KUNDUZ, Afghanistan - More than 1,000 Taleban fighters have surrendered to US-backed Northern Alliance forces besieging the Afghan town of Kunduz.
Despite the surrenders, thousands of Taleban troops loyal to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, including Pakistanis, Chechens and Arabs, were holed up in the northern enclave and refused to give up as a deadline passed, keeping alive fears of a blood bath. Alliance fighters loathe the foreign soldiers.
"The Afghan Taleban have decided to surrender," one Taleban fighter who laid down his arms told Reuters. "However, the foreigners have taken the decision to fight. They will not surrender."
The fall of Kunduz, the Taleban's last bastion in the north, would permit Northern Alliance forces and US warplanes to concentrate on forcing the radical militia out of its last strongholds in and around the southern city of Kandahar.
US air raids entered their 49th day in the campaign to punish the Taleban for harboring bin Laden, who is Washington's prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed more than 3,900 people.
With the Taleban folding under withering fire, preparations went ahead over the weekend for talks between rival Afghan factions, to be held by the United Nations next week in Bonn, Germany. They are aimed at producing a "road map" for a transitional Afghan government excluding the Taleban.
Although bin Laden's whereabouts were a mystery, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ruled out on Saturday the possibility he had slipped over the border into Pakistan.
"We've made all arrangements to seal the border and to ensure checks. That includes even the army doing this," Musharraf said, adding, "Also, we have got the cooperation of the local tribals holding the border areas to ensure that no such thing happens."
US warplanes have been applying relentless pressure around Kandahar, which the Taleban have vowed to defend at all costs out of duty to their strict interpretation of Islam.
About 65 long-range bombers targeted caves and tunnels that might provide hiding places to bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in raids on Friday.
As part of the air campaign, a powerful "Daisy Cutter" bomb was dropped this week near Kandahar. The bomb is designed to devastate an area 600 yards across and demoralise enemy forces. It was only the third used in the campaign so far.
US special forces have stepped up operations, conducting lightning raids to cut Taleban supply lines by intercepting and blowing up transport trucks and oil tankers.
Increasingly, there were Taleban defections.
The Alliance unveiled on Saturday its prize defector, former Taleban Deputy Interior Minister Mullah Khaksar.
Hundreds of Taleban troops dug in at the dusty town of Maidan Shahr, west of the capital, Kabul, downed arms and agreed to join Alliance fighters - a common practice in the civil war that has racked Afghanistan for a decade.
Some Taleban fighters were also reported to have swapped sides after surrendering at Kunduz. Cable television news pictures showed Taleban soldiers shaking hands with Alliance fighters.
About 600 Taleban, including foreign as well as Afghan fighters, headed west to a surrender site near Mazar-i-Sharif, the base of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a Northern Alliance warlord.
Looking despondent, many tried to hide their faces from cameras. A truck carried the weapons they had handed over.
"We will now separate the local Taleban forces from the foreigners," Dostum told Reuters.
"We will also find out where the foreigners are from, and we will find out how many Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks and Uighurs there are, and we will separate them all."
Alliance commanders said 800 Taleban fighters surrendered east of Kunduz, bringing with them eight tanks, five anti-aircraft guns, seven rocket launchers and 40 vehicles.
One foreign Taleban fighter who surrendered killed himself and two other prisoners in a suicide grenade attack, Britain's Independent Television News reported.
"One of those foreign fighters pulled a pin in a grenade. He blew himself up, he killed the two former fighters beside him, and he also seriously injured one of the Northern Alliance commanders," the reporter said.
- REUTERS
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