Military

DATE=11/26/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=AFGHAN KUNDUZ (L UPDATE)

NUMBER=2-283546

BYLINE=ALISHA RYU

DATELINE=KABUL

INTERNET=YES

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

///EDITORS: AUDIO IN LAST GRAF HAS BEEN EDITETD. MUST COMPLY WITH TEXT.

INTRO: Afghanistan's Northern Alliance says the Northern City of Kunduz is in its hands. But as Alisha Ryu reports anti-Taleban troops are still trying to consolidate control.

TEXT: Northern Alliance officials say their soldiers are securing the surrender of most of the city's defenders. But they admit a small group of holdouts have formed a pocket of resistance west of the city, posing a threat to Northern Alliance forces who entered Kunduz on Sunday.

For days, trapped Afghan Taleban troops in Kunduz have been switching sides, as U-S air strikes helped the Northern Alliance close in on the city and negotiate a surrender. But thousands of foreign fighters, mostly Pakistanis, Arabs, and Chechens with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida organization had refused to give up, fearing retribution by alliance fighters.

Hundreds of foreign fighters did surrender to Northern Alliance commanders. They are the comrades to the prisoners who staged Sunday's bloody uprising in a mud fortress outside the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. About 300-prisoners who had been taken captive Saturday in Kunduz seized weapons to try to fight their way out of the fortress.

Alliance officials say most of the prisoners have been killed, but the insurrection has reportedly not been put down. Witnesses said several dozen prisoners barricaded in the tower of the fortress fired rockets at Northern Alliance troops.

Meanwhile, the United Nations says it is concerned about the continued fighting in northern Afghanistan. U-N spokesman Khalid Monsour says the lack of security in Mazar-e-Sharif is causing delays in the delivery of humanitarian aid through Uzbekistan.

/// MANSOUR ACT ///

U-N missions scheduled to leave for Mazar-e-Sharif and Termez over the weekend have to be postponed. We have received conflicting reports of fighting over the weekend. Likewise the situation in Kunduz is not stable yet.

/// END ACT ///

Kunduz sits on a vital road link (to Uzbekistan) that could be used to deliver humanitarian aid.

NEB/AR/RAE/KBK