Concern over fate of Konduz fighters

Following their retreat from the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, thousands of Taliban fighters have been surrounded by opposition Northern Alliance forces in the city of Konduz, the last Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan. Although the UN lacks the means to meet a Taliban request for a UN-mediated surrender in Konduz, the world body, along with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), has called on the Northern Alliance to respect its obligations under international law.

"What we are trying to do is to avert a blood bath," an HRW spokesman in Pakistan, Sam Zia-Zarifi, told IRIN on Wednesday. "The United States must, as the main supporting player, pressurise the Northern Alliance that if these people surrender, they be considered prisoners-of-war and treated accordingly," he said.

His comments follow an announcement by the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, on Tuesday in New York that the UN had been formally approached on Monday evening regarding the situation in the northern province of Konduz, where Afghan Taliban and foreign fighters, including Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens, Central Asians and Chinese, are said to be holed up.

Representatives in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, had informed the UN that "Taliban commanders from inside Konduz wanted to surrender unconditionally, and wanted to do it through the United Nations".

However, that may not be feasible. Whereas the Secretary-General had been in touch on the issue with the ICRC, the Northern Alliance and members of the international coalition, Brahimi said: "It is evident that the United Nations cannot, has no means, is not present on the ground, and simply cannot unfortunately accede to this request." The envoy added, however, that the Secretary-General had asked the Northern Alliance to respect their obligations under international law and to treat this question with as much humanity as possible.

Circumstances, however, could quickly spiral out of control. "What we have here is a situation that needs to be defused," Zia-Zarifi said. "In the worst-case scenario, we could have foreign fighters who are driven to fight to the death, because their offers of surrender are not accepted," he warned. He added that HRW had credible reports of large-scale summary executions of Taliban would-be defectors by foreign fighters.

According to HRW, since surrounding the Taliban and their foreign allies in Konduz, senior Northern Alliance leaders, while encouraging the surrender of Afghan Taliban troops, have repeatedly stated that they will not accept surrender offers from the foreign fighters, preferring to kill them instead.

"There has been a lot of tough talk from the Northern Alliance that they would not accept the surrender, which is clearly against the rules of war," Zia-Zarifi said. In a statement on Tuesday, Sidney Jones, the HRW executive director of the Asia division, said: "The Northern Alliance must respect the laws of war for foreign fighters in Kunduz, no less than Afghan ones."

Echoing these words, the ICRC spokeswoman in Geneva, Macarena Anguilar, told IRIN that any fighter who is wounded, detained or surrenders is protected by international law under the Geneva Convention. "They must be treated humanely," she said.

Asked what role ICRC intended to play, she explained that ICRC did not have anyone on the ground in Konduz, but, given its concern, would welcome any initiative. "We cannot provide a solution on how the parties to the conflict are going to handle the situation right now. However, if the fighters are detained or surrender, ICRC would offer its services to visit them as we do elsewhere in the country," she said. Currently in Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif, ICRC is visiting and registering Taliban POWs and providing them with food and medical assistance as necessary.

Regarding the issue of war crimes, Jones maintained that the way to stop war crimes in Afghanistan now was to start talking about future prosecution of the guilty. "The international community needs to let those on all sides who are thinking about committing war crimes in Afghanistan know they will be brought to account for their atrocities," he said.

Zia-Zarifi said credible reports suggested that several Taliban commanders in the Konduz area had committed war crimes in the past. "Ideally, there should be some body or system established by the Northern Alliance, United States or United Nations to deal with this," he said. "It is better to bring these people to justice rather than giving in to vengeance," he added.

Although the United States does not have a strong presence on the ground to implement such a plan, he called on the Americans to uphold the rules of war and to ask their allies to do the same.