 2001

SAKA, Afghanistan -- Amid conflicting reports of a surrender, Northern Alliance forces pushed deeper into Taliban territory Friday near Kunduz, the Islamic militia's last northern stronghold, as U.S. warplanes hammered targets east of the city.

U.S. B-52s and attack jets bombed antiaircraft guns and other targets near the town of Khanabad, east of Kunduz. As the bombs fell, alliance troops chased retreating Taliban fighters.

The U.S. attacks "are a great help to our ground forces," said Agha Padar, commander of a 20-man unit on the outskirts of Saka, a village near Khanabad.

Alliance commanders claimed to have killed or injured 150 to 200 Taliban fighters over the past day. At least another 1,500 have surrendered in recent days, they said, although neither claim could be verified.

If the advance continues and alliance forces take Kunduz, the Taliban will be left with only one major city, their southern base of Kandahar.

Alliance commanders near Kunduz gave conflicting statements Friday on how they expect the battle there to proceed. Gen. Rashid Dostum has told reporters that his troops were approaching the besieged city from the west to prepare for a mass Taliban surrender. Commanders east of the city said that surrender talks had broken down and that they expected to launch a major offensive on Kunduz today. At least some of the differences in how these Afghan allies see the battle could be chalked up to rivalry. Dostum's troops are mostly ethnic Uzbeks, while the alliance forces east of Kunduz are mostly ethnic Tajiks.

The Tajiks may not want the Uzbeks to arrive in Kunduz first because that will leave them with more of the spoils of war: Taliban tanks, armored personnel carriers, weapons and perhaps even defectors who would then fight for the opposition. Some Afghans say the Tajik-Uzbek rift is so serious that fighting could break out between the two sides.

Alliance commanders deny that, but Padar, for one, remains wary of Dostum. "We will not let Dostum take Kunduz," he said without elaborating.

Offer of amnesty

Northern Alliance commanders are offering amnesty to most of the 10,000 or so Taliban fighters believed to be in Kunduz, but say they're expecting thousands of foreign recruits who sided with the Taliban to fight to the death in the city streets. Foreigners who are captured will be imprisoned and tried under Islamic law, which includes the death penalty, anti-Taliban leaders say.

An estimated 15,000 Taliban fighters are besieged in Kunduz, and estimates of how many of them were recruited from Pakistan, the Persian Gulf, Chechnya and other areas outside Afghanistan range as high as 6,000.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top U.S. officials have said they oppose any deal that would give the foreign fighters safe passage out of Kunduz. On Friday, a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the governments of many of the nations that provided the so-called "Arab Afghans" also would prefer that none of the militants return home to continue their war against the West, moderate Arab states and secular rulers in the Islamic world.

U.S. and other officials, however, worried Friday that the slaughter of ethnic Pashtun Taliban fighters by the mostly Uzbek and Tajik Northern Alliance forces could trigger similar ethnic strife elsewhere and interfere with efforts to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants in the al-Qaida terrorist network.

On that front, Marine Maj. Brad Lowell, a spokesman for U.S Central Command, said that as many as 70 U.S. warplanes continued attacking caves and tunnels in Afghanistan on Friday, and U.S. forces dropped a 15,000-pound "daisy cutter" bomb on Taliban troops south of Kandahar, the last Taliban redoubt in southern Afghanistan.

The situation in Kandahar remained confused, with conflicting reports on the whereabouts of Taliban leader Mohammed Omar and on negotiations between Taliban commanders and local Pashtun leaders surrounding the city.

However, U.S. and allied military and intelligence officials said mounting evidence that many Afghans regarded bin Laden and his non-Afghan fighters as unwelcome interlopers is making them more optimistic that the fugitive Saudi can be located without a marathon manhunt in the mountains of Afghanistan.

With a $25-million reward offered, the officials said intelligence officers have been deluged with alleged sightings of bin Laden, his senior lieutenants and his wives and children, and have their hands full trying to pick out solid leads.

The New York Times reported that two Pakistani officials said 800 U.S. special operations forces and an undetermined number of support helicopters are using two military air bases Pakistan to go after Taliban troops based in the Kandahar area.

Watching B-52 strikes

East of Kunduz, much of the village of Saka was still under Taliban control Friday, but alliance troops were trying to push the Taliban fighters out. Padar, the commander, and four other soldiers were posted on the backside of a ridge overlooking the village.

Taliban sniper bullets whizzed past their heads as they watched the smoke rise from explosions left by bombs dropped from the B-52s. One soldier who was almost hit laughed as he took cover in a shallow hole in the ground.

Padar scolded him.

"You've got to duck," he said. "You should be in a place where you can see the Taliban, but they can't see you."

"Okay, okay," the soldier replied.

At just 34, Padar is a 20-year veteran of war.

He said he became a soldier at age 14 after his father, then governor of Kunduz province, was assassinated.

Now he has a wife and children of his own. For their sake, he said, he is trying to defend Afghanistan from foreigners.

"We want to be free," he said.

Overhead, B-52s swept across the sky, leaving long white contrails behind.

"Give the Americans the exact locations of the targets," Padar shouted into his radio. "We've got to finish off the Taliban."

The U.S. planes proceeded to knock out enemy targets one by one. "One more heavy gun to take out and we'll be able to move onto that ridge," said Padar, pointing across the mud-brick rooftops of Saka. "Good, good."

Dostum, the alliance commander reportedly advancing on Kunduz from the west, is a well-known -- and some would say notorious -- military figure. He fought with the Russians during the Soviet occupation but switched sides in January 1992, joining the opposition.

The general's traditional base of support is Mazar-e-Sharif, where his photo is splashed across buildings and signposts.

His forces controlled the city for years. On Aug. 1, 1998, the Taliban captured his headquarters at Shiberghan, west of the city, after some of his commanders changed sides in exchange for bribes.

Dostum fled to neighboring Uzbekistan and later journeyed to Turkey. Other commanders also fled, leaving 1,500 ethnic Hazara fighters vulnerable to attack.

The Taliban moved in on Aug. 8, 1998, killing all but 100 of them, according to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of the book Taliban.

Some human rights groups fear that Dostum will be out for revenge when taking Kunduz. Already, there are suspicions that the general's forces may have executed hundreds of people when retaking Mazar-e-Sharif earlier this month. Red Cross officials in Geneva said 400 to 600 bodies have been recovered, although it's unclear how they were killed.

Back along the front lines, Afghan peasants continue to stream out of Saka, Khanabad, Kunduz and other towns. The dirt paths leading out are marked with red-painted stones, indicating that land mines are scattered throughout the area.

A man named Mahidin, 58, fled Saka with his wife, children and two donkeys.

"The Taliban ordered us to leave our homes. They said, "You should leave or you'll be killed.' They hurt innocent people. They do bad things."

Conference delayed

Also Friday:

A planned conference in Bonn, Germany, of Afghan groups trying to form a transitional government has been delayed a day, until Tuesday.

Some 20 to 30 Afghans will attend, representing four main political groups.

As international aid agencies raced against winter weather to try to get food, blankets and other supplies to hungry and cold Afghans, a U.N. official said the United Nations hoped to soon restore regular operations in the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif just south of the border with Uzbekistan.

The World Food Program, meanwhile, said it had flown 17 tons of wheat flour to Afghanistan from Tajikistan, the first aid airlift from the former Soviet republic.

- Information from Knight Ridder, the Associated Press and New York Times was used in this report.

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