NP - Foreign soldiers killing Afghan Taliban comrades

[David Morris]

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/19/international/asia/19NORT.html

Foes Claim Taliban Are Killing Soldiers Who Seek to Defect
By DEXTER FILKINS

BANGI, Afghanistan, Nov. 18 — Foreign soldiers fighting for the Taliban have 
begun killing their Afghan Taliban comrades in a desperate effort to hang on 
to the encircled city of Kunduz, refugees and Northern Alliance soldiers 
here say.

Foreign Taliban soldiers, who have gathered in Kunduz for what appears to be 
a last stand, have gunned down more than 400 Afghan Taliban soldiers trying 
to defect to the Northern Alliance, the refugees and the alliance soldiers 
said.

The 400 were killed in mass shootings late last week, refugees said, and 
were prompted in part by the defection of a local Taliban commander to the 
Northern Alliance.

According to the reports, Arab and Pakistani soldiers with the Taliban have 
also begun shooting young civilian men of the Uzbek and Tajik ethnic groups 
suspected of trying to escape to territory controlled by the Northern 
Alliance. "The foreigners came into the village and shot all the men," said 
Muhammadullah, a 21- year-old man who crossed into Northern Alliance 
territory today. "I saw this with my own eyes."


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