Northern Alliance forces said yesterday they were poised to mop up the last pockets of resistance in the besieged Afghan city of Kunduz, leaving the hardline Taliban cornered in its southern heartland.
But a question mark hung over the fate of thousands of diehard Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis loyal to Osama bin Laden, who appeared set to fight to the death rather than throw themselves on the mercy of enemies unlikely to forgive them.
PHOTO: AP
Some foreign Taliban fighters from Kunduz who had surrendered in Mazar-i-Sharif, 180km to the west, seized weapons from their captors and staged an uprising which had to be put down, alliance commander Ustad Attah said.
The fall of Kunduz would permit Northern Alliance forces and US warplanes to focus on forcing the Taliban out of their last strongholds in and around Kandahar, the spiritual heartland in the south that they have vowed to defend at all costs.
Around Kandahar, the US continued bombing possible hideouts of bin Laden, whose suspected responsibility for the Sept.11 attacks led the US to seek to eliminate his Taliban protectors.
Preparations for UN-sponsored talks in Germany this week on a new government for Afghanistan gathered pace as nominal Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani said moderate ex-Taliban could be included in a future government.
In Kunduz, as many as 2,000 out of an estimated 15,000 Taliban defenders holed up in the city had surrendered in 24 hours after a 10-day siege by Alliance troops backed by US bombing.
In Kabul, Rabbani, still recognized by the UN as president of Afghanistan despite being ousted by the Taliban five years ago, said captured foreign fighters would be handed over to the UN.
"Our view is that we are dealing with the Arabs on a humanitarian and Islamic basis," he told a news conference. "These foreigners who ask for pardon from us, we will hand over to the United Nations, they will know what to do."
But many of the foreign fighters, aware that up to 600 Taliban bodies were found in Mazar-i-Sharif after Dostum took it, would fear summary justice.
Some Afghan Taliban fighters who have surrendered say the foreigners will fight to the end.
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