BBC News Online: World: South Asia

Rabbani vows to protect foreigners

Thousands of foreign fighters are supporting the Taleban

The man the Northern Alliance considers to be the president of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, says he has ordered his forces around the besieged city of Kunduz not to kill any foreign fighters, but to hold them for transfer to the United Nations.

A great fear of the western coalition has been the threat of an impending blood-bath in the besieged city of Kunduz.

With foreign fighters there convinced they will be murdered if they do not fight their way out, there was little room to negotiate a surrender.

Affordable generosity

But Mr Rabbani said allegations that his forces wanted to kill the foreigners were baseless.

He said the fighters would be "investigated" and then handed over to the UN for repatriation - and this, despite an incident in which some Arab prisoners reportedly blew themselves and one senior alliance commander up with a hidden grenade.

He also spoke of the UN-sponsored conference in Germany to discuss a broad-based interim government.

Perhaps alarmingly for the UN, Mr Rabbani repeatedly referred to the alliance as the Islamic State of Afghanistan - the name that referred to the government he led before the Taleban ousted him in 1996.

He said that, while the Taleban would not be allowed to take part in any interim government as an organisation, former Taleban officials might participate as individuals.

But Mr Rabbani can afford to be generous.

The state, he said, would hold 11 of the 20 seats at the conference in Bonn, giving it clear control over the agenda.