Afghan rivals say ready for truce, fighting goes on

KABUL (Reuter): Afghanistan's purist Islamic Taleban movement and their opponents said yesterday they were ready to accept a Pakistani-brokered ceasefire, but both sides set conditions to any agreement and were still locked in battle.

On the ground, the two sides continued to fight for territory on the plains north of Kabul, with the Taleban saying they had pushed forces of the ousted Rabbani government out of the village of Kalakan, 25 kilometers (18 miles) north of Kabul.

However, witnesses put the fighting five kilometers (three miles) to the south, about where it was on Sunday.

"We are ready for the enforcement of a ceasefire. It depends on the readiness of the other side, and our condition for a ceasefire is an exchange of prisoners, paving the way for further talks," said Amir Khan Mutaqi, information minister of the Taleban, which holds Kabul.

The ceasefire had been due to begin at midday (0730 GMT).

But a spokesman for ousted government military chief Ahmad Shah Masood, whose Tajik forces hold territory to within half an hour's drive of the capital, said ceasefire negotiations in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif had failed.

"They (faction leaders) have not agreed on a ceasefire," Masood's spokesman Dr Abdullah (one name) told reporters in Jabal os-Siraj. "They (Taleban militia) are still bombing so the ceasefire that was proposed has not taken place."

Abdullah said two Taleban planes dropped bombs on Qarabagh village on Monday, Reuters reported from Jabal os-Siraj, 70 km (45 miles) north of Kabul.

Reporters heard anti-aircraft fire as Masood's forces opened up on jets but there was no word on casualties.

Abdullah said skirmishes between ousted government forces and the Taleban militia had continued throughout the day. He put the fighting 15 km (10 miles) north of Kabul, and occasional rocket fire could be heard from Jabal os-Siraj as darkness fell.

Asked if he was optimistic about any further attempts to negotiate a ceasefire, Abdullah said, "Personally, no".

Abdullah had said earlier a ceasefire was acceptable, but only on condition that Kabul be demilitarized afterwards.

Another Taleban spokesman, Syed Mohammed Haqqani, said from the movement's southern stronghold of Kandahar that the Taleban wanted the truce monitored by a 12-man commission.

The Taleban would choose six members, with the rest coming from opposing factions, including those of Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Masood and Shi'ite Moslem leader Karim Khalili.

If the ceasefire held, and prisoners were exchanged, peace talks could follow, Haqqani said.

Taleban sources said Pakistani Interior Minister Naseerullah Babar flew back to the Dostum-held northern city of Mazar-i- Sharif from Kandahar on Monday with the conditional Taleban acceptance of the ceasefire. He put the ceasefire proposal to the Taleban on Sunday.

His initiative is the first to gather pace since the Taleban took Kabul in a lightning sweep on September 27. The Taleban have vowed to rid the country of "evil and corruption" and set up a state run according to strict Sharia Islamic law.

Neither side appeared to have made any significant gains on Monday in the continuing ground fighting.

Masood, strengthened by a new alliance with his former rival Dostum, captured Bagram air base, 50 km (30 miles) north of Kabul on Friday. By Sunday his forces were close enough to fire rockets at Kabul airport on the northeast edge of the capital.

But the Islamic Taleban warriors drove Masood's mainly ethnic Tajik forces back several km (miles) from Kabul later that day.

For the past week fighting has been confined to a 30-km (20- mile) stretch of the main road from the capital to the Hindu Kush strongholds of Masood and Dostum, leaving a trail of destruction and refugees in its wake.

Mutaqi said Taleban forces had moved north to the village of Kalakan on one road, and were within five km (three miles) of Bagram airbase, wrested from their control last week.

He said some 40 Masood fighters had been captured.

But Taleban fighters in the village of Hussein Kot, 18 km (14 miles) north of Kabul said the front-line had not shifted since earlier on Monday.

The mediation moves by Pakistan's Babar -- whose government denies charges by the ousted government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani that it supports the Taleban -- appeared to overshadow peace efforts by U.N. special envoy Norbert Holl.

Holl, who launched a fresh peace initiative at a news conference in Kabul on Monday, warned in an apparent reference to Pakistan no single country could bring peace to Afghanistan.

"People may think in Kabul it is more important to follow the advice of other negotiators but in the long run help for reconstruction will only come from the international community," he said after talks with Taleban representatives.

The Organization of Islamic Conference also entered the peacemaking arena by proposing an OIC-monitored truce and a conference in Saudi Arabia of the warring groups.

OIC Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Saleh Bakr told a news conference in Islamabad that his 52-nation organization was seeking an unconditional ceasefire.

As soon as it was agreed, all Afghan factions would be invited to meet in the Red Sea Saudi town of Jeddah, he added.