Pakistan air force seen evacuating foreign fighters from Kunduz

As Northern Alliance troops prepared yesterday to enter Kunduz, fears that the city's fall might result in a massacre of foreign-born Taliban fighters may have been averted by a secret deal hatched between Pakistan and Northern Alliance commanders, with Washington's compliance.

Fighters round the city have reported spotting Pakistan air force planes arriving and departing Kunduz over the past few nights, allegedly transporting Pakistani fighters from the encircled Taliban enclave to safety. At least three Pakistani aircraft were seen landing in Kunduz in the middle of last week, and two more were sighted subsequently.

The Pentagon, which is monitoring the situation round Kunduz in detail, has been evasive on the subject and has said it has no information about the landings. Pakistani officials have also declined to comment.

The sightings are almost certainly not the result of the fighters' imagination.

Washington is deeply indebted to the Islamabad government for supporting its war against the Taliban and although it has said it wants all the foreign fighters trapped in Kunduz captured, it may well have decided for diplomatic reasons not to notice the airlift.

Pakistan has made no secret of the fact it is deeply concerned about the fate of Pakistani nationals fighting in the town and potentially facing mass execution. The President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, has pressed the American-led coalition to ensure their safety after the surrender of Kunduz.

Reports of Pakistani-born Taliban fighters getting out of the city unscathed have infuriated some Northern Alliance officials, who have accused General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek commander who took the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, of engineering a deal with Islamabad to evacuate several hundred fighters.

An Alliance defence spokesman, Atiqullah Baryalai, accused General Dostum of allowing several hundred Pakistani Taliban to leave Kunduz, though he suggested they had left by road, not air.

He said General Dostum had got them out in about 50 pick-up trucks and transported them to a location near Mazar-i-Sharif. He said he thought General Dostum had acted at the behest of Pakistan's government. "Fifty trucks left Kunduz full of Taliban and they did not come back," he said.

The number of Pakistani Taliban fighters in the city is disputed. The Northern Alliance has claimed the city harbours up to 16,000 Taliban fighters, of which it says about 6,000 are from foreign countries, including Pakistan, Arab states and Chechnya. The Pentagon puts the figure at 3,000 but most estimate that there cannot be more than 2,000 foreign fighters in Kunduz.

The Northern Alliance said it wanted foreigners put on trial with death as punishment.