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Bloody Taliban Uprising, U.S. Involved, Troops Land in Kandahar
KABUL, Nov 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Scores of people were reportedly killed Sunday when U.S. warplanes bombed a fort to quell a bloody uprising of fighters who surrendered to opposition forces after giving up their defense of the Taliban's northern stronghold of Kunduz.
The uprising, which sparked a fierce six-hour battle between the Taliban prisoners - mostly non-Afghans - and Northern Alliance troops, was quelled with the aid of tanks and U.S. warplanes, Pentagon officials said.
The Pentagon also confirmed U.S. warplanes were deployed to help the Northern Alliance put down the uprising, but gave no indication of casualties.
One witness spoke of about 100 dead, while a Time magazine correspondent said he had heard that 300 to 400 Taliban were killed in the air strikes directed by U.S. and British commandos on the ground.
About a dozen British commandos in civilian clothes and U.S. troops in air force uniforms were fighting alongside the Northern Alliance forces trying to quell the uprising, guiding U.S. aircraft in bombing the prison near Mazar-i-Sharif,
Time correspondent Alex Perry reported.
He also said a U.S. Special Forces commando was killed and another was trapped inside the fort, but the Pentagon denied this.
U.S. defense officials in Washington denied any serviceman had been killed but did not directly address whether another category of U.S. personnel might have been involved.
CNN said that there were reports that two U.S. military advisers were in the compound at the time, but Lt. Col. Jim Yonts, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said all American military personnel were safe.
"We counted our noses, and all are accounted for," Yonts said. But he said he was "unable to rule out" any casualties among Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives or U.S. contractors working in the region. International relief organizations such as the Red Cross are also in the area, he also noted
Later ABC television, citing government sources, reported that an American "affiliated with the CIA," had been killed in the uprising.
"U.S. government sources now confirm ... that an American affiliated with the CIA was killed today in the firefight. A second American was injured," ABC reported.
Tom Crispell, a spokesman for the CIA, which has operatives working with anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, said the agency had no comment on the operation, news agencies reported.
If confirmed, the death would be the first combat casualty suffered by the United States in their seven-week-old military offensive.
U.S. special forces have been in the area for several weeks, working closely with General Abdul Rashid Dostam, the main alliance commander in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Currently, U.S. Marines are reported on the ground near Kandahar, and their numbers will reach 1,200 to 1,600 within a day, ABC news reported Sunday, citing Pentagon officials.
Perry said he had heard that "probably three, 400 hundred Taliban" were killed in waves of bombing by U.S. warplanes in the uprising.
"The mission by the Americans and Northern alliance is to kill every single one of them now," he said.
The sketchy reports came as Afghan factions started arriving in Bonn for talks to shape a broad-based government and avert a renewed bloodbath in the violence-wracked country.
Forces of the opposition Northern Alliance said they entered Kunduz Sunday following the surrender of hundreds of Taliban forces, including Arab, Chechen and Pakistani fighters.
Witnesses said that 400 to 600 fighters staged a violent uprising in a fort near the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, where they were being held after surrendering.
Witnesses said the prisoners disarmed their guards after killing at least one commander with a hand grenade.
One witness said a vicious gunbattle ensued and "a lot of people, perhaps a hundred" were killed.
The uprising took place as the Northern Alliance said it was fighting off a last pocket of resistance in Kunduz after a two-week siege.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency, which has close contacts with the Taliban, said troops loyal to Northern Alliance commander Dostam took control of the city on Sunday after 2,500 of his men moved into the city overnight.
Another alliance commander said the nearby city of Khanabad fell to his forces without a fight.
The Taliban now only hold the southern city of Kandahar and a few mainly desert provinces in the south, Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtun heartland.
The Northern Alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, said the Taliban were "under great pressure" in Kandahar, where segments of the population were rebelling against the militia.
"It is going to be matter of days before it will come to an end ... the beginning of the end has already started," Abdullah told CBS.
The U.S. military has targeted the Taliban for supporting Saudi-born Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.
Just before the uprising in Mazar-i-Sharif, alliance president Burhanuddin Rabbani told a news conference in Kabul that captive foreigners - mostly recruited through al-Qaeda - would be handed over to the United Nations.
Abdullah said Taliban soldiers who did not commit crimes would be let free, but stressed this did not apply to top Taliban commanders or terrorists.
"There is no amnesty for terrorists in Afghanistan. Terrorists will be treated as terrorists, and they will be brought to justice," he told CBS.
If caught, the Taliban's Supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar would be considered a war criminal, Abdullah said.
Rabbani, the U.N.-recognized president ousted by the Taliban in 1996, said that Taliban who "are not criminals" could take part in a future Afghan administration.
"Taliban authorities and officials can participate in the interim government as individuals, not as the Taliban party, if they are selected through the ...
loya jirga," he said.
The loya jirga is a traditional meeting of tribal chiefs, which the United Nations hopes will convene as a result of the Bonn conference.
The Northern Alliance is made up of a disparate mix of Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara and other minorities, while members of the majority Pashtun tribe dominate the Taliban.
Hundreds of Pashtuns meeting in northwestern Pakistan Sunday called for a multinational peacekeeping force to restore order in the country.
The meeting convened by the Ahmedzai, Afghanistan's largest Pashtun tribe, also called for a demilitarized Kabul and urged delegates to the Bonn conference to fulfill their "historical responsibility".
They also dangled the promise of an amnesty to persuade the Taliban to surrender Kandahar peacefully, saying they would send a delegation to talk to militia commanders to avert a bloodbath.
Rabbani said the alliance would send an 11-member delegation - including one woman - to Bonn, where a total of 21 people have been invited.
Meanwhile, the New York Times quoted a Kabul officials as saying bin Laden was sighted at a fortified encampment 56 kilometers (35 miles) southwest of Jalalabad.
"He is moving at night on horseback... he sleeps in caves," the official was quoted as saying.
An alliance commander said last week that bin Laden is at a base 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Kandahar.
Mullah Omar, meanwhile, was still in Kandahar, according to a former local commander who said he saw him being chauffeured around the city center on Friday.
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