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Konduz surrounded; Taliban urged to defect

(CNN) -- Northern Alliance forces have surrounded Konduz and are urging Taliban soldiers to surrender, offering them safe passage from the Afghan city if they hand over their weapons, CNN correspondent Satinder Bindra told CNN.

The troops ringing the city, the last remaining Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan, are poorly armed and may not be able to launch a full-scale assault against Konduz, according to reports.

Northern Alliance Gen. Atiqullah Baryalai, who is leading the fight in Konduz, said only 100 Taliban fighters have defected, after days of negotiations.

Some Taliban leaders have expressed willingness to surrender -- but not to the Northern Alliance. A group of Afghan tribal elders in Peshawar, Pakistan, announced that the Taliban commander of Afghanistan's northern zone, Mullah Dadullah, and the Konduz governor, Haji Omar Khan, were willing to surrender to the United Nations.

Dadullah and Khan are willing to surrender their heavy weapons and all non-Afghan fighters to the United Nations, the elders said, and they are willing to let the international body appoint a neutral caretaker and neutral governor for Konduz.

A statement from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office said he was "very concerned about the situation" and has been in touch with his special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, who has contacted the International Committee for the Red Cross, which normally handles surrender situations.

Hard-line Taliban fighters killed local Taliban supporters who were willing to defect, while others committed suicide rather than surrender, Northern Alliances sources told CNN.

One source inside the city said some 60 Chechen fighters, Taliban soldiers, drowned themselves in the Amu River rather than give up. A Northern Alliance commander told CNN of 25 trapped Taliban fighters who fatally shot one another when they saw opposition troops advancing toward them. (Full story)

Meanwhile, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, told reporters Sunday that the Taliban still control Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and several surrounding areas, including Qalat, Tarin Kowt and Helmand.

But sources inside Afghanistan said the Taliban are losing public support, and that some civilians have been trying to disarm Taliban soldiers. Zaeef also said the United States wants to "destroy" Afghanistan. The international community, he said, should "prevent this cruel action." (Full story)

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Latest developments

• A Kabul television station has gone back on the air more than five years after the Taliban, cracking down on media and entertainment, shut it down. The station has several female broadcasters, who were not allowed to work under Taliban rule. One anchor at the station said it was important for all the women at the station to get back to work.

• U.S. officials said Sunday they believe Osama bin Laden remains in Afghanistan and that "the noose is tightening" around him and other leaders of the al Qaeda organization. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice also said they do not believe bin Laden has been able to acquire nuclear weapons.

• Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah met Sunday morning with U.S. ambassador to the Afghan opposition Jim Dobbins in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Abdullah pledged his support for a U.N. plan to formulate an interim government, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters.

• U.S. authorities have discovered a letter written by one of the suspected September 11 hijackers, telling his girlfriend he did his duty and that "everyone will be happy," according to the German magazine Der Spiegel. The letter was written by Ziad Samir Jarrah, whom U.S. authorities have named as one of the suspected hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania. (Full story)

• Eight accused terrorists arrested last week were sent to prison Sunday by a judge in Spain who accused them of belonging to Osama bin Laden's network, and possibly having a role in the September 11 attacks, Spain's state news agency EFE reported. (Full story)

• In Shindand, Afghanistan, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Herat, villagers were burying the bodies of four Northern Alliance fighters believed to have been killed four months ago while fighting with the Taliban. The bodies had their hands tied behind them and were each shot in the head and torso. The ears of all the bodies also were cut off.

• Zaeef, Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, denied an earlier report that he had told The Associated Press that suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden had left Afghanistan. He told CNN he did not know where the al Qaeda leader was. The Pentagon said it was skeptical of the report. (Full story)

• Delivering the weekly U.S. presidential radio address, first lady Laura Bush fired the first salvo in what she called the "worldwide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children" by the Taliban and the terrorists believed to be operating from Afghanistan's remote areas. (Full story)

• Ousted Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani arrived Saturday in Kabul, returning for the first time since he was thrown out when triumphant Taliban militia swept into the capital city five years ago. "I have not come here to extend my government, but I have come for peace and to prepare the ground for peace and to invite all Afghans and even outsiders who are working towards peace," he said at a news conference. (Full story)

• U.S. officials said Friday they have "credible reports" suggesting that Mohammed Atef -- one of al Qaeda's top aides to Osama bin Laden -- was killed in an airstrike south of Kabul. (Full story)