The Taliban clung to their northern Afghan bastion of Kunduz yesterday amid fears of a bloodbath.
Northern Alliance forces and US bombers pounded the besieged city of Kunduz, where an estimated 15,000 Taliban soldiers and foreign supporters of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden were fighting on after surrender talks collapsed on Thursday.
The discovery of up to 600 bodies in nearby Mazar-i-Sharif, taken by the Northern Alliance two weeks ago, and Washington's desire that the defenders of Kunduz should not escape have fuelled fears of a bloodbath if the Alliance captures Kunduz.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"We've been talking to both the Northern Alliance and the [US-led] coalition about our concerns over Kunduz," International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Bernard Barrett said in Kabul.
"Specifically, concerns ... over the treatment of the civilian population and the proper treatment of any prisoners. Summary executions are clearly prohibited under the Geneva convention."
The fundamentalist Islamic Taliban, who controlled most of the country for five years, have been driven back by six weeks of US bombing and the advance of the Northern Alliance to Kunduz and four provinces around their power base, Kandahar.
Around Kunduz, the Northern Alliance had launched a three-pronged offensive from the east.
The BBC said American B-52 bombers had flown low over Kunduz and witnesses reported the thud of bombing from around the ancient city, which straddles supply routes into Tajikistan.
Northern Alliance Interior Minister Yunus Qanuni said on Thursday, amid conflicting reports, that surrender negotiations had failed.
The sticking point appears to be the fate of the thousands of Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens -- widely despised by locals -- who fight alongside the Afghan Taliban and are linked to bin Laden's al-Qaeda group.
Northern Alliance commanders say the foreign fighters have executed hundreds of Afghans who wanted to surrender.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had expressed serious concern at a meeting in Islamabad about the fate of Kunduz's defenders, telling reporters: "We all understand the potential humanitarian disaster that could be possible in Kunduz."
The real target for the US-led coalition is Kandahar, where most of the Taliban's forces are massed.
Mullah Bismillah, a former commander who recently escaped the city, said Taliban troops in Kandahar may have 500 tanks and would defend the city to their last breath.
Bismillah fled Kandahar for Pakistan in early November because of heavy US bombing, and because he did not believe in sacrificing his life for bin Laden.
On the diplomatic front, the UN is holding a conference of rival Afghan factions in Bonn, Germany from Monday to sketch out a road map to a transitional government for the ethnically fractured country after two decades of conflict.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS