TALEBAN COMMANDERS AGREED TO LAY DOWN ARMS
PARIS 22 Nov. (IPS) "Taleban forces besieged in the northern Afghan enclave of Kundooz have agreed to surrender", General Abdol Rashid Dostom told the Persian service of Radio France Internationale (RFI), monitored by Iran Press Service on Wednesday.
"I spoke with the local and overall Taleban commanders, including Mollah Fazel. They agreed at eleven local time to come to Mazar Sharif and discuss with me the surrender of all Taleban forces. We agreed they would transfer their weapons to us and surrender the city peacefully, without bloodshed", the ethnic Uzbek warlord said, speaking from Mazar Sharif with a satellite telephone.
His statement was confirmed by a CNN reporter in Mazar Sharif, which was "liberated" from the Taleban by General Dostom almost two weeks ago.
Dostom estimated at more than 10.000, the number of the Taleban in the besieged city, including some Arabs, Chechen, Pakistani and other mercenaries fighting for "Al Qa’eda", the organization suspected by the Americans to be behind the 11 September attacks on New York and on Washington D.C.
Cnn reporter said Taleban commanders from Kundooz had agreed to surrender in talks with Alliance leaders in Mazar Sharif.
He quoted Mollah Fazel as telling reporters allowed into the meeting room that all his forces, Afghans and foreigners alike, would surrender.
"Nothing (violent) will happen (in Kundooz)", CNN quoted Fazel as saying. The talks were continuing to work out details of the surrender.
Mr. Dostum told reporters at the talks that the Kundooz problem would be solved "without a fight" and that the battle for the city was finished, CNN said.
He also said he was also in contact with Taleban leaders in other parts of Afghanistan, including Qandahar, Bagram and Khost, where the populations have rebelled against the Taleban.
U.S. raids on Kundooz and Qandahar, the last Taleban stronghold, were relatively light for a second day, due to bad weather.
The Alliance suspended its ground offensive against the city but said it would advance on Kundooz if the talks, which began in earnest on Sunday, failed.
But Dostom said he had given the Taleban until Thursday to lay down arms and surrender in exchange of "safe passage", but other sources said the Northern Alliance had decided to halt attacking Kondooz until the end of the "all afghan talks" to be held in Bonn, Germany, on Monday 26 November.
At first, the mainly Pashtun Taliban forces had offered to give themselves up, but only to a U.N. force rather than to the Northern Alliance, but Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan said the World Organisation was not able to handle the demand because it had no forces on the ground.
The Northern Alliance had said it was willing to negotiate surrender terms for Afghan Taliban, but not for the unknown number of foreign fighters with them.
A correspondent for the RFI’s Persian service in Kabol said many Taleban fighters were living Kondooz, "shaved, clean, looking like pro-Alliance civilians". ENDS AFQANESTAN KONDOOZ SURRENDER 221101