AFGHANISTAN - Nov. 22 - Northern Alliance Starts Offensive On Kunduz.

The Northern Alliance's interior minister Yunis Qanoni says in Kabul: "We have tried to settle the issue of Kunduz through negotiation, but we have been forced to chose a military solution. At the moment our forces are advancing. We hope by tomorrow we will have secured Kunduz". (Fighting erupted along the front line just as an agreement to surrender the city - possibly on Nov. 24 - was announced. Some alliance leaders blamed the fighting on communications problems and insisted that the surrender deal had not fallen through. Northern Alliance commander Gen. Abdul Rashid Dustam and some Kunduz Taliban commanders said earlier on Nov. 22 after a meeting in Mazar-i-Sharif that the two sides had agreed on a surrender by thousands of Taliban fighters trapped in Kunduz. Another alliance commander, Gen. Atta Mohammad, said by satellite telephone from Mazar-i-Sharif, that the surrender agreement came late on Nov. 22 in a meeting with top Taliban commanders and that the Taliban had begun an attack before getting word of the agreement to surrender).

But Qanoni said the talks had failed because the Taliban tried to sow divisions within the Northern Alliance. He added: "It was a political tactic. They wanted to buy time, they had no intention of surrendering". US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week that he opposed any deal that would let the defenders of Kunduz escape. He said: "My hope is that they will either be killed or taken prisoner". With many of its own citizens reported to be fighting alongside the Taliban in Kunduz, Pakistan tried but failed to secure approval for a plan to allow the besieged fighters to surrender to international mediators, rather than the Northern Alliance. That proposal was rejected not only by the Northern Alliance, but also by the US-led military coalition and the UN, which said it had no way to play such a role. Kenton Keith, a spokesman in Islamabad for the coalition, said it was up to the Northern Alliance to decide the fate of the Taliban fighters in Kunduz.

He said: "These are Afghan problems on Afghan soil and will need to have an Afghan solution". But the US-backed coalition, he said, believes the foreign fighters in Kunduz should be "disarmed and detained until their future status could be sorted out". And "safe passage back to the countries from which they've come is not something we would like to see". The exact number of foreign fighters trapped in Kunduz is unclear. Northern Alliance says there are as many as 6,000, among a total force of about 16,000 Taliban soldiers. The Pentagon puts the number at about 3,000. The battle for Kunduz briefly erupted with new intensity on Nov. 23 with a Northern Alliance attack on three fronts. But later in the day, the Northern Alliance said it suspended the assault to give the Taliban more time to surrender. It said it would resume attacks if no deal emerged by the afternoon of Nov. 24. US B-52s and fighter-bombers conducted heavy bombing along Taliban-held ridges surrounding Kunduz on Nov. 23.