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Afghan Opposition Says it is Set to Seize Kunduz
KABUL, Nov 25 (News Agencies) - Opposition forces said they were set to capture Kunduz following the surrender of hundreds of fighters who guarded the city, the ousted Taliban's last foothold in northern Afghanistan.
Opposition forces also claimed victories in the Taliban's southern stronghold.
The advances came as rival opposition leaders prepared for a conference in Bonn, Germany to pave the way for the creation of a broad-based government.
Northern Alliance commander Haji Mohammad Muhaqiq claimed opposition forces would take control of Kunduz Sunday following the surrender Saturday of 700 Afghan Taliban and about 600 foreigners - mostly Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis.
A further 600 Afghans have laid down their arms since the offensive on Kunduz, backed by fierce U.S. bombardments, began Thursday.
In Bangi, 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Kunduz, numerous Taliban fighters could be seen arriving in jeeps to turn themselves in.
Despite fears of reprisals, opposition fighters in many cases greeted their former foes warmly, shaking hands and cheering their arrival. Some Taliban said they would swap sides and fight for the alliance.
Before the offensive started, between 3,000 and 9,000 Taliban including as many as 2,000 foreigners were said to be in Kunduz.
At the southern end of the country, Taliban forces maintain control of Kandahar and a large swath of land around it, despite advances by local Pashtun leaders and attacks on pockets of resistance by U.S. and British commandos.
Opposition commander Hamid Karzai said local tribal militia attacked the Taliban Friday near Takhtapul, some 45 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Kandahar.
"People rose up against the Taliban and liberated the area. The Taliban tried to counter attack and re-take the area but they couldn't," Karzai told Agence France-Presse (AFP) via satellite phone from southern Afghanistan.
"A district between Spin Boldak and Kandahar has been liberated and presumably the road from Kandahar to Pakistan has been cut off," said Karzai, a close ally of exiled former king Mohammed Zahir Shah.
A Taliban spokesman denied the report, branding it "baseless," according to the Pakistan-based private news agency Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).
A group of Taliban also agreed to surrender in the village of Maidan Shar, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of Kabul, according to a Northern Alliance commander in the area.
The opposition advances have been backed by seven weeks of intense U.S. air strikes.
The United States has targeted the Islamic militia for supporting its chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, most of them Arabs, who form the backbone of the Taliban fighting force.
France took a step closer toward joining the fight as French Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin announced in Tehran that Tajikistan had agreed in principle to host 200 French soldiers and eight planes as part of the international fight against terrorism.
"There has been an agreement for the use of an airport in Kulyab, the same one used by the Americans, for six Mirage jets and two re-supply planes," Josselin said.
The British newspaper Sunday Telegraph reported that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff believe a force of more than 25,000 will be needed to defeat Taliban fighters in the southern city of Kandahar, the last major stronghold of the hard-line Islamic militia.
The operation is likely to involve Britain's 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment as well as elite U.S. troops from the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Pakistan and Qatar expressed concern over the fate of the foreigners fighting with the Taliban.
"Qatar has expressed deep concern for the fate of Arabs and other foreigners in Afghanistan, particularly in the town of Kunduz, who risk being massacred for ethnic reasons, in violation of international law and human rights," a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman told the QNA state news agency.
Pakistan urged the alliance to treat prisoners in accordance with international law, amid fears that further "martyrs" to the cause could stir unrest.
On Sunday, the chorus of those urging restraint was joined by Saudi Arabia as defense minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz called for Arabs fighters to be allowed to return home.
"The affair is now under the supervision of the United Nations and we judge that this will mean that human rights will be taken into consideration," he said.
U.S. officials have opposed granting the foreign fighters safe passage outside of Afghanistan under terms of their surrender.
Alliance commander Haji Mohammad Muhaqiq said foreigners who have fought in Kunduz, possibly including senior leaders of al-Qaeda, would be jailed and extradited if they are wanted abroad.
For its part, the opposition is broadly split on geographic and ethnic lines.
The Northern Alliance is a loose coalition of Tajik, Uzbek, Hazar and other minority factions that has long opposed the Taliban and which last week ousted the militia from the capital Kabul.
The alliance has installed the U.N.-recognized president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in the capital, but his support base is mainly from his own Tajik faction and questions persist over the loyalty of his Uzbek and Hazara allies.
South and east of the capital, pockets of Taliban control face tribal militias loyal to Pashtun warlords, some of them fighting for a faction under the symbolic leadership of the aging exiled king, Mohammed Zahir Shah.
Both groups are due to meet Tuesday outside the former German capital Bonn for a U.N.-brokered summit, amid fears Rabbani's faction might be reluctant to share control of Kabul.
Rabbani insisted Saturday in an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper that he had "no personal ambitions."
"I will accept the decision of the meeting," he said.
The deputy interior minister of Afghanistan's former Taliban government, Haji Mullah Khaksar, Saturday disassociated himself from the hardline regime and said he was working with the alliance toward a broad-based government.
"I announce to the United Front [Northern Alliance] and all other parties my support," Khaksar said in his first public statement since electing to stay in Kabul when the Taliban fled November 13.
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