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30,000 Northern Alliance troops wait outside Konduz

KONDUZ, Afghanistan (CNN) -- More than 30,000 Northern Alliance fighters waited just outside the northern Afghan city of Konduz on Sunday, poised to welcome surrendering troops or attack holdouts loyal to Taliban ruler Mullah Mohammed Omar and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

A top Taliban commander negotiated a surrender pact Wednesday with Northern Alliance Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. More than 1,000 Taliban, including a top commander, switched sides Saturday.(Full story)

But thousands of pro-Taliban fighters were still in Konduz on Sunday, including hundreds of Chechen, Pakistani and Arab mercenaries.

By capturing Konduz, the Northern Alliance would gain control of all northern Afghanistan and further isolate the lone Taliban units in the southern city of Kandahar.

Taliban officials admitted Saturday that anti-Taliban forces penetrated Kandahar province, but they denied these forces had taken Takhtaful, a key town that connects Kandahar and Pakistan. (Full story)

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Latest developments

• A surrendering Taliban soldier detonated a hand grenade Saturday, killing himself, two other fighters and seriously injuring a senior Northern Alliance commander as alliance forces searched hundreds of Taliban outside Mazar-e Sharif, according to CNN's Alessio Vinci, who witnessed the incident.

• The Pentagon denied reports from opposition forces that Pakistani planes were airlifting Pakistani fighters away from their positions on Taliban front lines near Konduz.

• Villagers held funerals Saturday for 12 people who were executed and buried in a mass grave south of the Afghan city of Herat. The bodies were uncovered Friday. They had been buried in a pool filled with dirt inside the nearby Shindand air base, their hands tied behind them and bullet wounds in their skulls.

• The official start for bilateral talks between the United Nations and Afghan factional leaders in Bonn, Germany, has been postponed until Tuesday because of travel difficulties, the German Foreign Ministry said Friday. The ministry said the official start would take place only when all delegates were present. (Full story)

• Japan will send 1,500 troops for the Afghan relief operations which are likely to start in next few weeks, a senior Japanese official said. (Full story)

• Al Qaeda suspects in Spanish custody will not be extradited to the U.S. unless there is a guarantee they will not face the death penalty, the country's foreign ministry said. (Full story)

• The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning Friday for Afghanistan, telling Americans who might be tempted by adventure that military operations, banditry, land mines and an acute food shortages make travel there unsafe. (Full story)

• British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met Friday with Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf to discuss issues and problems involved in the creation of a post-Taliban administration for Afghanistan. (Full story)

• A top Northern Alliance official said he hopes the upcoming meeting between Afghan factional leaders and U.N. representatives will produce a road map for the "formation of a fully represented, broad-based government." He also said women will be delegates at the talks. (Full story)

• All 19 men implicated in the worst terrorist attack against the United States entered the country legally on a variety of visas -- business, tourist or student -- according to the Justice Department, which also said visas for three of the suspects had expired by the time of the September 11 hijackings. (Full story)