Lull in fighting near Kunduz as negotiations for Taliban surrender continue

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Associated Press Writer

TALOQAN, Afghanistan – A lull in fighting Wednesday allowed northern alliance forces to retrieve the bodies of fallen fighters near Kunduz, the Taliban's sole bastion in the north, as commanders tried to negotiate a surrender and avert what they say would be a bloody assault.

Taliban commanders held negotiations over Kunduz with the alliance in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

CNN, reporting from Mazar-e-Sharif, said a Taliban deputy defense minister, Muhammed Fazil Mazlon, agreed that forces under his command at Kunduz – both Afghan Taliban and foreign fighters loyal to bin Laden – would surrender. Details of a deal were not yet worked out, CNN reported.

Northern alliance fighters ventured into no man's land just east of the besieged city to retrieve the bodies of nine fighters killed in a battle last week. A sniper opened fire when the troops returned for more bodies, but aside from that burst, the Taliban side was eerily silent.

The skies over Kunduz were clear, but the U.S. bombing of Taliban positions outside the city was also light. Only a few bombs were dropped by heavy planes and smaller attack aircraft.

The northern alliance swept across most of northern Afghanistan and entered the capital, Kabul, last week in an offensive that left the Taliban in control of only two major cities – Kandahar, in the south, and Kunduz, where a standoff has dragged on amid surrender talks.

The standoff continued Wednesday, with northern alliance forces holding artillery and tank positions atop high dirt ridges leading to the front line separating the two sides. When they fired on Taliban-held ridges ahead of them, there was no response.

And when a band of northern alliance fighters went down the road into no man's land, chanting "Kunduz, Kunduz," nothing happened.

The alliance has said its forces will launch an assault to take the city if the Taliban do not surrender it by Friday.

Along with Taliban forces, some 3,000 foreign fighters are holed up in Kunduz, according to northern alliance commanders, and they have vowed to fight to the end because of fears that a surrender would mean their certain death.

The alliance's Gen. Mohammed Daoud said late Tuesday he was optimistic that he could broker the surrender of the Taliban at Kunduz.

"We are hopeful that (Wednesday) will be the conclusion of talks," he said in the northern city of Taloqan.

Daoud has been negotiating with the Taliban commander of Kunduz, Dadullah, and former Taliban deputy defense minister Mullah Fazil Muslimyar.

Daoud said the talks are being carried out independently of the foreign fighters in at Kunduz – mostly Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis loyal to terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden – and that there have been no negotiations with them.

Refugees and defectors have said the foreign fighters have been preventing the Afghan Taliban from surrendering Kunduz.

AP-WS-11-21-01 1737EST