All Taliban forces in the besieged northern Afghan enclave of Kunduz have agreed to surrender, a top Taliban commander was reported as saying early today.
Meanwhile the hunt for the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, has now been narrowed to two parts of Afghanistan.
The Kunduz Taliban commander, Mullah Faizal, was speaking to reporters in the nearby town of Mazar-e-Sharif, which is under Northern Alliance control, after talks with alliance leaders in which he and his colleagues agreed to surrender, Reuters reported.
Mullah Faizal was reported as saying all the Taliban forces in the city, Afghans and foreigners alike, were under his control and all would give themselves up.
"There will be peace," he was reported as saying. "Nothing violent will happen in Kunduz," he added. The talks were continuing to work out details of the surrender.
Alliance forces are concentrating their search for bin Laden in caves in Tora Bora, 40 km south of Jalalabad, and in mountains east of the Taliban stronghold, Kandahar.
Taliban defectors have reported that bin Laden, protected by 1,500 al-Qaeda gunmen, is now constantly on the move with his four wives and children.
The intelligence chief for the East Afghanistan Province, Mr Sohrab Qadri, told The Irish Times yesterday he believes it is possible bin Laden may be hiding in Tora Bora.
"We do know that there are two of bin Laden's close associates and 2,000 Arab al-Qaeda members there," he said.
Meanwhile the reclusive Taliban leader, Mr Mullah Mohammad Omar, said yesterday he no longer had any contact with bin Laden and he vowed to defend the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar to the death.
The Taliban leader's closest aide yesterday delivered a message to the world's press, claiming that the intense bombing of the Taliban's last stronghold had failed to dent their spiritual leader's morale, and vowed that they would never surrender but would fight the US-led coalition to the death.
US intelligence officials said bin Laden had asked those closest to him, including his son, Mohammed, to reward him with a "martyr's death" rather than allow him to be captured by the "infidels".
In Kunduz, where more than 10,000 Afghan Taliban troops and Pakistani, Arab and Chechen fighters linked to bin Laden's al-Qaeda network were negotiating surrender, there were only two bomb drops on the besieged forces yesterday due to the talks.
Taliban defectors and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance troops surrounding the city said Afghan Taliban fighters wanted to surrender, but their al-Qaeda comrades, aware they have nowhere to run, planned to fight to the death and were executing Afghans wanting to give themselves up.
The US military is broadcasting radio messages offering rewards of up to $25 million for information leading to the capture of bin Laden and his top lieutenants.