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Battle Nears for Taliban Holdout in Kunduz
By Sharon LaFraniere
TALOQAN, Afghanistan, Nov. 17 – His mouth was full of blood, but the Northern Alliance soldiers weren't through with him yet. One kept grabbing his collar and yanking him backward, nearly off his feet. Another slapped him smartly across the face. A third smacked his legs with a long stick. The captive Taliban fighter begged for his life, tears filling his eyes, and with two journalists looking on, his captors relented. But the scene on a well-traveled street here in alliance-held Taloqan gives a taste of the kind of treatment that may lie in store for thousands of other Taliban fighters now holed up in the nearby city of Kunduz, should Northern Alliance forces succeed in conquering it. Kunduz, a half-hour drive from here, is the Taliban's last stronghold in northern Afghanistan. Since the alliance swept across the north in a series of victories that began Nov. 9, Taliban troops from across the region have been retreating to Kunduz and digging in for a protracted fight. And at least some of the alliance fighters who have surrounded the city see this as a chance to finally take revenge on the radical Islamic militia they have fought since 1994. The scene with the lone Taliban fighter was a metaphor for the chaos and confusion that has enveloped Afghanistan in recent days as the Taliban movement suddenly retreated from the capital and other major cities. The desolate countryside and war-ravaged cities have become a tableau of violence and retribution, punctuated by hard bargaining and power-sharing deals among old foes. In Kunduz, the Taliban fighters appeared to be encircled, and preparing for battle. By contrast, in Jalalabad, the Taliban disappeared, and a tense negotiation followed between two anti-Taliban warlords who wanted to seize the strategically important city and surrounding province. In the southern city of Kandahar, refugees fled out of fear that if the Taliban withdrew, there would be another civil war among tribal leaders vying for control. The Afghan landscape was filled with uncertainty. The whereabouts of thousands of Taliban fighters in the south remained unknown. So was the location of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and the leaders of his al Qaeda network, who were being hunted down by small groups of U.S. special forces. Here, outside Kunduz, thousands of Taliban fighters appeared trapped. The Northern Alliance moved truckloads of fighters about 15 miles west to a bridge over the Khanabad River, which divides their forces from the Taliban-controlled region around Kunduz. It was unclear today why the alliance has not yet attacked, but interviews with commanders suggested they hope continuing U.S. air strikes will further weaken the Taliban and that defections from within the Taliban's ranks can be engineered. By the alliance's count – often highly questionable – as many as 40,000 Taliban fighters are trapped in the city, confronting an alliance force of about equal strength. The Pentagon estimates the number of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Kunduz at 3,000 to 5,000, although some intelligence reports put the number at more than 10,000. Shajoudin, a top commander under Gen. Mohammed Dawood, who leads the alliance force east of Kunduz, said today that 7,000 to 8,000 Taliban fighters in Kunduz have defected so far, and others are following suit. Like many Afghans, the commander uses just one name. According to Shajoudin, the alliance forces that encircle Kunduz are about equally divided between those of Dawood and those of alliance generals Abdurrashid Dostum and Karim Khalili. He said the Taliban is armed with 120 tanks, 2,870 pickups or jeeps equipped with weaponry and 500 antiaircraft guns or rocket launchers. The alliance has 20 tanks, 200 trucks and 50 antiaircraft guns, he said, although it was unclear if he was referring just to Dawood's armory or that of all the alliance troops positioned around Kunduz. "The Taliban have the ability to use these tanks against us," Shajoudin told reporters at the sparsely furnished military headquarters. "But our morale is higher. And strategically, we have a good position. For that reason, we hope for success." Shajoudin said any Taliban fighters who are captured in the fighting will be tried in an Islamic court, not executed. "We have no law that allows us to kill them," he said. He said the alliance, in coordination with the U.S. military, is still assessing the Taliban's strength, but might attack Sunday. The commander in charge of the alliance's tank compound, however, was making no predictions. "When the military action started, we thought the Taliban would be finished in three days, and it's already been two months," he said. In Kunduz, the Taliban fled their military compounds as U.S. planes continued to pummel targets there, according to refugees who arrived here on foot from Kunduz, hauling their possessions in sacks on their back. Kunduz has become almost unliveable, they said, because Taliban fighters are raiding all the town's shops and demanding that residents feed and house them. Alliance officials described Kunduz as a city with a population of 100,000, but some former residents say it is much smaller. The remaining townspeople now confront not only American bombs, but the Taliban's threat to execute anyone who tries to flee. Haq Nazar, a Taloqan resident, had to pass through Kunduz to rejoin his family here after a trip to Kabul. In his short time there, he said, he saw two civilians killed by a bomb. Setting off for home, he told the Taliban in Kunduz he was only passing through and was headed for a nearby village. "Otherwise, we would have been killed," he said, hopping in the back of a crowded, horse-drawn cart. Here in Taloqan, which alliance troops took from the Taliban last Sunday, the tables are turned. The jail here is teeming with Taliban fighters. The Afghans among them have the most hope for mercy; the foreigners – Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis and fighters from other Muslim countries – are the real focus of the alliance's hatred. Wasim, a diminutive Taliban fighter with black hair shot with gray, had managed to hide outside the city until today, when he was discovered. Trembling and wild-eyed, he was led down a paved road by six soldiers. He insisted the Taliban had forced him to join their ranks, but his captors drew their fingers across their throats and told him to prepare for death. Stroking the beard of the most senior officer, he pleaded: "Do not kill me." "No, I don't want to kill you," answered the officer, a 26-year-old named Doud. Then he scolded: "You cannot ever go with the Taliban again." "I never will go with the Taliban again," he repeated. Then, unexpectedly, the soldiers let go of his arms. The officer told the journalists the man owed his freedom to them. Wasim wasted no time. He ran down the road, looking fearfully over his shoulder at a laughing soldier who chased him for the first dozen yards. |
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America at War
