Alliance offers Taliban bodies for the return of displaced civilians

AFGHANISTAN'S opposition alliance yesterday offered to hand over the bodies of Taliban movement fighters in exchange for allowing thousands of civilians, displaced in the latest fighting, to return home.

Sources close to main opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood also said opposition forces recaptured Imam Saheb and Dashti Archi districts in the northern province of Kunduz (bordering Tajikistan), from the ruling Taliban during yesterday's fighting.

The opposition alliance said more than 500 Taliban fighters were killed when Masood's forces launched a counter-attack last Thursday in a bid to recapture most of the territory they had lost in a Taliban offensive north of the capital Kabul.

Official Kabul radio quoted Taliban Information and Culture Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi as saying on Friday that opposition casualties were higher than those of the Taliban. There has been no independent confirmation of the claims of the opposition.

Ahmad Wali, brother of Masood, said yesterday: "We are ready to hand over the bodies only when the Taliban permits these civilians to come back to their villages. We have spoken to the Red Cross about it and are waiting for the Taliban reply." Wali said opposition troops had launched an attack on Kunduz from neighbouring Takhar province early on Saturday after pushing back a Taliban assault.

Masood accuses the mainly ethnic Pashtun Taliban troops of forcibly ejecting ethnic Tajik civilians when they overran the Shomali region earlier this week. But the Taliban says the civilians were only temporarily evacuated to safety.

Just a day after the Security Council condemned the Taliban movement for launching a new offensive and raised the threat of sanctions, UN Secretary- General, Kofi Annan, urged Afghanistan's neighbours to stop interfering in the country's civil war and told them to honour a recent pledge not to supply arms to either side. Annan said the continued fighting was a "source of very serious concern".

The Taliban's opponents accuse it of receiving arms and manpower from Pakistan, while the Taliban accuses Iran, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan of aiding opposition forces.

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