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Taliban surrenders Kandahar
KABUL, DEC. 7. The Taliban began surrendering Kandahar, the last city under their control, on Friday after two months of U.S. airstrikes on Afghanistan and advances by the Opposition Northern Alliance drove them from most of the country.
``The Taliban rule is finished. As of today, they are no longer a part of Afghanistan,'' the new chief of the interim administration, Mr. Hamid Karzai, said today.
Taliban fighters began turning over their weapons to a joint commission of tribal leaders, Islamic religious scholars and former mujahideen commanders in Kandahar. The Taliban handed over guns in the southwestern province of Helmand, one of the three provinces they agreed to surrender, and also the border town of Spin Boldak, one of their last redoubts.
In Kandahar, the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies made a hasty retreat, which began late on Thursday - only hours after a surrender was negotiated between Mr. Karzai and the Taliban.
He said the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was missing and would be arrested if found.
Mr. Karzai did know where the Al-Qaeda fighters would head but he speculated they may move towards the mountains of Zabul province, which would give them an eventual escape route to neighbouring Pakistan.
Mr. Karzai said he had set up a tribal commission that would go to Kandahar to take control of the city within the next day or so. He planned to travel to Kabul in a few days.
The whereabouts of Osama is not known. The Taliban has been saying that he is no longer in Taliban-ruled areas. But the Northern Alliance officials believe that Mullah Omar and Osama were together.
Reports from Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan said fighters loyal to Osama rained mortar shells, rockets and bullets from high in the mountains on Friday as tribal fighters attacked them from below and American warplanes bombed them from above.
A senior tribal commander, Haji Kalan Mir, said his men reported seeing a man who resembled Osama on Friday, making a horseback visit to the front line with four deputies.
7 killed
U.S. marines killed seven fighters of the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda near Kandahar in what was their first offensive ground action in Afghanistan.
- AP, PTI, AFP
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