Taleban fighters stage bloody last stand

26 Nov, 2001 12:36 AM4 mins to read

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TALOQAN, Afghanistan - An uprising by imprisoned Taleban in the headquarters of an opposition warlord has marred the Northern Alliance's bid to mop up the last pockets of resistance in northern Afghanistan.

Thousands of Afghan Taleban fighters agreed to give up their bitter defence in Kunduz, clearing the way for rival forces to grab the besieged city, the radical Islamic militia's remaining foothold in the north.

But a fierce gunbattle erupted in the headquarters of warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum near Mazar-i-Sharif, west of Kunduz, as scores of imprisoned foreign fighters linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network seized weapons and began firing.

Witnesses said many were killed and wounded.

A Reuters correspondent saw US fighter jets sweep over and drop at least four bombs on the southern part of the fort where the insurgent foreign prisoners were concentrated.

The US Defence Department confirmed that its air strikes had helped quell a revolt by the 300 foreign fighters as Dostum mustered about 500 of his forces on the ground.

Northern Alliance officials said rival forces led by the ethnic Uzbek Dostum and ethnic Tajik commander Mohammad Daoud are advancing toward Kunduz and the last redoubt of the Taleban in the north could fall in a day.

Daoud said the town of Khanabad, eastern gateway to Kunduz, had fallen and that forces under his command were racing to the city 20 km away. He said he hoped his forces would enter Kunduz en masse on Monday (local time).

"We plan to enter Kunduz city tomorrow," the commander told Reuters at his mud-walled bunker east of Khanabad. "We want to avoid fighting and we are still negotiating with the Taleban in Kunduz and hope to capture it without a fight."

Dostum had agreed to halt his advance on Kunduz from the west and leave the occupation to his allies, Daoud said.

Thousands of the estimated 15,000 defenders of Kunduz had already surrendered after a 10-day siege by Northern Alliance troops backed by withering US air strikes.

Daoud had said he foresaw little resistance unless Pakistani, Chechen and Arab fighters loyal to bin Laden kept their vow to fight to the death rather than surrender.

In the vast citadel outside Mazar-i-Sharif where Dostum has his headquarters, some of the rebellious prisoners were believed to have fought their way out. Others kept up a hail of fire from assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Journalists, including two from Reuters, Red Cross officials and two US observers were trapped several hours. Most escaped the fort by climbing down a 20-metre outer wall.

The Northern Alliance has promised that captured foreign fighters will be treated humanely and put on trial, or handed over to the United Nations, if they surrender.

But many fear a massacre and have refused to give up.

One detonated a grenade as he was searched by Alliance captors, killing himself and two other Taleban fighters, according to Britain's Independent Television News, whose reporter was wounded in the blast.

The fall of Kunduz would allow anti-Taleban forces and US warplanes to concentrate on pushing the militia out of the southern city of Kandahar -- and hunting for bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States.

US warplanes have relentlessly pounded the area around Kandahar, the Taleban's spiritual home, which the militia has vowed to defend at all costs out of religious duty.

Underlining ethnic divisions challenging efforts to build a post-Taleban government, Pashtun leaders in southern Afghanistan say they are trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement in Kandahar, and have told the Alliance to stay away.

Pashtun leaders meeting in Quetta, Pakistan, said today they were giving the Taleban a last chance to surrender -- Pashtuns make up the core of the Taleban -- and that the Taleban should transfer authority to tribal leaders.

Representatives of four Afghan groups, but not the Taleban, meet in Germany on Tuesday for talks on a post-Taleban government.

The Northern Alliance has repeatedly rebuffed suggestions that "moderate Taleban" participate in a new government, but the nominal head of the Alliance said today that some former Taleban officials might be allowed a role.

"I should emphasise that as an organisation or party the Taleban will not be included," Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was ousted as president by the Taleban in 1996 but still holds Afghanistan's United Nations seat, told a news conference.

"But as individuals they will not be held guilty. Those that don't have very obvious guilt and are elected by a Loya Jirga (grand assembly of tribal chiefs) are acceptable."

The Alliance says it supports Pashtun calls for a Loya Jirga to select a multi-ethnic government.

- REUTERS

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