Kandahar crumbling

Mullah Omar agrees to surrender

Islamabad, December 6, 2001.
Cornered Taliban today appeared to be losing their last stronghold with their supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar reportedly deciding to surrender the southern Afghan city of Kandahar to local Mujahideen even as ground and air attacks were under way in Tora Bora mountain range to flush out Osama bin Laden’s fighters.

“Mullah Mohammad Omar has decided that Kandahar should be handed over to former jehadi commander Mullah Naqibullah,” Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency quoted an unnamed Taliban spokesman as saying.

“A decision has also been taken to form a commission which would be headed by Mullah Naqibullah who will also act as Governor of Kandahar.

“Mullah Omar has taken the decision in consultation with tribal leaders and his associates and the ulema. The decision will be implemented in one or two days,” the spokesman said.

A spokesman of US-led coalition in Afghanistan said Mullah Omar may be trying to surrender to the country’s new interim leader Hamid Karzai whose forces are massed near Kandahar.

“I can tell you authoritatively that some of Mullah Omar’s most senior commanders are negotiating their own surrender,” Kenton Keith told reporters here.

“You should also take seriously reports that Mullah Omar himself is negotiating to save his own skin,” Keith said. Until now the militia supremo had ordered his troops to fight to death against opposition forces backed by the USA.

There was no independent confirmation of the AIP report, which said that the handover would be completed in a few days.

The agency, which is close to Taliban, did not say clearly whether if Omar surrendered would he be allowed safe passage from the city.

The report was also silent on the fate of those Taliban and Al-Qaida fighters who surrender.

The report of Mullah Omar’s decision to surrender came close on the heels of Karzai saying he had held “very productive” talks with a Taliban delegation.

Karzai said he had offered amnesty to Taliban fighters except Mullah Omar. Karzai, who took charge on December 22 for six months, said: “Foreign terrorists must be tried and expelled”.

In Washington, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said most leaders of Taliban and Al-Qaida militant group were alive and at large in Afghanistan despite the military campaign against them.

Ground and air strikes continued against fighters loyal to Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network in the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan.