Taliban Have 20,000 Fighters in Kandahar: Northern Alliance

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 30, 2001

Taliban Have 20,000 Fighters in Kandahar: Northern Alliance

The embattled Afghan Taliban have deployed some 20,000 people in its last stronghold Kandahar for a tough resistance against anti-Taliban forces, a diplomat of the Afghan Northern Alliance said in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe Friday.

Interfax quoted Shamsulak Orienfar, an official of Northern Alliance's embassy in Tajikistan, as saying that nearly 13,000 Taliban fighters and 6,000 foreign mercenaries -- members of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda -- were entrenched around Kandahar.

Kandahar, located in southern Afghanistan, was better prepared for a siege than the two northern cities of Kunduz or Mazar-i-Sharif, which were taken by the anti-Taliban forces recently, he said.

The Northern Alliance troops have surrounded Kandahar for days but are not attacking it.

Oreinfar said Thursday's talks between representatives of the alliance's commander Mowlawi Atomuhammad and Pashtun commander Hamid Karzai of the "moderate" Taliban group failed to reach an agreement.

"They rejected the ultimatum demanding they lay down their armsand leave the city," he said.

Denying reports on Taliban leader Mullah Omar's intention to surrender, the diplomat said Kandahar would be seized sooner or later.

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