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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (41785)	11/19/2001 8:10:27 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

War of words on Afghan frontline in KHANABAD - The sun has just risen on the front lines around Kunduz, but commander Mohammad Navi is in full flow, trying to bully Taliban forces defending the besieged city into defecting to the ranks of his Northern Alliance. Shouting into the mouthpiece of his walkie-talkie, Navi berates a Taliban leader holding a hill just several hundred meters (yards) away for fighting with foreign ‘jihadi’ volunteers against his Afghan Muslim brothers. ‘We have you surrounded like rats in a trap,’ he crows. ‘But we can be merciful. Join the fight with us against these foreign dogs; these Chechens, Arabs and Pakistanis who burn our land.’ Thousands of Taliban troops backed by hardcore foreign militia belonging to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network have been under siege for days in and around Kunduz city —the Taliban’s last northern holdout in Afghanistan. Despite heavy US bombing raids and Northern Alliance troops encircling the city, Kunduz’s Taliban defenders have remained defiant in the face of ultimatums to surrender or die. The Taliban leader at the receiving end of Navi’s diatribe, gives back as good as he gets. ‘What Chechens and Arabs are you talking about? You’ve lost your mind. But then that’s what happens to those who side with the American dogs. Allah forsakes them,’ he retorts. Easing back on the vitriol for a moment, Navi adopts a more conciliatory tack, telling his opposite number that the Northern Alliance are unhappy at the repeated bombardment of Kunduz. ‘We are all Muslims. It is madness to fight each other. Come down from your mountain and we can discuss it,’ he says before upping the rhetoric once again. ‘If you don’t give up, we will be obliged to kill you and hang you frommeat hooks for what you have done to our people.’ Navi’s graphic threats draw a roar of laughter from some of his men standing nearby, but his aggressive negotiating technique has proved reasonably effective. Standing by his side is a Taliban leader, who identifies himself as Zamourti and says he slipped through the front lines at night in order to try and negotiate the surrender of 100 of his men. ‘We’ve had enough of this war that sets us against our Muslim brothers,’ Zamourti says, adding that some commanders in Kunduz would be willing to give themselves up to Abdul Rashid Dostam, the Tajik general commanding the Northern Alliance forces poised to the west of Kunduz. Zamourti also confirms reports that al-Qaida fighters in Kunduz, acting under the orders of their foreign commander, massacred a group of Taliban troops to prevent them surrendering. ‘The foreigners shot dead 50 Afghan Taliban who wanted to give themselves up,’ he says. According to the Northern Alliance, around 300 Taliban troops defending Kunduz have already laid down there arms. On the Khanabad road, one alliance soldier brags that he has captured a Chechen fighter. However, the thin and haggard figure he pushes in front of him not only appears to understand no Russian but also speaks perfect Pashtun, the language of Afghanistan’s dominant ethnic community. ‘The foreign are the ones we want,’ says Navi. ‘There’s much more prestige in killing or capturing a foreigner than an Afghan.’ The non-Afghan fighters have a reputation for refusing to be taken alive. ‘One Arab gave himself up last week. But he had explosives hidden under his clothes and he blew himself up, killing four of our men,’ Navi says.