From: mart To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 10:47 AM Subject: re: Report: Taliban surrender imminent If this story is true, things could get very interesting. The U.S has made it clear in no uncertain terms that they consider Mullah Omar their number 2 target, right after bin Laden.and want him dead. The Northern Alliance is anything but an alliance. Rather it is a bunch of normally warring tribal factions warlords and bandits, who spend as much time killing each other as fighting the Taliban If Omar has worked out a deal with one or more factions of the Northern (so called ) Alliance for a surrender and safe passage this could break things wide open between the various N.A. factions and the U.S. mart. ----- Original Message ----- From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 10:02 AM Subject: Report: Taliban surrender imminent --------------------------- Ananova; Reuters. 6 December 2001. Kandahar surrender starts Friday, says Zaeef; Britain Cannot Confirm Omar to Surrender Kandahar. The former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan says Mullah Mohammed Omar has agreed to surrender Kandahar, starting tomorrow. Abdul Zaeef also said the Taliban is finished as a political movement. He also said newly-appointed Afghan leader Hamid Karzai had agreed to release all Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan and give them a free passage home. Zaeef said: "I think we (the Taliban) should go home." He said Omar had secured unspecified protection for himself. Zaeef said Omar's decision was in response to heavy US bombing of Kandahar, and was intended to prevent more civilian deaths. Previous deals to surrender Kandahar and other cities stalled over the issue of Arab, Pakistan and other foreign fighters loyal to alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of al-Qaida fighters are believed in Kandahar, especially around the airport where they beat back assaults by tribal fighters under former Kandahar governor Gul Agha. The United States has made clear it would not support any deal which allowed bin Laden or his lieutenants to escape prosecution. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has also insisted that Mullah Omar should not be allowed to go free. Britain said on Thursday that most senior Taliban figures in Kandahar wanted to surrender but could not confirm reports that Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had decided to hand over the group's last stronghold. "We do not have independent verification of these reports but we do know that, for the past 24 hours in particular, virtually every senior person around Mullah Omar knows the game is up and wants to surrender," Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman told Reuters. The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported on Thursday that Mullah Omar had agreed to give up Kandahar to a former Mujahideen leader who is not currently aligned with any faction. "As the prime minister told cabinet this morning, the Taliban resistance is coming under pressure from inside and out," Blair's spokesman said. "If this (AIP) report is accurate, it is probably because he is aware desertions are going on around him ...ammunition is low and he now knows that he and the Taliban are a spent force." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
