09:12 AEDST Thu 22 Nov 2001
Bin Laden orders own execution
AFP - Suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, hunted by US forces and running out of sanctuaries following the collapse of the Taliban regime, has reportedly ordered his own execution if his capture appears imminent.
"Bin Laden has informed a number of people close and dedicated to him that he was living his last weeks or days," the Riyadh-based Al-Watan newspaper said, quoting unnamed US and European diplomats in Paris.
"So bin Laden has instructed those aides who remain with him until the end to shoot him if he is surrounded by US special forces or the Northern Alliance, and there is no escape," the Arabic daily said, adding that he had "even asked one of his sons to shoot him".
The Taliban said it had lost contact with bin Laden during its dramatic withdrawal from the north over the past two weeks, and claimed there was no sign of him in the "three or four" provinces under its control.
"We have no idea of where he is because you see our areas are limited to three or four provinces, so we no longer know where he is," spokesman Syed Tayyab Agha told reporters in the southern border town of Spin Boldak.
"There is no relation now. There is no communication."
Northern Alliance Interior Minister Younis Qanooni told AFP that bin Laden was still in southern Afghanistan, but sometimes travels to secret hideouts in Pakistan -- a claim swiftly and angrily rejected by the Islamabad authorities.
Taliban troops holding out in the besieged northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz were given 24 hours to surrender Wednesday but the Islamic militia showed no sign of relinquishing its last bastions.
US warplanes pounded Taliban positions in Kunduz as the Northern Alliance which controls most of the country issued an ultimatum -- surrender by Thursday morning or face the consequences.
"The Taliban have until Thursday morning to give themselves up. After that, they will have to take responsibility for what happens to them," said alliance General Nazir Mahmad in Khanabad, east of Kunduz.
However, a spokesman for Kunduz governor Haji Mohammad Omar denied that any ultimatum had been delivered and said talks on a negotiated surrender were making progress.
"There is no such thing (ultimatum). Negotiations are under way and I am very hopeful that the outcome will be good," the spokesman, Muhammad Gul Zubair, was quoted as saying by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.
US warplanes launched three raids on Kunduz overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday, reportedly hitting a residential area.
Local sources said between 3,000 and 9,000 fighters were trapped in the city, including Arab, Chechen and Pakistani fighters from terror suspect Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Some troops have switched sides, bringing stories of widespread dissent and massacres of Afghan Taliban fighters by their fanatical foreign allies, who prefer death to surrender.
Other than Kunduz city, the Taliban now claims to rule only its southern stronghold of Kandahar and the adjoining provinces of Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan, which is also claimed by the Northern Alliance.
Local tribal elders have been trying to negotiate a bloodless handover of Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual nerve centre and the home of leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
"At present, our forces in Kandahar and surrounding provinces, they are enough to defend our present controlled areas," Agha said.
He said that for the Taliban, it was "not important if a province falls ... the people will be with us and we will defeat our enemies."
The Taliban's defiance came as General Tommy Franks, the top US commander in charge of the Afghan campaign, said he had visited Afghanistan for talks with Northern Alliance leaders and all military options were still open.
"Concerning what I call conventional forces ... we have not taken that off the table," he said at a base in Uzbekistan where some 2,000 US soldiers are stationed.
A Taliban commander has said the militia fighters would be willing to give themselves up in Kunduz, but only under UN supervision. However, UN, US and British officials have all said they could not get involved.
With chances increasing of a major push by the Northern Alliance, fears grew that the fighting could break down into a bloody settling of scores.
"We are appealing to everyone in the country to respect humanitarian law and the laws of war and keep the killings to zero if possible," Fred Eckhard, spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said Tuesday.
On the political front, UN special envoy left Kabul after securing agreement from the Northern Alliance to send a delegation to Germany on Monday for talks with other Afghan factions on a new broad-based government.
But ousted Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani said Wednesday he thought only limited progress could be achieved.
The Germany meeting "is important, but does not the touch the most prominent problems," Rabbani said in an interview published in the Russian Vremya Novostei daily.
©AAP 2001