Sat, Dec 08, 2001 page1

• Kandahar freed from Taliban rule

  AFGHANISTAN Soldiers loyal to the fundamentalist regime have laid down their weapons in a peaceful surrender of what was once the Taliban's stronghold

  • AFP
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  The final curtain was being drawn yesterday on the Taliban regime as it laid down arms in its last bastion of Kandahar and surrendered the remaining two provinces under its control.

  The capitulation -- two months to the day after US forces launched a military campaign to track down Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network and punish their Taliban protectors -- was going peacefully, the country's future leader said.

  But fighting raged around in the rugged White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, as tribal forces backed by US air strikes pursued their bid to flush out al-Qaeda fighters -- and perhaps bin Laden -- from their Tora Bora cave hideouts.

  US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday that the fall of Kandahar would narrow the focus of the US campaign to the Tora Bora area.

  US Marines stationed at a desert base southwest of Kandahar reported their first engagement with unidentified enemy troops, killing seven of them, a US officer there said.

  Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai, who takes over as the head of Afghanistan's new interim administration on Dec. 22, said his troops entered Kandahar yesterday as militiamen laid down their weapons and surrendered.

  "My people have been entering the city. Some have already gone there, some are on their way," Karzai said. "The city of Kandahar is in the process of surrendering. It has been going on peacefully.

  "We have sent two principal commanders to Kandahar to prevent the dispersal of weapons in the city."

  But he said many Taliban fighters had fled rather than surrender and that looting had broken out after their departure.

  The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported that the Taliban had transferred all power in Kandahar to a tribal council.

  According to the surrender agreement, the city will be initially turned over to veteran mujahidin commander Mullah Naqibullah, another Pashtun tribal leader.

  CNN, quoting sources in Kandahar, described the situation as chaotic, the streets flooded with Taliban and Arab fighters, tribal militia and armed bandits.

  Markets were deserted and gunfire could be heard in the streets, it said.

  A Taliban official said US air raids over the past two months had killed some 10,000 people in Kandahar, mostly Taliban fighters.

  "During the last two weeks the casualties were so heavy that we were unable to resist the bombing and our defenses were broken," he said. "Seven times we tried to rebuild our defenses in the north and south and every time they were bombed. Rows and rows of Taliban soldiers were killed and we couldn't even find the bodies."

  Dissent to the terms of the surrender came from within anti-Taliban ranks, however, with Kandahar governor Gul Agha, whose forces have been fighting for control of the city alongside those of Karzai, threatening to battle his way into the city to avoid any deal with the Islamic militia.

  Agha's lieutenant, Gul Lali, said that while his commander favored Karzai's appointment as Afghan leader, he opposed the deal -- notably the implication that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar could be amnestied if he "renounces terrorism."

  "We are against this consideration between Karzai and the Taliban," he said. "Mullah Omar is the first hand of al-Qaeda. We are not against Karzai but we cannot support this agreement.

  "We will try to take control of the city so Gul Agha can be in control of Kandahar again," he said.

  But Karzai played down the incident.

  "It's OK. There was a misunderstanding," he said. "I hope everything will be fine. Gul Agha is a good Afghan."

  Rumsfeld too has made it clear any deal that enables Omar or other senior Taliban leaders to walk free would be unacceptable.

  Taliban officials also confirmed the surrender of neighboring Helmand and Zabul provinces, and tribal officials said they seized the strategic town of Spin Boldak on the Pakistan border, the scene of heavy fighting in past weeks.

  "Around 500 Taliban soldiers in Spin Boldak fled the town ... and they took all their weapons and vehicles with them," said a spokesman for tribal commander Wakil Abdul Samad Khan.

  "Early this morning our forces ... moved into Spin Boldak and they have taken control of the city," he said by telephone from the town. "There is calm and no fighting."

  The AIP news agency reported that Afghan tribal fighters captured a key hill in their bid to flush out al-Qaeda fighters holed up in caves in the Tora Bora region.

  Anti-Taliban fighters seized the Zir Sar hill overnight as their forces moved up toward the Melawa hills, where the al-Qaeda troops are now believed to be concentrated, AIP said.

  A spokesman for commander Haji Zaman, who is leading the tribal fighters in the battle for Tora Bora, said fighting was still going on.

  "Fighting is raging in the difficult terrain and we are hopeful that our forces will capture the entire area," spokesman Shakarullah said in Peshawar.
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