Al-Qaeda 'slaughtering' deserters

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, NOV. 18. A bloody civil war is reported to have broken out between the elite foreign cadres of the Saudi dissident, Osama bin Laden, and the indigenous Taliban troops, according to The Sunday Telegraph which said the Al-Qaeda guards were ``slaughtering'' the Taliban in Kunduz to prevent them from surrendering to the Northern Alliance.

In a front-page report, it quoted refugees as saying that an Al- Qaeda commander had ordered the ``massacre'' of 150 Afghan Taliban soldiers who wanted to defect. ``As (Northern) Alliance commanders prepared for their latest offensive on Kunduz, refugees described atrocities committed by Al-Qaeda militiamen,'' it said. Giving details of the ``massacre'', which allegedly took place on Friday, a refugee told the newspaper that it followed the defection of 1,000 Afghan Taliban men under Gen. Mirai Nasery, a local commander. He said that Al-Qaeda soldiers were holding more than 100 prominent Kunduz citizens as hostages to `stall' an Alliance attack.

The refugee, Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim, said civilians were not only being prevented from leaving the area but were also being forced by the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to fight for them. They were alleged to be ``beating or killing those who refused.'' ``Some civilians were using this as a means of escape, agreeing to go to the front line then running away when night fell,'' the newspaper said. Hundreds of residents were believed to be ``trapped'' in their homes, too frightened to go out. The streets were deserted and the only sign of life was the Taliban soldiers ``walking around with their guns''.

The tension between civilians and the Taliban in Kunduz was confirmed by The Sunday Times which said that the militia had ``threatened to massacre civilians if the Alliance attacked''. Most of the Taliban waiting to meet the Alliance offensive were believed to be foreigners - Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens. Media reports highlighted the hostility between Afghan Taliban men and ``foreigners'', mostly belonging to Osama's elite guards.

In most places, the native Taliban soldiers have been the first to surrender or defect to the Alliance forces and in turn they have been treated with consideration while foreign mercenaries have been dealt with ruthlessly, often being summarily executed.

The Observer, meanwhile, said there were ``reports of Al-Qaeda troops massacring Taliban soldiers to prevent them from defecting''. It also quoted an Alliance Foreign Ministry official as saying that the ``foreign Taliban'' were not prepared to give up Kunduz even as the ``local'' Taliban were apparently inclined.

Observers, however, were inclined to treat some of the stories coming out of the ``war'' zone as exaggerated. The Sunday Telegraph story, they said, was based on just one man's account and it would be premature to talk of a ``massacre'' until independently verified information was available. In another report, the newspaper itself pointed to the problem of ``sifting through the deluge of rumour and misinformation sweeping Afghanistan in the euphoria of victory over the Taliban''.

A PTI report from Islamabad quoting CNN said that in Kunduz hundreds of Taliban fighters, holed up in the besieged city, were killing each other to avoid capture by the advancing Alliance troops.

About 60 Chechen fighters drowned themselves in the nearby Amu river, while an Alliance commander said 25 trapped Taliban fighters fatally shot one another when they saw Opposition troops advancing towards them.

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