Opposition forces close in on Taliban-held stronghold

BANGI, Afghanistan -- The battle for Taliban's last northern stronghold of Kunduz intensified Monday, and international negotiators reportedly agreed to meet this weekend in Germany to discuss forming a new broad-based Afghan government.

In the south, more U.S. commandos joined the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other terrorist suspects, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Monday. Several hundred members of special forces units already were on the ground, and U.S. officials reminded local tribesmen of the $25 million reward for finding bin Laden.

International negotiators reported progress in persuading Afghanistan's major ethnic groups to cooperate in forming a new government.

Thus far, no date or venue has been announced for talks on creating a new government. But a Pakistani diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a meeting would begin Saturday in Germany, possibly in Berlin.

In New York, U.N. deputy spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the northern alliance has not yet formally accepted an invitation by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to attend an all-parties conference on the government.

Alliance leaders, however, have assured U.S. officials they will take part.

"There is really a hunger for peace," James F. Dobbins, the U.S. special envoy to the northern alliance, said in Pakistan after meeting alliance leaders near Kabul.

Kunduz assault

Near Kunduz, bombardment by U.S. warplanes moved closer to the encircled city, and artillery of the anti-Taliban northern alliance joined in what appeared to be the heaviest attacks at the front in days.

Alliance commanders continued to seek a surrender, using two-way radios to negotiate. But refugees who reached alliance lines recounted a defiant message from the foreign fighters in the city: "We are going to be martyrs. We are not leaving Kunduz."

Refugees said the foreigners -- mostly Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens -- were preventing Afghan Taliban fighters from surrendering. Refugees have reported that several hundred would-be Taliban defectors were shot by their own side.

Refugee Ahmed Wahid said the foreigners and hard-core Taliban in Kunduz had smeared their vehicles with mud to avoid detection by U.S. jets and were sleeping in relief agency offices to escape bombs.

Apparently readying for an attack on Kunduz, alliance tanks fired from ridges that had been held by the Taliban just a day earlier. Alliance soldiers moved into what had been a no-man's land in a valley near the city.

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld described fighting around Kunduz as fierce. He said he had seen reports of Taliban fighters killed to prevent their surrender but could not confirm them.

'Still a standoff'

Rumsfeld said the Taliban also were under pressure to leave Kandahar, their bastion in the south.

"It is apparently at the moment still a standoff," he said of Kandahar. "There are southern tribes that are applying pressure and engaged in discussions, and there's firing and the U.S., coalition forces, are providing some air support."

Rumsfeld said the United States would not let Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar escape from Kandahar, even if opposition leaders negotiated a deal with him to depart.

In other developments:

In Kabul, where most forms of entertainment were banned during strict Taliban rule, television resumed broadcasting. The programming: three hours of readings from the Quran, Islam's holy book; news and cartoons. The programs were introduced by Mariam Shekeba, whose broadcast career had been interrupted for five years because the Taliban barred women from showing their faces in public.

About 60 French foreign legion troops were at the Khanabad air base in Uzbekistan, preparing to head to the northern Afghanistan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Commander Herve Fouilland said the French were working with Americans and Jordanians on a plan for restoring Mazar-e-Sharif's airstrip so aid supplies could be flown in.